For those of you who are publishing or have published, can I ask how you managed to build confidence in submitting potential articles, especially if you don't have trusted friend or workmate who can review your piece before submission?

I'm in the social sciences, and have found that generally, it's been a bit isolating regarding collaborating with other authors.

I need to publish and have one article published, but this was reviewed multiple times before it was submitted for consideration. Now that I've finished the PhD, I don't really have someone I can trust to review my articles that I have been drafting/revising from my thesis chapters, (and I don't want to hassle former thesis supervisors). I've just started a new academic role, so I haven't met anyone either that I could send my stuff to.

I know they say that you should get someone to look at your drafts before submission, but what do people do if they don't have anyone they can send it to? I'd even be happy with an R&R at this stage, so if I think it's good enough to send off, should I do it? How do you know when it's ready?

Do you have a mentor at work or just a colleague that you could ask whether there's any kind of support system for early career academics. Where I work, everyone is assigned a research mentor and I think (though I'm not sure because I'm not quite at the publication stage yet) that we are supposed to get some internal feedback on our articles before we submit them to a journal - such is the obsession with the REF these days.