As of this writing, I am one month from the publication of my first novel, The Rooms Are Filled. My To Do list grows ever longer, several planned events loom over me like a Most Embarrassing Moment waiting to happen, and I’ve started acting like a hyper version of myself.

It’s in times of stress that good advice proves useful and I’m currently finding the following bits of wisdom are key:

Do it for you.

I waited a long time to begin writing a book, as I’d always wanted to. I sometimes think I waited too long, but the upshot is by the time I started, I not only had developed my skills, I also had the mindset to write what I wanted, the way I wanted it. I didn’t look at statistics and decide to write a YA paranormal romance, or whatever the top selling genre was at the time. I look at this as an art first and a business second. I don’t generally read YA or paranormal fiction. I read and write probably the smallest sliver of a genre there is: literary fiction. But you know what? I love my book. I’m proud of it. That makes me tremendously happy and going forward much easier.

Similarly, when I finished writing and editing, I decided to submit to a partnership press because it, of all the publishing options, most aligned with my priorities and philosophies. And to get some exposure online, I started a blog based on telling the stories of everyday people because that’s what I’m interested in—the extraordinary, everyday stories.

This is my show; yours is your show. If you write a book for anyone other than yourself—the market, your parents, your spouse, even your readers—publication will not be as fun as it could be. Do it for you—your most important reader—and you’ll have no regrets.

You can’t do everything.

This is absolutely the hardest part for me. I’m way too ambitious for my own good. And I don’t mean that in a “Faults? Oh, I’m just so damn organized” kind of way. Being too ambitious is detrimental when it comes to this.

I love learning, but I try to learn everything. Google is my enemy. The other day I spent two hours creating a flier. Then I decided I wanted to learn how to create a book trailer. All in one afternoon. Other tabs open on my computer at the time: shopping for new carpeting and researching Common Core.

And the thing is, I never saw it coming. I’m a dinosaur in the world of technology. I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone, the last to graduate to a smart phone, the last to join Facebook. Slowly, though, I’ve immersed myself in the online world. There are very real advantages to this. And very real disadvantages. I can open an article that looks interesting—say, on not stretching yourself too thin—and an hour later I find myself reading about a friend’s latest journal publication and thinking that I should also submit to said literary journal, and I should also be writing for this online mommy magazine. Do you know how many times I’ve had to remind myself that I am not first and foremost a mom blogger? My goal is and always has been to write a book.

All is simply not possible. And besides, the bullet under this piece of advice could read, “This is a long haul, not a short race.” I try to do a few book things each day, and I’ve learned this last month to write down up to five to make myself feel ambitious enough that I can stop for the day, even if one task is just, “Wrote a Facebook update.”

Listen to good music often.

The easiest to follow and the quickest stress releaser I know.

Don’t move the goal posts.

My goal when I started was simple: write a book. Not: write a book in one year. Or: write every morning for three hours until you have a book. Or even: write a book and get published. Simply: write a book.

It’s hard not to move the goal posts because, really, there are so many amazing parts to this process. Once I had a book, I thought, “On to publishing!” I read and researched and chose my route. I submitted, was accepted, and then the goals came in quick procession: Choose a great book cover! Get blurbs from writers you admire! Write acknowledgements! Plan a book launch!

I was talking to my husband a few weeks ago. Actually, I was fretting. And as I fretted, I started talking faster and faster: “Should I do X? Or should I do Y or Z? And Omigod there are so many books published each day, how will mine be found and there’s so much to do and how will I do it? Really—there’s something like 500 books published every day in the US and I don’t know where I read that but I know I read it somewhere so I need to remind myself that, really, this is a long haul not a short race, there will be other books, but—”

And he said, “You’ve already accomplished your goal. You wrote a book you love. The rest is gravy.”

What relief I felt. And how lucky to have someone to remind me what it’s all about.

Every time I am frozen by all the decisions, all the possibilities and impossibilities, I remember those words and they comfort me like a bowl of warm mashed potatoes, as I hope they’ll comfort you, whatever your goal: from here on out, it’s all gravy.

Jessica Null Vealitzek is the author of The Rooms Are Filled, the 1983 coming-of-age story of two outcasts brought together by circumstance: a Minnesota farm boy transplanted to suburban Chicago after his father dies, and the closeted young woman who becomes his teacher. You can read more about Jessica and her book on her web site.