I had meant to talk about building a query list in this post, but something else pushed its way to the surface and refused to let go.
This week I’ve been immersed in an online writing summit—hours upon hours of videos, talks, and craft lectures. On paper, it sounds like heaven: seasoned authors and writing coaches laying out their best wisdom, all condensed into bite-sized masterclasses. I should have walked away feeling inspired.
Instead? I ended up feeling like someone who had just swallowed half the ocean—full, heavy, and struggling not to sink.
When one speaker insisted you should never open a first chapter with an atmospheric description, I winced. Guess how my book starts? When another declared you absolutely must spell out your stakes on the page—because “readers don’t want to have to deduce it”—I cringed again. I thought I had shown the stakes. I thought they were obvious.
I’ve been writing in some form or another for years. I went through a poetry phase as a teenager, filling notebooks with cryptic metaphors and half-rhymes. In my twenties and thirties, I dabbled with short stories, chasing characters across scraps of paper and forgotten hard drives. I always thought about a novel, but life had other plans: jobs, family, and that ever-slippery concept of “time.”
I never majored in creative writing. Beyond the usual English courses, my education went in other directions. I am—like so many of us—largely self-taught. My training has come from inhaling books about writing: theme, structure, character creation, worldbuilding, hooks, prose, and revision. I underline, dog-ear, scribble notes in margins. I treat writing books like lifeboats, each one a chance to keep learning. My grandmother’s saying still rings in my ears: A day without learning is a day wasted.
So when I sat down with my manuscript, I wasn’t naive. I knew I had blind spots. I knew I wasn’t going to get everything “right.” But I still thought, deep down, I was doing a damned fine job.
That confidence wobbled as I listened to expert after expert lay out structures, arcs, and scene templates that didn’t quite match mine. Every time someone presented a “must-have,” I mentally flipped through my book like a guilty student realizing I hadn’t done the assignment. Rule broken. Technique skipped. Angle overlooked. And the whisper began: Do I have to tear this whole thing apart just to stitch it back together again?
That’s when the wave hit.
Because that’s what it feels like: a flood. Not of water, but of rules, absolutes, and checklists. Do this, don’t do that. Never this, always that. You “must” include this, and you “must not” forget that.
And I don’t think I’m the only writer who has felt this. I’ve had conversations with friends who admitted to closing their laptops after a workshop, convinced their story was worthless because it didn’t line up with a bullet-point slide. I’ve seen people walk away from writing groups because the chorus of conflicting advice drowned out their own voice.
Here’s the perspective I’m clinging to—and maybe it helps you, too:
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist" —Pablo Picasso
Writing advice is a toolbox, not a checklist. You don’t need every tool for every project. Sometimes you only need a hammer, not the entire hardware aisle.
No book nails every craft “rule.” Sometimes the magic happens in the rule-breaking. Think about the novels you love most—do they follow every prescription to the letter? Or do they lean on voice, mood, and character in ways that make the “rules” irrelevant?
Readers don’t tally techniques. They want to feel something. If your story resonates—if it makes them laugh, cry, stay up late turning pages—they aren’t going to notice whether your midpoint landed on page 125 instead of 110.
So I’m trying to change my metaphor. Instead of letting the summit feel like a tidal wave crashing over me, I’m treating it like a buffet. Some dishes look delicious, and some I’m not hungry for right now. I’ll take what strengthens my work and leave behind what doesn’t fit this particular story. I’ll keep notes on those “leftovers” for the next book, because who knows? Maybe that’s when I’ll need them.
And here’s another truth I’m learning: Sometimes what we need isn’t more craft advice at all. Sometimes what we need is a reminder that writing is iterative. No first draft—or second, or third—is perfect. The point isn’t to execute every principle flawlessly. The point is to tell the story only you can tell, then shape it a little sharper each time you return to it.
So maybe I don’t need to rip my book apart. Maybe I just need to sand a few rough edges. Or maybe it’s already standing just fine, and the work ahead is about faith and polish rather than demolition.
The summit hasn’t sunk me. If anything, it reminded me that the water will always be there—waves of advice, waves of rules, waves of opinion. I can either tread until I’m exhausted, or I can pick up my oars, set my bow toward those waves, and ride them out.
And maybe you needed to hear that, too.
Coming next: I’ll still share the chaos and craft behind building my query list—complete with too many open browser tabs and a sea of agents’ wish lists. But today? Today felt like the right time to be honest about the messy middle of staying motivated.