Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

The Love-Hate Story Between You and Your Manuscript

Every writer knows that feeling. One day, your story is a masterpiece that could change the world. The next, it’s a 70,000-word disaster you’d like to set on fire. Writing, at its core, is a relationship — passionate, exhausting, and occasionally toxic.

You promise yourself you’ll walk away, but then your book whispers something perfect in your ear and suddenly you’re back, rewriting chapter twelve like you never left.

Sound familiar? That’s because writing isn’t just a craft. It’s emotional labor. It asks you to fall in love with something that will constantly test your patience — and somehow, to keep believing in it anyway.

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The Honeymoon Phase

Every manuscript starts like a romance in its early days — all possibility, no problems. The characters are charming, the dialogue sings, and you’re convinced you’ve finally cracked the secret to the universe.

You daydream about movie adaptations. You research agents. You feel like a creative deity with coffee breath.

And then, around chapter five, it all collapses.

The shine fades. You start seeing your story’s flaws. The tension doesn’t build, the pacing drags, and your once-brilliant protagonist suddenly sounds like a soggy slice of toast. Welcome to disillusionment — the moment you realize your perfect idea is, in fact, deeply human.

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The Gaslighting Stage

Writers are excellent manipulators — of readers, yes, but also of themselves. You’ll stare at your half-finished draft and whisper, “It’s not that bad.” Then you’ll read it the next day and swear you’ve lost every talent you ever had.

This is where panic thrives. You start to question your plot, your career, your life choices, and occasionally your sanity. But if you push through this stage instead of deleting everything in a blaze of melodrama, something miraculous happens: progress.

Because, as in any relationship, learning to sit with discomfort is how you move from fantasy to depth.

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When the Plot Falls Apart

Plot holes are the emotional betrayals of the writing world. You thought you were building trust, and suddenly your story goes rogue. A side character reveals something you didn’t plan. The timeline collapses. You find a scene that makes zero sense — and you wrote it sober.

This is the moment most writers either quit or evolve.

The secret? Stop trying to control the story. Control kills curiosity, and curiosity is what keeps the relationship alive. Let the story talk back. Let it make you uncomfortable. Plot holes aren’t failure; they’re invitations to look closer.

And if all else fails, write yourself a note that says, “Future Me Will Fix This.” It’s half therapy, half denial, but it works.

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Revisions: The Couple’s Therapy Stage

Editing isn’t punishment; it’s communication. It’s where you stop yelling at your manuscript and start listening.

Revisions teach you humility — the ability to see your words as clay, not marble. They also teach you persistence. You cut scenes that once felt sacred. You rewrite dialogue until it stops sounding like robots in therapy. You tighten pacing, polish emotion, and realize your story has quietly become better than you remembered.

That’s the moment you fall back in love — not with the fantasy of the book you imagined, but with the real one you built.

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The Moment of Clarity

There’s a strange peace that comes when you finish a book. You realize you’ve been through something together — you and that story. You’ve fought, reconciled, doubted, and survived.

When I finished The Billionaire’s Curvy Match, I remember closing my laptop and laughing out loud. Not because it was perfect — it wasn’t — but because I’d finally stopped trying to make it something it wasn’t.

That’s the thing about writing: you don’t master it. You surrender to it.

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Why Writers Keep Coming Back

Most people would run from this kind of emotional chaos. But writers? We thrive on it. We crave that unpredictable, pulse-racing moment when a sentence clicks or a character says something we didn’t see coming.

We come back because, beneath the frustration, writing is the most honest relationship we’ll ever have — the one where every flaw still leads to something beautiful.

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Progress, Not Perfection

Here’s the truth that saves you: you don’t have to love your writing every day. You just have to keep showing up for it. Progress doesn’t look like confidence. It looks like consistency.

Every word you add — even the clumsy ones — is a declaration that you believe this story matters. And that’s what separates writers from dreamers.

So yes, writing feels like a bad relationship sometimes. But at least it’s a relationship that keeps teaching you how to stay, how to forgive, and how to grow.