Every writer has to face the question of knowing when a particular work is done, as in finished and ready to release.
The problem is that there’s always more that could be added or refined. Writing is, by definition, imperfect. In fact, the vaster the ambitions of a novel, for instance, the more imperfect it will be. Visit the critical examinations of the great novels Huckleberry Finn and Moby-Dick as prime examples.
The decision finally comes down to the line where the work releases the writer. The obsession burns out. You’re exhausted and feel you need to move on. You’ve said all you can say. You’ve discovered just about everything of relevance you can on the subject. For some writers, I suppose, it’s like the end of an affair.
For luckier ones, it’s when the editor or publisher demands the manuscript, ready or not.
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I’ve previously posted on how my novels percolated over time. There was the sabbatical year I gave myself in Baltimore, where I lived off my savings and armed myself with a new personal computer with 5½-floppy disks (for you high-tech geeks with a knowledge of now ancient systems) as I poured myself into keyboarding rambling manuscripts in the search of publication.
When my savings ran out and I returned to the workaday world, I kept picking at those seminal drafts, usually on vacations and holidays. Other efforts at more marketable books also got attention and even a few nibbles, but in the end, none of them panned out. Working full-time, I simply didn’t have the additional open periods required for successful self-promotion.
I’m glad I didn’t wait until retirement, as so many others I’ve known did, to start writing those novels. The details and intensity would have evaporated. Instead, retirement played out in a different way and the novels did finally find publication.
My one fully new book was the one that grew into What’s Left, though it did start with piles of outtakes from the earlier novels as well as other material.
As I’ve also previously posted, it did eventually lead me to thoroughly revise and reissue those earlier novels.
The result is that I have eight books of fiction available today, and I am proud of them, even if they haven’t found wide readership or critical acclaim. Not that I wouldn’t welcome either.
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I am struck by how much has changed for me in the seven years since then, some of it a consequence of the shift to digital writing and publishing. I don’t require as much space for files, for one thing, or for research materials and correspondence. What can be found online with little effort is amazing, as I discovered while writing Quaking Dover. I hate to admit I no longer keep a dictionary or thesaurus at hand.
Downsizing to our remote fishing village at the far end of Maine four years ago meant that I no longer needed a studio in the attic. A corner of a bedroom sufficed for some pretty heaving writing and revision.
It’s a far cry from the dream I once had of remodeling the top of the red barn into a year-‘round studio that included a custom-build semi-circular desk with me sitting in its center – something like the copy desks that were common to many newsrooms.
No need for that now, not even at newspapers.
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The task for me now turns to cleaning out remaining files, both digital and physical, that are no longer needed. I don’t want to leave that mess to my wife and kids later.
One thing I’ll confess is that I doubt I have another novel up my proverbial sleave.
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You can find my novels in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They’re also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
Jnana's Red Barn 