Eventually, your epic struggles of Herculean (Or Sisyphean, depending on your perception) proportions will result in finished piece of work. Your own novel. Unfortunately, like any good hero, your quest doesn’t end there. Now comes the real hard part. Editing.

Not to worry, that's what your inner peanut gallery is for. That Inner Editor is perfectly shaped to whittle your novel into the proper book shape, trimming typos and dangling participles from the final piece. Your Inner Critic won't shut up, even if you duct tape its mouth shut, but it does have a knack for finding the weak bits and pieces in your story. Parts that could do with some poking and prodding to tighten it up.

There's also your Inner Reader and Inner Writer, but very few people ever seem to want to acknowedge these two. Your IR is the voice in your head that encourages you to read. Doesn't matter what you're reading, just so long as you're reading something. As for the IW, that voice is all about encouraging you to write, and poking your endorphin gland whenever you do get some writing done.

A bit of hard-learned and often-forgotten advice for after you've reached that "The End" part of the plot: This is where the really hard work comes in. A part of your soul has been laid down on paper.

Even though it's a miniscule scrap of your soul, it's still a part of you. You're going to have to live with that part of you being out in the world, where it's likely to get taken out for drinks in celebration of being awesome, or shoved into an alleyway and stabbed with a rusty screwdriver by some irate critiquer who can't make sense of your writing, or simply doesn't care to.

Because you're sharing a part of yourself, there's a danger of a Fear Gremlin attaching itself to your head while you're distracted with having finished your novel. That Fear!Gremlin will try to gnaw on your brain, making you succumb to a trio of disconcerting worries: perfection, success, and failure.

Fear of perfection will settle in first, making you wonder why editing is necessary in the first place. You've made it through the plot, you've hit the end. Why poke it with a red pen? That could just make it worse. This would of course be WRONG. *insert annoying buzzer sound here*

There's no such thing as perfection. You could revise your novel 3,012 times and there'll still be at least one word you'll be debating over. But don't give up yet, there's still a difference between good, great, awesome, fantastic, and a crapfest of words. It's up to you, though, to poke your novel into something better than just a crap draft.

And as for that whole fear of success, there are some writers who worry about what they'll do if their novel becomes the next big hit. Why? Well, if your novel is all that, then how do you top it with your next novel? If this is as good as it gets, then why bother writing another? And all that ridiculousness.

Why? Because I say so. That and because it's incredibly unlikely that your novel will be the next big hit. And if it is, congratulations! Rub it in my face. And then go write another book, because worse, as good, or better - your readers want you to try.

I'm usually guilty of the fear of failure. Blame it on my regular disbelief that people actually want to read the words that I put down on to paper. But I force myself to slog through it anyway. If I fail, well then, sucks to be me, but at least I learned another way of what not to do. I'll just try again, and again, and again, until I get it right. Or at the least learn how to get better.

That's what writers do, they just keep going. Because it's hardwired in your brain to write. Even if you hate it sometimes, there's still a story somewhere in that squishy thinking organ of yours just waiting to be let out. And if it's already out, well, start covering it in red ink and make it shiny.