Today’s post is pure, unadulterated plagiarism. There, I said it out front. I’ve taken a fellow writer/blogger’s post today, and run with it because it’s timely, and it’s something I’ve been pondering for a long time. In today’s Procrastiwriter blog, Shanan Haislip discusses the relative merits of tweaking ones work, massaging the writing and altering, editing, changing and rearranging so the damn thing shines like a diamond in a goat’s ass. Or at least until WE think it does. It applies to any artistic endeavor: how the hell do we know when it’s done?

The great American poet laureate John Ciardi once said his fear when letting go of a poem was that he may have left part of it in his head. I think this fear is very real among writers of every genre. We tend to be perfectionists with our craft, so I suppose the only way to know if something’s ready to go into the cold, cruel world is to ask someone else. I compare it to sending our kids to school the first day. If they’re home by noon weeping and desolate, we sent them too soon, we left part of their development in our heads. Personally, I’m never sure when something’s ready. Too bad there’s no intermediate step between ‘I think it’s done,’ and the rejection or acceptance slip. The question points up the value of a good editor, I suppose.
One way I personally figure out if the damned thing is done is read it aloud. That usually points out the clunkers, and tells me if the thing is ready for a publisher or a spot in the bottom of my bird cage. The writing always benefits from sitting for a day/week/year as well. The story may be apocryphal and likely is, but literary legend has it that Tolstoy rewrote War and Peace seven times. Okay, his wife Sophia rewrote it seven times, but the damned thing is one of the longest books in world literature and it was tweaked to a gnat's ass. Maybe the answer to the question 'is it done yet?' is simply this: will your spouse read it one more time?