 There is a particular kind of courage required to keep writing when the inner critic is loud, when praise feels dangerous, and when the manuscript has taken so long that shame starts whispering about wasted years. In this candid conversation, Tanara McCauley traces the quieter victories that have sustained her: a husband’s two-word refusal to let her quit, a hard-won belief that imperfect stories still enlarge hearts, and a personal mantra that life—and the books we pull from it—can be both beautiful and wild even when the road remains uncertain. If you've ever questioned your writing journey (who hasn't?), this one's for you. Tanara's hard-won wisdom will remind you that you're not alone and that sometimes your uncertain road just might produce your best book yet.  What’s the harshest thing your inner critic has ever said to you? What have you learned to say back to it? That even if I manage a good chapter here or a beautiful sentence there, I’ll never pull it all together into a great book. I can silence that critic when I’m writing, but she’s loud and convincing during the editing process. She takes every cliché, each clunky line, any forced figurative language, and she uses these to build a case against my likelihood of ever producing something worthy of submission. I’ve learned to reason with her that I’ve never read a perfect book and yet many imperfect stories have moved and changed me. If the author of every tale I love had allowed themselves to be bullied into giving up, my heart wouldn’t be as large and generous and hopeful as it is now. While reasoning with my inner critic doesn’t always work, I’m at least getting better at quickly fixing glaring flaws then moving on. What I need to stop doing, however, is letting her convince me to “just go back and read it one more time” when I’m asked to submit my manuscript, because that’s when she wraps me firmly in her grip and restarts the whole process of tearing my book apart. Which part of yourself feels most exposed or “not enough” when you write, and how do you keep going anyway? I write from a place of wonder and possibility about a world riddled with division, betrayal, oppression, and violence. I don’t like being misunderstood, and I fear my unique approach to difficult themes will subject me to just that, especially in a society of readers conditioned to be easily offended. This makes me feel the most exposed and tempts me to stifle creativity in favor of writing defensively. To combat that temptation, I remember John F. Kennedy’s speech at Amherst College during which he said, “The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may.” I cannot remain true to the story I need to tell if I write to engineer how it will be received. Someone is going to misunderstand my intentions, mischaracterize my beliefs, maybe even miss altogether the entire point of the story. I just have to flinch and accept that, equally trusting that someone else will be so absorbed in the story they won’t think about me at all. Have you ever felt ashamed of how long your WIP is taking? What shifted that shame for you? I feel the most shame when I consider all the ways I’ve avoided writing or the times I should have followed through on a submission request and chickened out. My experience with my first manuscripts made me overly cautious and meticulous with this current book. For example, I know entirely too much about random plants and historic weapons that didn’t even make it into this story, such is my capacity for productive procrastination. However, I can also honestly say the extra time it’s taken me to write this book has equated to more living, which has given richer, deeper life to the characters, themes, and world I’ve created. And in a way my story needed that. I can write about debilitating grief because I’ve endured it; about gratitude that buckles the knees because I’ve known it. I’m comforted knowing much of my “wasted” time produced a better story and a better me, though there’s a few Netflix marathons in there for which I have no excuse.  Need an expert critique of your query letter, synopsis, novel/manuscript, or nonfiction book proposal? We have you covered. Check out our critique options and many success stories who found literary agents after working with us. What’s the loneliest moment you’ve had as an unpublished writer, and what (or who) helped you through it? Years ago, after having my first book rejected enough times to ditch it and then experiencing similar rejection with my second manuscript, I was preparing to go to another writer’s conference. In the midst of packing, I decided I couldn’t keep hearing new versions of the same “no.” It was time to let writing go, and before telling my husband, I had to suppress the despair of knowing I would always secretly grieve abandoning my dream. My husband listened to me even as he put the rest of my clothes in my suitcase. He knew how much this dream was a part of me, and though he couldn’t help me write the stories or control any measure of success, he could stop me from quitting. Of course he said none of that and all of it in two words: “You’re going.” That’s what helped me through that moment and it has continued to encourage me in the years since. At what point did you first allow yourself to call yourself a writer? Did that feel scary or presumptuous? How do you combat those feelings of imposter syndrome when they try to creep up again? I called myself a writer when I finished the first draft of my first manuscript. It was an ugly baby of a book, but it was a book and I had birthed it. I was a writer. What was scary was not knowing what type of writer I would grow to be. Absent? Neglectful? Permissive? Devoted? I was never an absent writer but certainly a neglectful one. For the longest time I lacked the discipline to establish a consistent writing routine. I’d hear successful writers talk about the importance of showing oneself grace in this area, but I took more than my fair portion of it. This proved unsustainable. I also started out as a permissive writer, letting myself get away with sloppy technique and minimal craft. My experience with conferences eventually taught me the value of treating writing like