#223. Permission to Start: How to Move Past ‘Not Ready Yet’ and Finish Your Novel

Discover why “I’m not ready yet” is a fear-driven mindset and learn how to take small, confident steps that move your novel forward.

So many writers get trapped in the feeling that they need more time, more research, or more clarity before they can truly start their first draft. And on the surface, that sounds reasonable. But most of the time, “I’m not ready yet” is a sign that you're scared to make the wrong choice, afraid to write something imperfect, or petrified you won't live up to your idea.

In today’s episode, I want to help you understand what's really underneath the “I’m not ready” feeling, how to recognize when planning has quietly turned into procrastination, and how small, low-pressure experiments can help you build momentum right now. My goal is to help you shift out of waiting mode and into action so your story can finally start taking shape.

This is what I talk about:

[02:30] The hidden fear driving “I'm not ready yet” and why it shows up for even the most motivated writers.

[03:15] How research becomes a safety blanket, and the mindset shift that moves you from learner to creator.

[04:45] The real reason clarity doesn’t arrive before you start writing and how drafting gives you the answers you’re looking for.

[07:45] Simple “safe to fail” experiments that lower the stakes and help you build confidence on the page

[09:35] How to tell whether you actually need more foundation work or you're using prep to avoid making decisions.

You don't need to feel ready to start writing your novel. You just need permission to begin, and that confidence can come from you today. Tune in and take the very first step toward finishing your first draft.

🔗 Links mentioned in this episode:

• Get on the Notes to Novel waitlist!
• Take The Author Success Blueprint Quiz 
• 5 Writing Roadblocks Keeping You Stuck & How to Break Through

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Core Mindset Shift
• 3:33 The “Not Ready” Trap
• 5:58 Research As Safe Hiding Place
• 8:37 From Researcher To Creator
• 11:09 Safe-To-Fail Writing Experiments
• 13:25 Are You Truly Not Ready
• 15:22 Three Key Takeaways And Permission

