Do Pro Writers Really Not Know if their Work is any Good?

So I wanted to talk about this phenomenon that I and many other writers experience right before a book drops. I felt this most when I wrote RAPTURE, and I’m here again with EMPIRE ASCENDANT, because these were books I wrote and rewrote massively right before deadline. It meant I didn’t have time to sit back and look at them from a great distance and get an objective look at them. With GOD’S WAR I literally had years of waiting between draft revisions as the book was shopped, picked up, droppe...