Student Spotlight: 5 Lessons Learned from Notes to Novel (Season 8)

If you've been feeling stuck writing your novel—second-guessing every decision, rewriting the same chapters, or quietly wondering whether you're even capable of finishing—I want you to meet five writers who've been exactly where you are.

A longtime pantser who kept getting lost in her own manuscript. A left-brained pediatrician who couldn't stop falling down research rabbit holes. A brand-new writer 10,000 words into her first draft. A writer whose story refused to come together no matter what she tried. And a craft-focused writer who'd done everything "right" and still felt like something was off.

Each of these writers came into my Notes to Novel program stuck in a different way, and each one found their breakthrough. But here's what I love most about their stories: not one of those breakthroughs came from working harder, finding more time, or suddenly becoming more talented. What got them unstuck was having the right process, the right framework, and the right support.

So if you recognize yourself in any of the struggles above, keep reading. One of these five lessons might be exactly what your story needs.

Sheila’s Lesson: Think of your outline as a skeleton that holds up your story, not a cage that boxes you in.

If you're a pantser, you've probably resisted outlining for one big reason: you're afraid it'll kill the magic of discovery writing. You picture a rigid blueprint with every detail nailed down before you write a single word—and that sounds like the opposite of creativity.

That's exactly where Sheila was. She'd been writing women's fiction freeform for years, and she loved it. But she kept getting lost in her manuscript, never quite sure where the story was headed or how it connected to what came before. She knew a little planning up front would make her more productive. She just didn't know how to do it without losing what she loved about writing.

Inside Notes to Novel, Sheila built a complete outline with all of her story's essential elements in place—and she described it as a skeleton she could add flesh to later. I love that image, because that's exactly what an outline does. The skeleton gives your story the structural integrity to stand up. The flesh—your voice, the surprising character choices, the lines you never saw coming—still gets to happen when you draft.

Story structure doesn't mean abandoning your creative instincts. It protects them. Sheila now has a finished outline she trusts, and for the first time, a clear path to rewrite the book she loves.

Liz’s Lesson: Don’t stop writing to research—put a pin in it and keep writing.

Here's a reality you might recognize: you're drafting, you hit a detail you need—what kind of car your character drove in 1987, how a medical procedure works, which Italian dessert she'd bake—so you stop to look it up. An hour later, you have fifteen browser tabs open and a scene that's gone completely cold.

Liz knows this cycle well. As a pediatrician, her writing time is precious and limited, and for years, research rabbit holes ate it alive. And here's the worst part: more times than she could count, the scene she'd researched ended up cut or changed so much that none of that research mattered anyway.

The shift that changed everything for her was simple: put a pin in it. Now, when Liz hits a moment that needs more information, she drops a placeholder—brackets, a "TK," whatever works—and keeps writing. The research happens later, once she knows the scene is actually staying in the draft.

It sounds like a small thing. But multiply that one habit by the thousand times you stop mid-draft to look something up, and it becomes the difference between a draft that keeps moving and one that stalls out. Liz's draft is moving faster than ever, and her limited writing time finally goes toward actual writing.

Hanna’s Lesson: Give yourself permission to write a messy first draft.

Hanna came into Notes to Novel as a brand-new writer with 10,000 words already written and a clear picture of her story idea in mind. She wasn't stuck—she just had a story she really wanted to tell.

But she was overthinking every scene as she wrote it. She's writing crime fiction, and trying to decide exactly when to reveal each clue—while drafting—made it hard to keep moving. Maybe for you it's not clues. Maybe it's perfecting the dialogue, or rewriting your opening line for the tenth time. Either way, it's the same trap: trying to get it right before you've gotten it down.

Hanna's biggest breakthrough was a mindset shift: accepting that her first draft gets to be messy. Once her focus moved to simply getting the story on paper, everything got easier—because you can't see how the pieces fit together until the whole story exists. Now she can step back, see what needs to move (clues included), and trust that revision is where it all clicks into place.

And here's the part I love most: Hanna didn't wait until she hit a wall to learn any of this. She got ahead of it—which means if she ever does get stuck, she already has a way to get unstuck.

Nikki’s Lesson: A fully developed antagonist can bring your whole story to life.

If your story just isn't clicking no matter what you try, look at the character you've probably spent the least time developing: your antagonist.

Nikki had been working on her story for a long time, but it kept stalling out. When a new round of Notes to Novel opened up, the timing felt perfect—she wanted help getting things moving again. But when we got to the character module, and the first thing I said was "Let's work on the antagonist," she wasn’t sure. She'd heard the "work on your antagonist" advice before, but it had never clicked.

This time, with the lessons and workbook laid out step by step, it did. She built an antagonist and dumped it. Built a second version. Dumped that one, too. The third version of her antagonist finally came together—with real wants, needs, goals, and significance—and that's when everything changed. The story came alive. Ideas started flowing. Now she's deep in her first draft and excited to write every single day.

There's a reason I teach antagonist development so early in the course: a fully developed antagonist creates the conflict that drives your entire story. And I want to celebrate one more thing here—Nikki was willing to build, dump, and rebuild that character three times. That kind of iteration is uncomfortable, but it's exactly what separates writers who finish from writers who stay stuck.

Brady’s Lesson: More craft knowledge can't fix a story you're disconnected from.

By every external measure, Brady was doing the work. He'd finished a full manuscript that beta readers loved (and his editor was effusive about). He'd been a long-time student of the craft, and everyone who read his manuscript said it worked—but he could feel something was off.

His breakthrough inside Notes to Novel had nothing to do with structure or dialogue. It came from one of the very first exercises in the program—a question that seems simple on the surface: why do you want to tell this particular story now?

Brady realized he'd never actually thought about it. And without that answer, he'd unknowingly taken the story closest to his heart and packaged it into something he thought would be more acceptable—minimizing the character he loved most and bringing in others that felt safer. He second-guessed everything, tried to sound like other authors, and wondered whether he had anything meaningful to say at all.

Here's the thing: you can know a lot about craft, but if you're disconnected from your deeper why, it's really hard to write a story that feels good—or feels like you. That gap is where imposter syndrome lives, and no amount of technique closes it.

Sitting with that one question changed everything for Brady. He knows why his story needs to exist, and because of that, he can take feedback without flinching and stay in the work even when it's hard.

If his story resonates, sit with the same question: why do you want to tell this particular story—and why now?

Final Thoughts & Your Next Step

If you take nothing else from these five stories, let it be this: getting to the finish line isn't about working harder, finding more time, or being more talented. It's about having the right process, the right framework, and the right support.

Sheila, Liz, Hanna, Nikki, and Brady all came into Notes to Novel in completely different places—and every one of them is now moving forward with confidence, trusting their process, and genuinely enjoying writing again. Not because they changed who they are as writers, but because they finally had a clear path to follow.

If any of their stories sounded familiar, you don't have to keep figuring this out alone.

Notes to Novel is my signature program designed to take you from scattered ideas to a completed first draft—developing your characters, identifying your genre, uncovering your theme, and mapping out your plot scene by scene. It's the exact framework all five of these writers used to find their breakthroughs.

We only open the doors a few times a year. Join the waitlist here to get first access when enrollment opens, plus any early bird bonuses we decide to offer. If you've been waiting for the right time to finally get unstuck, this is your window.