How will I know when it is the end?

 

How do you know when your book is complete and ready to be sent to the publisher for its final journey to the store's bookshelf?

I wonder, is there a writer who ever feels their book is 100% complete? Or do we just eventually force ourselves to hit send because we understand, on some level, that there will always be one more tweak, one more scene to be rewritten or rearranged.

From what I’ve seen, writers tend to fall into two groups, the I hate everything about editing kill me now, group. And the I love editing so much, I have twenty years versions of the same novel that I’ve been working on for the last twenty-five years, group.  I tend to be a mix of the two. I’m in the I hate editing, but can’t seem to stop because I want my work to be perfect, group. Which is reason number one million and one that I feel writer’s groups are necessary and important. Sometimes, you just need someone to say, in their best Shrek voice, “that’ll do, donkey. That’ll do.” Or if that fails, rip the computer keyboard out of your hands and hit send. Whatever works, no judgement here.

My first three books were self-published. There was something wonderful about having the power to make every decision on my own, on my own timeline. But I found that that may have been too much power for this writer to handle. It took me years before I was satisfied enough to call my first book complete and send it from my computer out into the world. I did a little better for books two and three, but still significantly longer than my publisher allowed for my first traditionally published novel.

Good thing too, because without that deadline, I’d probably still be editing the life right out of that story. That’s not to imply that this is true for all writers. I know some writers who can, and do, write several books a year. Not first drafts, but final drafts ready for publishing. I salute their discipline and determination and hope to join them one day. But for now, I’ll be completely done at 11:59pm the night of my publisher’s deadline.