“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
~William James
The problem with being a perfectionist is, well simply put . . . being a perfectionist. If you are one of “those” people, you know what I am talking about. Sure, there are some things I can let go of, like my messy closet I must get around to organizing with a bulldozer, but there are other things I am a terrier about.
My book is one of them. I find myself saying, “My book is finished . . . almost.”
Of course I want it free of typos and such, but when does one stop word-smithing? I’m not talking about changing the word “happy” to “glad” here. Reworking sentences and even whole paragraphs to make them perfect is a noble pursuit, but when does one know when a novel is finished? The day it is on bookstore shelves? The day the Pope blesses it? The day the kitchen timer goes off with a resounding ding to indicate my book is finished baking?
So I tweek, rearrange, spit-polish, tighten, and gnaw on my book like a bone. I sometimes think our old friend Mr. Shakespeare nailed it in the line from King Lear, “Striving to better, we oft mar what’s well.” I know this is true from experience. In some of my editing and tweeking, a later find that I left in a stray word I meant to take out, or take out too many.
But then again, we have these two conflicting quotes:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
AND
“A beautiful thing is never perfect.”
~The Book of Proverbs
If you are struggling with the same dilemma, here is a link to Roz Morris’ helpful advice:
how-do-you-know-when-your-book-is-finished
I leave you with this. Even Mother Nature isn’t always perfect. Here is an example of when she got it right:
Tornadoes on the other hand, she should rethink.
Robin Coyle 
But tornadoes can be so beautiful. Kind of ironic since the destruction they leave behind isn’t.
Mother Nature is amazing. And . . . powerful.
Dear Robin,
If you continue gnawing you’ll end up with no meat. Write something else, something completely different, for a few weeks and then go back to it.
Love Dotty xxx
Good point Dotty. At one point I gnawed out some really good stuff and had to go back and add it in again. I had edited out my “voice,” but she is back!
I feel you. I was in the midst of editing my second novel in January, but decided to go back and read my first novel and realized that what I thought was an edited manuscript wasn’t. At least to my standards “now”. Back then, it was good to go, but with what I’ve learned the last few months and what I’ve become now as a writer told me that I NEEDED to rewrite my story. Sure, most of what was already written was good to go, but it could be better.
I hope this round of tweaking will be enough to satisfy me and hopefully land me a published book that will be appreciated by many.
And then I can move on and finally go back to editing my second novel.
Tweak away…
Great comment and timely for me. The same thing happened to me yesterday. A friend saw on my blog that I had written an essay on my husband’s love affair with his bicycle. He (the friend) asked me to send the essay to him as he wanted to read it. Being the diligent writer that I am I thought, “hell, I better reread it before sending it.”
Boy am I glad I did! I too have learned so much since I wrote the piece two years ago. The content was still good, but the writing was rather sloppy.
Yes, exactly. I felt that my plot, the characters and the conversations were on point, but some parts needed help. The challenge now is rewriting my first novel, while really wanting to continue editing the second one. I hope I find a way to do both and not go nuts. Haha.
I guess we just have to keep at it and not give up.
Back to editing. 🙂
Tweaking is good 🙂
I think sometimes you just have to say it is done and send it to others who will tell you whether they think it is done. Then there may be more tweaking required!
That made me laugh! I’m waiting on feedback from my beta readers and I’m sure there will be some tweeking. I’m hopeful they don’t say “tweek it into the garbage!” Thanks for the comment.