Also if you're ever interested in asking viewers if they're interested in beta reading, I would definitely be interested in it. I've beta read for quite a few people and also am a writer who is working towards publication :)

Hope you don't mind other writers pitching in to give their thoughts. I think that voice gets quieter once you finish your first book, no matter how insane and wild and wonky the first draft is. Its a kind of confidence boost you get from experience, even as the paths you walk up the mountain get more and more difficult. If you've ever done mountaineering and intense hiking, when you first stand at the base of a mountain range you are going to hike to the top of and down from within a day, you think its impossible and that you will only make it part of the way. But then you keep hiking, often with a group to encourage you, and you find the village and the paths below dropping further and further behind you. Then, there's a point when you are at the peak--the climax of your book, the highest point. You can see everything sprawling below you. Lakes, an entire ridge of mountains circling like a crown all around you, birds circling below, the clouds that you passed on your way up, drifting past below your feet. And you begin your descent. Its faster than the climb, but hard because you are tired, and at any wrong step you can fall or twist your ankle on the steep rocks, so you pay close attention. And you make it back at last when night is falling to the town below to rest. Somehow, impossibly, you and everyone else who made it up with you did it within a day. It was possible, going so incredibly high, so quickly. Possible, and difficult, and you can get better at it. Novel writing is the same way. Your voice of disbelief is a self-defense mechanism, protecting you from doing something that might make you fail yourself, an effort that extends you far beyond your comfort zone. Keep pushing past that comfort zone. Look back, and see how far you've come, building the mountain word by word, walking the path of your own story. Savor the journey, it is the greatest reward we writers get. Then descend, and finish the journey. Messy as the journey is, you have to make it home, before you realize that you are truly capable of this. Yes, there will likely always be voices of doubt in your head of some kind or another, and some projects will challenge you uniquely in ways that make you use skills you wouldn't have developed if you hadn't climbed all those other mountains for so long. But you will truly believe you CAN write a book, once you prove to yourself that you can. And you can.

@@SokolvaI really appreciate your reply, it definitely is new territory for me and I’ve noticed every chapter I’ve written has filled me with a sense of pride. I think the most challenging part is sitting down to write when you have a million plans and they haven’t been executed yet. It’s a difficult journey but along the way it’s getting easier and is just plain fun. I hope your writing is going well and good luck 🍀