I have a question for you writers out there... one that I would like to know the answer to. How do you know when your MS is ready to be sent out?
Seriously. I spent the weekend editing. Rewriting. And just doing everything to the first three chapters. I was done. Or so I was convinced. I live in my own little world because apparently nothing I am writing is making sense. Or so it feels. At this point, I'm seriously concerned that I am overwriting. Or overediting as it may be the case at the moment.
I was done. I was sure of it. And then I decided to take another look and chapter 2 suddenly didn't really make sense anymore. You have some 'splaining to do, Lucy! So what'd I do? I decided that I needed a prologue. Yes... another faux pas to some. Is it needed, I don't know. I thought maybe it did but now, I'm just not so sure. So what do I do? It needs to be reread. I can't see the forest through the trees anymore.
Objectivity? I don't have it. I don't even know what it's like anymore. All that I know, is that my words read wrong. It's me. Or I'd like to think it's just that nagging little voice in my head, whispering of mistakes and what ifs. I want to think it's not instinct telling me that it's not ready. I'll find out soon enough, however. But for now, I'm just sitting here, wondering now what?
I move on. I go through the rest. I write the next. But it doesn't make things less difficult.
So what do you do? Do you distract yourself? How do you know when you're done and are not on the verge of overediting?
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I ain't no expert. I think giving it to a few trusted readers to see what they think helps though. Also - I like contests for this reason, its unbiased and gets me some good feedback.
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