I started writing seriously in 2007, published my first novel at the end of 2012, and since then have published six novels. But I’ve written a total of eight novels and one memoir. I didn’t publish my first two novels because, well, they weren’t good enough. I needed more practice. As much as I didn’t want to hear it back then, my writing needed work—heck, I needed work—and I wish I’d known a few things back when I first started.

It’s not a race

When you first set out to write a novel, it’s scary and exciting and the words flow faster than you can type. But sooner or later, you’ll hit a wall and the gushing flow will become a slow drip that slowly drives you crazy. Or maybe that’s just me.

Most writers I know struggle with the middle of the first draft, and the best way I’ve found to plod through is to have an outline and a daily word goal. Neither will guarantee success—that’s where I’ve learned to go easy on myself on the days I don’t reach my goals—but breaking a novel into manageable parts (500-1000 words per day) makes the end goal less scary. As the adage goes, if you write one page a day, you’ll have a book in a year. It can seem like a long time, and that’s why we have to pace ourselves.

It’s not a competition—and stop comparing yourself to other writers

It may feel like it, especially when all your friends are signing agents or getting book deals or hitting the bestseller lists, but no two writers have the exact same circumstances. I, like many others, have a day job, but I don’t have children, and I marvel at how those with children AND day jobs also manage to write. Lately I’ve averaged writing and publishing one book per year, and my friends often congratulate me for being prolific. Meanwhile, I’m in several online writing groups with authors who write and publish multiple books per year (some as many as one per month) and I feel like a complete failure.

If you let yourself get swept up in comparisons, you’ll psyche yourself out and struggle to write. So stop comparing yourself to other writers. Not your process, your pace, your style—nothing. Yes, it’s beneficial to read heavily in your genre to know what others are doing, but only you can write the story inside you.

It’ll get easier

When I decided to write my first novel, I had NO idea what I was doing. I had a rough outline, a pen and notebook (because I wrote my first novel by hand), and a lot of doubt that I could actually WRITE A NOVEL. But I did it. Then I did it again. For my second novel, I joined NaNoWriMo and learned a lot about myself in the process:

• I can write 1000 words in 45-60 minutes when I’m really on a roll
• I can rarely write more than 1000 words in one sitting
• I must break up my writing sessions if I plan to write more than 1000 words per day.

When I’m not participating in NaNo, my daily goal is 1000 words, and I can usually accomplish that in the morning before my day job.

It’ll always be hard

That said, writing a novel is still a lot of work. Hard work. Like anything in life, it will get easier the more you do it, but I promise you that every author out there—whether they’re a NYT bestseller or floundering below the mid-list—has days when she wonders why she ever thought writing was a good idea. I outline and do character development before I write, and it helps, but there’s always the lingering doubt that this time it might not work and I worry I’ll never get through the first draft.

Take solace in knowing we’ve all been there, and we’ll be there again.

Nothing compares to finishing a novel

Okay, I may have discovered this the first time I wrote those magical words, The End, but it never gets old. If you’ve written—or even attempted—to write a novel, you know what a commitment it is. And we’ve all had people tell us how they’d love to write a novel, if only they had the time. Whenever someone says that to me, I gently remind them that we all have the same number of hours in a day, it’s all in how we prioritize that time. I watch very few TV shows, I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like, and my house isn’t the cleanest, all because I protect my daily writing time. I feel my best when I’m writing, and I look forward to the next The End.

This post originally appeared on A Book Addict’s Bookshelves.