Why is it so hard to know when your manuscript is ready?

Sharing your scholarship with the world can feel overwhelming.

Many of us first encountered the pressure to be “perfect” early on—maybe in graduate school, maybe even earlier—when a teacher’s red pen cut through our carefully crafted words.

Over time, writing, which should be a tool for discovery, became tangled with evaluation. Feedback stopped feeling like a conversation and started feeling like judgment.

Because producing knowledge is so central to our work as scholars, we often start to link our writing to our self-worth. A critique of our ideas can feel like a critique of who we are. And so we armor up—revising, polishing, and reworking until we think maybe, just maybe, our work will be safe from criticism.

We try to bulletproof it.

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in that cycle—hovering over the “submit” button, wondering if one more round of edits might finally make it “good enough”—you are not alone.

This isn't just about writing. It’s about confidence. It’s about the fear of being exposed. It’s the ache of imposter syndrome that flares up when we’re on the verge of sharing our ideas with others.

But here’s the good news:

• You can learn to write from a place of trust instead of fear.

• You can normalize imperfection and recognize when perfectionism is holding you back.

• And you can move forward—without waiting for everything to feel flawless.

That's why I created How to Know When Your Manuscript is Publication-Ready—to help you quiet the inner critic, assess your work with clarity, and submit your manuscript with greater confidence.