You, sir, are the kind of student teachers live for, especially writing teachers. The ones who want to know what they're doing wrong (or ineffectively) and how to fix not that mistake but the habit behind it.

The story is inspiring, but also daunting, as it should be. The theme throughout is commitment to the process and acceptance of the time it takes. Too many writers can't wait to "finish" their first novel so that they can publish it and quit their day job. They don't want to hear Hemingway's words: "The first draft of anything is crap."

The other point I hope your readers notice is in the section on your writing group. Too many peer critique groups get derailed by time-wasting grammar nazis who want to talk about punctuation rules. The value in such group, though, is in big-picture stuff: plot arc, character development, scene structure, voice, pacing, tone, etc. It's pointless to proofread an early draft, fixing spelling errors in sentences that will probably be cut in the next rewrite.

Nuff said. Good luck, I'll add, because that's still a factor.