My experience on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme: Month 9

Hello again. Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month Nine is all about learning to edit our own writing. When I first started taking my dream of being a published novelist seriously, the editing phase felt like going to the dentist: necessary, but uncomfortable. I didn’t know where to start, what decisions to make, or how to break the task into chunks my writer’s brain could handle. Every change felt like vandalising something fragile — taking a knife to a newborn. 

Now? The editing phase is the part I look forward to most. It’s when I feel at my most creative and most deeply engaged with the art form. 

Drafting, for me, is like pulling together a big lump of clay and roughly squishing it into the shape I’m after. I’m sketching characters broadly and trying ideas I don’t yet fully understand. I feel self-conscious around them — they don’t know me, and I don’t know them — but I follow the impulses that arrive. By the end of the first draft, that clay is at least “head-shaped.” 

Then editing begins. Sharpening, distilling, refining. This is the stage where the novel’s face starts to emerge. Suddenly I discover the real reason for a character’s behaviour. I feel a spark of satisfaction when a plot beat clicks neatly into place and reveals what I meant all along. The book’s heartbeat grows stronger. Editing becomes creative play rather than the punishment I once feared. It feels like discovery, not destruction. I’ve learned that editing isn’t a penance — it’s the gateway to mastery. 

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t frightening. This is the phase when the “real world” draws closer. My once-private, infant novel is getting ready to be read — and that’s when doubt creeps in. What if the entire story is wrong? What if everyone laughs? What if readers miss everything I hoped they’d see? Decision fatigue sets in. I hear phantom footsteps as the draft edges toward daylight. 

That’s why I’ve worked so hard on my own self-editing skills: because they are essential for surviving feedback. Every writer who wants to be read will face multiple layers of it — agents, editors, beta readers, early reviewers. As the line from the film, The Wife goes: “A writer has to be read, honey.” Readers complete our art in their minds, and they bring their own interpretations — sometimes beautifully, sometimes bafflingly. The feedback can be well-meaning yet difficult to absorb, and the emotional whiplash can be painful. The market phase isn’t cruel, but it is real. 

For me, editing is where I reconnect with my North Star. I remind myself why this story mattered to me in the first place. I return to its emotional and thematic core. I protect my voice — because if I am not being fully myself in my own work, then whose story am I telling? I also get clear on my boundaries: the non-negotiables, the lines I will not cross. In this process, I try to behave like a tree — roots deep, branches flexible. Standing firm in my creative convictions, yet able to bend toward insight. External critique can deepen the roots, if I let it. 

This is why I don’t self-edit alone. I need trusted critique partners. I need people who can teach me craft techniques. I need professional eyes to remind me of the commercial realities of the book world. I need a toolkit of approaches that help me see my own pages afresh. Good self-editing is equal parts internal skill and external support. 

Editing isn’t the end of writing; it’s where the writing becomes itself. Over the years, I’ve gathered tools, gathered my people, and learned how to refine with increasing confidence. And I expect to spend the rest of my writing life doing exactly this. 

A big part of that growth has come from investing in tutored courses — including programmes like the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. If you want guidance, structure, accountability, and a community of thoughtful advisors, you would be hard pushed to find a better foundation for your own creative development. 

Rachel Davidson is a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers prior to joining our Writer Support Team, Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada and is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.