Choice quote from Nick's blog:
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Actually, after the moment when one has eliminated all the usual tyro errors—POV shifts at inappropriate moments, tantalizing the reader from the beginning, keeping unusual dialogue tags to a minimum—about 90% of the battle for a writer is to eliminate the need for external validation.
Of course, plenty of writers, some even quite good, remain desperately hungry for external validation, but sooner rather than later they either burn out or end up with a bunch of material they ultimately regret writing or that goes OP forever when some fad passes.
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