Where is it? — July 21, 2025
Dying Light, Moss Landing, CA — Nov. 2018 photo
“No great work of art is every finished.” – Michelangelo
Where is that novel of yours? I’m asked this all the time. My website says it’s “coming soon.” But it’s all relative. Just think geological time when you see the word “soon” in relation to book publishing.
OK, part of the problem is I’m a perfectionist. That’s a good quality and a bad one. Good because I always want to do my best work, bad because it can inhibit productivity.
That professional edit I got at the beginning of the year required me to do some more thinking, more research, more interviews, more writing. I’ve filled plot holes, fixed inconsistencies, slowed down important turning points. The hardest thing is to know when to stop. There’s always one more thing that might make my story even better. But if I keep polishing this story, there’ll never be room for new ideas, new explorations, new projects.
It’s important to reach deep for your very best work. But if it devolves into tinkering, it can interfere with the freshness of the telling and squash the uniqueness of your writer’s voice. So my advice to myself and all you novelists out there is – polish, polish, polish, but listen to your gut when it tells you you’re done.
Oh, and that novel of mine? I think I’m almost ready to send the manuscript back to my editor for a final read through.
