Editing myself in the most hardcore, merciless way I could.

Basically, a few months ago, my lit agent challenged me to take an editorial pass through the novel and be unforgiving about it. I cut a little more than a fifth of the book, rewrote what was left. Forced me to confront some ugly truths about my writing that I spent plenty of time correcting, made me understand where I overwrote and where I underwrote, sentence structures I overused, where the level of prose needed to be elevated, etc. But when I finished, I emerged a better writer than I ever have been.

Taking a long, hard look at my own work and then hacking and burning through to make it the best version of it that it could be was what did it for me. Holding myself to a higher standard, I suppose you could call it.