Trust Your Instincts: Why Writing for Yourself Leads to Better Books | Jane Friedman

Eventually I learned to trust my instincts. If a novel doesn't interest me from the query letter and the opening pages, I probably don't want to spend the next 18 months working on it. If it's offensive to me in concept or execution, I don't want to put my shoulder against it and move it forward into the world. Trusting myself made me a more efficient and honest reviewer of manuscripts.

This insight trickled into my writing life and helped me make a terrifying decision. After several years of writing, I cut my protagonist out of my novel.