Dear Edmund
Please tell me that somewhere, all of this ends. The playing with the story, the revisions, the internal logic ... that all of it eventually gets onto the page and is published, and you let it go.
Did you find it difficult to let go of Dreaming Creek?
Linda
Dear Linda,
I didn't find it difficult to let go of Dreaming Creek; if anything it was a relief. I spent SO many hours and days and weeks and months and years on it that I was ready to move on. Very ready. However, in order to do so, I had to accept the fact that it would live with certain flaws.
I think there was a tipping point where I was satisfied that it was good enough, even if it wasn't as good as it could possibly be. Because every month that goes by, I learn things about the book, the characters, and about writing in general, that could be used to make the book better. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life 'perfecting' the same book, I want to write new ones. So I've let go of the last one; I hardly think about it all. I'm focused on the next one. Of course, that’s a lot easier to do once the book has been published… but eventually you have to decide it's good enough -- and move on.
Edmund
3 comments:
Sound advice, that I am trying assiduously to follow.
Best of luck.
"Hey, if you wanna go thru life doing things half-assed, that's your business."
- Quote from "That 70's Show." Heh.
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