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:41

When you make this mindset shift, then everything really does change. You stop waiting for confidence to arrive and you start building that confidence through action. You stop accumulating information and start accumulating pages. And you finally experience what it feels like to make real, tangible progress on the story that you've been carrying around in your head. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, we're talking about something I hear from aspiring writers all the time. And that is, I'm just not ready to write my novel yet. Maybe you've said these words yourself, maybe you're feeling this way right now, like you just need to do a little more research, a little more planning, or get a little more clarity before you can actually sit down to start writing your novel. And look, I get it, starting a novel can genuinely feel scary. But something I've learned after years of coaching writers is that fear isn't the problem. Fear is a very normal part of the process. But when that fear that you feel convinces you that you're not ready to write a novel, and then you don't write that novel that's been on your heart for years and years, then that's a problem. And when writers say that they're not ready or not ready yet, this is usually just fear in disguise. And if you don't learn to recognize that fear for what it is, then you're going to stay stuck in that preparation phase forever. So in this episode, I'm going to help you figure out whether you're genuinely not ready, like let's say you're missing foundational pieces of your story, or whether you're hiding from the blank page. I'm going to share the mindset shift that finally got two of my students unstuck after a decade of false starts, and I'll give you some low-stakes experiments you can try this week to start building momentum. So this episode is for you if you have a story idea that you've been carrying around forever, but every time you sit down to write, you freeze. It's for you if you've been preparing to write your novel but haven't actually made progress on the manuscript itself, or if you're just tired of waiting to feel ready and want permission to begin. So let's dive right into the episode. Alright, let me start off by painting a picture that might feel uncomfortably familiar. You've got this brilliant story idea, you can see certain scenes so clearly in your mind, your main character feels almost real, you love the setting that your story takes place in, but when you sit down to actually write your book, you freeze. Suddenly you're overwhelmed by everything you don't know yet. How does magic work in your fantasy world? What's the perfect opening line? Should you write in first person or third, or mix it up and combine both? What if your plot has holes or things that you haven't thought about yet that are going to break down midway through your draft? What if your dialogue sounds wooden and what if, what if, what if, right? And then you do what feels responsible. So you research, you read another craft book, you take another online workshop, and the whole time you tell yourself that you're preparing to write your novel. But here's the uncomfortable truth that you might need to hear, and that is that you might not really be preparing to write. Instead, you might be hiding from your novel, hoping that someday it will feel easier or that you'll feel more ready. One of my notes to novel students, Christina, described this perfectly. She said she'd been preparing to write her story for years and years. She knew what she wanted to write, but she didn't know where to start. And because of that, the research felt endless, yet really safe at the same time. Because as long as she was researching, she didn't have to face that blank page. Does that sound familiar? If so, I want you to know this is super normal. Research feels productive because it feeds this illusion that there is a quote unquote right way to write your novel, and that if you just learn enough, you're going to unlock the secret code that makes writing easy. But here's what actually happens. Every new piece of advice you come across creates another standard that you feel you need to meet. And contradictory information leaves you more confused than when you started. And because of all of that, that gap between what you know and what you've written keeps growing. Again, I see this pattern constantly. I meet writers all the time who can quote every writing guru but haven't written past chapter three. I've met a ton of writers who know the hero's journey backwards and forwards, but can't tell you what happens in act two of their story. It's more like they tell you what they know should happen, but they don't actually know how it happens in their own novel. So, yes, you could read every writing book ever published and still not feel ready to write your novel. And that's because readiness isn't about having knowledge or feeling ready someday. Instead, it's about taking action despite not having everything figured out. And it's about having courage. Now, when I say readiness is more about having courage, courage doesn't mean feeling confident. It means giving yourself permission to start before you feel ready. So it means taking messy action when you're unsure of things, and it means feeling that fear of not being ready and doing it anyway. So I want you to stop thinking of yourself as a researcher who needs to learn more and start thinking of yourself as a creator who needs to create. Because that is what we want anyway, right? We want to create stories, we want to finish our books and share them with the world. And just to paint you a picture of what I mean by this, researchers wait for permission while creators give themselves permission. Researchers seek the right answers while creators experiment until they find what works. Researchers accumulate information and creators accumulate pages. And lastly, researchers prepare endlessly, but creators start imperfectly. Alright, so again, this isn't about arrogance or pretending you know everything. It's about recognizing a fundamental truth. You can only learn to write by writing, not by just reading about writing. Think of it this way: you can't steer a parked car, right? You need to be moving before you can course correct, and the same applies to your novel. You need to be writing before you can see what your story truly wants to be. Now, Jenny, one of my notes to novel students, she spent over a decade in researcher mode. She was constantly starting over because she felt like she needed to know more before she could move forward. But when she finally shifted into creator mode instead of researcher mode and gave herself permission to write a messy draft without having all the answers, she completed her first draft in six months. And again, the difference wasn't that Jenny had more knowledge or anything like that. It was just that she gave herself permission to do it scared and do it messy. And she told me later that the biggest change she felt wasn't to do with the fact that she had a finished manuscript. It was actually in how she saw herself. So she finally felt like a real writer, and that wasn't because she'd learned some secret to writing a book, but it was because she'd proven to herself that she could do the things she'd been afraid to try. So I don't say this lightly, but when you make this shift, this mindset shift, then everything