a skill to be nurtured instead of a talent to be taken for granted. I learned to sit under the instruction of others who had already accomplished what I was trying to achieve, to read books and watch movies as a writer, to be intentional about the choices I made in my stories. Over time I grew into a devoted writer, but my hesitancy to set my current manuscript free is—in words my daughter would use—“giving” helicopter parenting. If your value as a writer wasn’t measured by publication, queries, or word count, how would you describe your worth right now? Do you have a personal mantra that helps? This question reminds me of one I received years ago where I was instructed to describe a scene that represented my writer life and then interpret it, and I’ve kept the interpretation as sort of a personal mantra: Life is beautiful and wild. There’s much to experience and see, but if you don’t look up you’ll miss it. Look up. Pause and take it all in. Marvel and hold onto it. There are dark and unknown places, too, hidden dangers and even death, but those things can’t prevail against life and light. So don’t be afraid to travel uncertain roads; you do not walk alone. Take risks. Observe. Participate. Endure. Then pour what you find into your stories. If you do, as long as you’ve been honest in the telling, those stories will be as beautiful and wild as the life you gave them.  Learn secrets and proven paths to finding an agent with the book GET A LITERARY AGENT. The guide explains query letter writing, submission dos and don'ts, how to craft engaging opening pages, synopsis FAQs, nonfiction proposal tips, literary agent pet peeves, and much more. What’s one way this manuscript has forced you to face something painful about yourself or your past? It forced me to confront a subconscious belief in my unworthiness of anything good, especially if that thing is something I really want. Some of my past experiences conditioned me to associate good things with hidden strings attached and convinced me I held no merit of my own. Though I could never articulate that belief, I felt it in the way I would brace myself for disappointment ahead of joyous occasions like my wedding, childbirth, or job promotions. The more I wanted something, the more convinced I became I would never have it. With this manuscript, while it’s the best book I’ve ever written, it’s also the one for which I’ve had to fight the greatest fears and anxieties, which ultimately led to me facing the painful roots of those fears. That part of the journey has been the most difficult for me and most likely contributed to many a bump along this book’s path of development. Looking at the writer you are today versus when you began, what unexpected strength or softness have you discovered in yourself? I’m a bit of a loner apart from my core tribe of loved ones, and when I first started writing it remained that way. But writers and creators have become my people. We are our own bona fide demographic in my eyes. It takes grit and heart to create something and share it, to wrestle one good sentence out of an hours-long writing session, to endure form rejections and accept that a project has failed, to craft whole scenes and realize that the only parts you find decent are the ones you need to cut. I understand the loneliness, the surprise moments of brilliance, and the need for a good cry before shaking cramps from aching fingers and pulling back up to the keyboard. Other writers have strengthened and softened me, and I’m thankful I’ve been able to do the same for many of them. What’s a fear about your writing that you’ve never told anyone before? Praise for my writing is like a double-edged sword. I want it because I want to believe my writing is good and all the work I’ve put into developing my craft has paid off. I also don’t want it because then I’m saddled with the burden of trying to keep it. As a result, if someone receives and praises chapter one, I don’t want to share chapter two for fear it won’t live up to the hype. If this book remains unpublished forever, what would you need to believe to still feel you had spent your life well? This is an interesting question because I believe I am already spending my life well. I have deep, meaningful relationships that bring me joy. I pour into others. My faith is strong. So even without publishing, I will have lived and loved richly. However, the thought of not ever publishing this book worries me that I’ll have left something undone that I was meant to do, and I can’t carry that around forever. What's one book (or author) that transformed your writing? A Tale of Two Cities was instrumental in guiding the type of writer I strive to be. It made me feel (I’m talking face-in-hands sobbing) and inspired me to be a writer who can move people like that. Dickens also created the kinds of characters and circumstances that make taking sides and judging as murky and complicated as they’re supposed to be, challenging me to think without telling me what to think, and opening my eyes to the capacity to become what I once criticized or to accomplish what I never believed I could. Reading A Tale of Two Cities made me a better, more thoughtful human, and I’ve read it every other year for as long as I can remember. From a craft standpoint, I aim to achieve elements of the same literary beauty minus the syntactical difficulty—though a sentence inverted and the occasional archaic word doth have their benefits.  Tanara McCauley is a writer of allegorical epic fantasy with an English degree from Arizona State University. She’s a previous winner of the ACFW Genesis and Realm Makers Aurora awards, and creates memorable characters in high-stakes settings. In addition to writing and editing, she loves board games and spending time at her Florida home with her husband, three children, and their aging German Shepherd Chihuahua mix. You can find her online at tanaramccauley.com.  This post was compiled by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and Executive Aide for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves helping writers break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  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