So, you’ve finished the first draft of your book. That’s great, and you should be proud. But don’t crack open the champaign just yet—there’s still much to be done.

I’ve harped time and time again on the importance of rewriting and how it is necessary to extract the highest quality from your writing. A lot of people resist the idea of rewriting—I mean, you just spent months or years writing your, why would you start over? That sounds like a special form of masochism.

I just graduated, earning a Bachelors in Creative Writing… but was it actually worth doing?

Going to college is supposed to be a rewarding experience. It’s supposed to lead to professional growth you would struggle to achieve without a degree. Unfortunately, for creative writing students, and for students of the arts in general, the post-college path isn’t clear cut and success is not a guarantee.

When you graduate with an undergraduate degree, you are not likely to have a job waiting for you. You will need to work a lot harder to find your career or accept that graduate school is a necessity to progress in your field.

The last time I walked down Union Avenue (or Road, I can never remember) in the town where I grew up and where I lived through my early adulthood, I was bombarded by memories everywhere I looked. There’s the dealership where I bought my first car, that’s the BevMo that used to be the old movie theatre. Look, it’s the McDonalds where my sister worked in 2005 and that’s the street where my first apartment was. It’s all in that same neighborhood, connected to the same stretch of road. I’d be writing a novel if I listed every tie I have to that neighborhood, let alone the entire town.

Writer’s Block doesn’t exist — and I have the science to prove it.

Allow me to share some insider information with you—writer’s block is almost exclusively a problem for beginning and casual writers. When writing becomes more than a hobby, it’s just not a good excuse for failing to produce.

“If I could only just get my thoughts on paper…” is a lament I have heard countless times from classmates and non-writers who dream about having the time and willpower to write. What this really means is they wish for the final draft of a masterpiece to magically appear on paper without investing time or effort.

Think back to the last great book you’ve read. The author probably spent a lot of time writing it, and most of that time was spent in revision. I’ve a read a lot of fiction from authors of all experience levels, and it’s SO obvious when they’ve sent me a first draft.

Hemingway famously claimed that the first draft of anything is shit. Strunk pushed his students to write with vigor, claiming vigorous writing was concise. A first draft is never vigorous or concise, and it’s always a terrible piece for publication.