really does change. You stop waiting for confidence to arrive and you start building that confidence through action. You stop accumulating information and start accumulating pages. And you finally experience what it feels like to make real, tangible progress on the story that you've been carrying around in your head. So how do you actually make that shift? Well, this is where safe to fail experiments come in. So instead of writing the perfect first chapter, what if you just committed to writing a first chapter? Not the one that's going to be in your final book, just an experiment or a test run. That's what I mean by a safe to fail experiment. It's safe to fail or produce something that's not totally perfect. So here are some other safe to fail experiments that you can try this week. Number one, you can write your opening scene five different ways. And I don't mean that you have to write 2,000 plus words. I just mean write a few paragraphs and don't worry about the quality of those paragraphs. Just see what happens when you start in a different place or with a different approach. Number two, you can write a conversation between your protagonist and antagonist that will never appear in your book. So set this conversation someplace neutral, coffee shop, a waiting room, stuck elevator, it doesn't really matter. And just aim for 500 words of pure dialogue. Let them talk so you can hear their voices, see what's motivating them, and things like that. And then most of all, let it be fun. Number three, you can set a timer for 15 minutes and write a messy scene from the middle of your novel. So pick any scene, maybe it's your protagonist's first failure or moment of doubt, or maybe it's when your protagonist finally starts succeeding after they've learned some crucial piece of information or gained more confidence. Either way, it doesn't really matter, just set that timer for 15 minutes, start writing, and don't stop writing until that timer goes off. Now, no matter which exercise you choose, if you are so brave to choose one this week, the point isn't to create any kind of usable material, although you might surprise yourself. The point is more about lowering the stakes so far that your fear has nowhere to hide. And that's because when everything is an experiment, then nothing is a failure, right? You're just having fun, gathering data, and building your writing muscles. Now, some of you might be wondering if you're the exception or if you really do need more preparation before you start drafting. And that is a fair question because here's something I wish someone had told me early on. There is a difference between being not ready because you're scared and being not ready because you're missing a key piece of your story. So how do you know which camp you're in? Well, you can ask yourself these questions. Number one, do I know the central problem that my protagonist is trying to solve? Yes or no. Number two, do I have a general sense of how my story ends? Yes or no. Number three, do I understand why the story and the central conflict and the goal your character's after, all of that? Do you understand why that matters so much to your protagonist? Yes or no. Number four, do you know what genre you're writing in? And do you have a general sense of what readers expect from a book like yours? Yes or no. And finally, number five, am I avoiding decisions because I lack information or because I'm afraid to choose? So am I avoiding decisions because I lack information or because I'm afraid to choose? All right, now if you can answer the first four of those questions, the yes or no questions, with even some kind of basic clarity, then believe it or not, you have enough to begin. You don't need all of the answers, you just need a starting point and the courage to get going. And if you can't answer those first four questions, that's okay too. It just means that you need to spend some time with your story's foundational elements before you draft. Again, this does not mean that you need to do endless research. It's more like focused exploration of your character, their problem, and what's at stake. And it definitely helps to have some familiarity with the genre you're writing in as well. All right, so that is a different kind of work than reading your 15th craft book, right? And it's work that will actually move your novel forward and get you ready to write. Alright, so before I let you go, let me quickly recap the three key points from today's episode. Key point number one is that when you tell yourself you're not ready, what you usually mean is I'm scared. And that fear often disguises itself as endless research, which feels productive but is really just a way to avoid the blank page. Key point number two, courage doesn't mean feeling confident. It means giving yourself permission to start before you feel ready. You learn to write by writing, not by endlessly reading about writing. And key point number three is that perfectionism can't survive low stakes. When you approach your writing as an experiment instead of a performance that you're going to be graded on, your inner critic has nothing to latch on to, and you can finally start building that momentum that you've been chasing. Alright, so if you've heard this whole episode and you're still kind of waiting for someone to tell you that you're ready to start writing, then fine, I will do it. You have permission to start your novel today. You have permission to write badly, to not have all the answers, to figure it out as you go, and to be a beginner. Because again, here's the truth: you're never going to feel completely ready. Ready is a story that your fear tells you to keep you safe. And the writers who finish their novels, they aren't the ones who felt ready. They're the ones who felt that fear or that uncertainty and started anyway. All right, so your story is waiting not for you to be ready, but for you to just begin. And as always, if you want my help getting your story off the ground and if you want a complete roadmap for actually finishing your novel, make sure your name is on the wait list for my notes to novel course because doors are opening again very soon. And in that course, I teach you exactly how to brainstorm, outline, and write your story, even if you only have 30 minutes a day. All right, so I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. You can also go to Savannah Gilbo.com forward slash wait list to get your name on the wait list for my notes to novel course, which will be opening again very soon. Alright, so that's it for this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. Head over to SavannahGilbo.com forward slash podcast for the complete show notes, including the resources I mentioned today, as well as bonus materials to help you implement what you've learned. And if you're ready to get more personalized guidance for your specific writing stage, whether you're just starting out, stuck somewhere in the middle of a draft, drowning in revisions, or getting ready to publish, take my free 30-second quiz at savannaGilbo.com forward slash quiz. You'll get a customized podcast playlist that'll meet you right where you're at and help you get to your next big milestone. Last but not least, make sure to follow this podcast in your podcast player of choice because I'll be back next week with another episode full of actionable tips, tools, and strategies to help you become a better writer. Until then, happy writing.