How do you know when it’s love?

So it’s finally done, Pass on the Cup of Dreams, the third novel in the Six Kingdoms series, which will be published in early December in e-format and as a POD book by the wonderful folks at Lucky Bat.  Or about the same time my new lucky beard will stop scratching.  As a boyhood fan of the Red Sox (I was at Ted Williams’ last game at Fenway, I swear) I now figure their 2013 Team Amish beards certainly had a part in helping them win the World Series, so maybe one would help with the launch of my longest novel to date.

The beard had nothing to do with the two-month hiatus from the Muselair.  No, the culprit was the additional proofing and line-editing of the 160K word manuscript of Pass on the Cup of Dreams.  I’d thought I was done with squinting for typos.  Which isn’t the same thing as knowing when a book’s finished.  Cleaning up clunky sentences and correcting mistakes isn’t the same as knowing when this character needs more flesh on her bones, or less on his; or that the narrative gets bogged down here, then there; or that the ending sucks–you get the idea.

Gatekeepers of traditional publishing might think that the march of indie publishing has a precedent with Sherman’s as he burned and pillaged his way to the Atlantic during the Civil War.   For a writer, indie publishing has many advantages, but with the whoopee comes the temptation to hustle a book out as fast as you can.

‘Good enough’ is the operative excuse for some otherwise staunch and worthy indie advocates, and one that occasionally comes with a strawman scolding of writers whom they believe regard a book not as a commodity but something precious, a mirror of words to reflect their obvious genius and uniqueness–the Snowflake Syndrome.  Production line writing has its benefits, sure.  The more books you have out there, the fatter your wallet will be.  That’s probably true.  And anyway, quality can be subjective and often goes unrecognized and unrewarded.  Roger that.

Still, a writer has to decide whether he or she wants truckloads of ‘good enough’ books on the market, or fewer books that might keep a reader thinking about the last one a wee bit longer after she’s finished it.  For me, that’s closer to the reason why I write, though I’d love to pay more bills with telling stories.  My hat’s off to those who can produce terrific books in rapid succession.

The key here is busting your butt crafting the thing–not in pursuit of unattainable perfection, but excellence.  If you’ve done that and still wind up with a ‘good enough’ book in the eyes of readers, then so be it.  You’ve done your job the best you can.

Which brings us to:  how do you know where the finish line is?  We’re not talking about spelling mistakes.  How polished does the diamond have to be?

How do you know when it’s love?

In a way, learning to write well is learning to answer this question for yourself.  Beta readers can help if you’re sure you can trust their objectivity.  A content editor, too.  But expert ones are hard to find.  So it’s a good idea to develop your own ability to see if something isn’t working, and why–so you can better judge the merits of others’ solutions to a problem if need be.

After I’ve completed the first of what are usually three or four drafts, I set it aside for a while, then go back and assess.  For me, these are important questions to answer:  does every chapter advance the plot, and/or character development, and ratchet up tension?  Is the beginning far enough along the narrative line; the ending a natural consequence of what’s transpired?  These  are a book’s studs and rafters.   I focus later on other things, such as honing dialogue and making sure description is active and not passive.

What you’ve done has to ‘ping’, and the ability to ‘hear’ that takes time to develop.  Then you have to move on, let it go.  If you have trouble doing that, you’d best give yourself a date when you send your book off to be published.

Call it a graduation date.  Kind of like having kids.  You don’t get to work them over and over until they’re perfect.  After they graduate from high school they’re on their own.