the craft. knowing when you're done.

“How will I know when I’m finished?” This is a normal question that I get from writers all the time around their work. Specifically when it comes to the undertaking of a book. The quick answer is never. I’d be afraid to read GOOD MORNING, LOVE right now because there are still things I’d want to change. But the longer answer, I’ll get into this week.

I’ve been working on a manuscript over the past year and some change that I recently sent over to my agent for her feedback. And even as my cursor hovered over the send button, I was having second thoughts. Maybe I needed to read it one last time. But then I had to remind myself, this is not the finished product. It’s a draft. If publishing my debut novel taught me anything, it’s that there will still be a lot more feedback coming down the pipeline. So it doesn’t have to be perfect, just done.

But getting to that place is a daunting task for sure. What I feel like can be overlooked in the publishing journey is just how long it takes to write books. Sometimes, I’m distracted by the YA community because it feels like they put out multiple books in a year. But depending on what you’re writing, it doesn’t necessarily work like that. Recently, I attended the launch event for “The House in the Pines” and Ana Reyes mentioned it was seven years in the making. Seven years, people.

Now, everyone’s timeline will be different, but I want to walk you through a bit of my process that allowed me to feel comfortable enough to hit send.

I guess you can say that I write a bit of a skeleton draft first, which Angie Thomas talks about in her book on craft, “Find Your Voice.” This is simply telling the story to myself.

Once I’ve got the story down start to finish, I go back and fill it in. How can I make it more robust? What plot points can be strengthened? How can I make my characters feel more 3D?

After that, I’m at about pass three which involves going from top to bottom and adding what speaks to me. This is likely after I’ve had some time away from the manuscript. Life gets busy so it’s important to get some distance between you and the work. When you come back to it, you have such fresh eyes. You’ll find places to revise that you may have missed before.

Then, once I’m feeling really good, I’ll print. I talked a lot about that process in a previous post. With this current work in progress, that also involved me dropping off a copy to my mother while visiting for the holidays. She’s always my first beta reader.

I took all the feedback from my mom and from myself, and made more revisions that included adding two additional chapters to help with pacing and storyline. And with the fact that the last few months I’ve been so enveloped in these characters, I was finally ready to let it rip. A little later than my goal of the end of January, but alas, we made it.

Once I get feedback from my agent, I’ll make whatever necessary changes and then decide if I want to go out to a couple more beta readers before really committing. But the reality is, if my agent thinks it’s in good enough shape for submission, I would still have time to turn in a “final version.” In your book contract, it will have a deadline to have in for the first round of edits which can be a couple of months out. I kind of handed Good Morning, Love in right away, but this time around, I think I would take that extra time to continue to tighten it up.

It’s not that you ever really know when you’re done. At least not in my experience. You just have to know when you’ve taken it as far as you can in this particular season of the book. Then, once you get those objective opinions, it’s a refreshing energy to keep building on. There is a Donnie McClurkin song that says, “after you’ve done all you can.” lol. And I feel like that’s how it works with books. When you’ve done all you can, it’s time to hand it over. Our work is never really done, but you will have to get to a place of knowing you have done your best.

And now, it’s time to jump into revisions for book idea #3. I’ve written 79k words of it, and this is me coming back to it after some time off. I’ll go back through it, tighten up the narrative, add some more poetic language, and I hope to have that off to my agent by the end of March. The work don’t stop!

Writing/Job Opportunities

The Sun Magazine is looking for essays that explore music with a memoiristic lens. Personal experience and identities with music. Accepting pitches of completed essays. https://www.thesunmagazine.org/submit

Tajja Isen is seeking more essays about specific, unexpected, underrepresented places. Especially in nature. Essays both *about* place and with a strong sense of it. For more specs, check their pitch guide here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IOABgYx4Ce8cV0uCJQNwDgshvptikpol7v05fFqsSfU/edit

Lisa Pasque is looking for freelance health writers for the Mayo Clinic Press website. Topics include women's health, mental health, parenting, health inequities and more. Rate is $1/word. Email: pasque.elisabeth@mayo.edu.

Paul Kim is Insider's personal finance desk editor and looking for freelancers to write stories about credit scores, reports, and identity theft. pkim@insider.com. Rates range from $250 to $600 by story type.

Diem is seeking personal essays & opinion pieces for their newsletter the “Things We (Don’t) Talk About.” They’re looking for taboo, candid, fun, & thoughtful conversation starters around relationships, health, & money. Rates: $200 ~700 words.

The Washington Post is hiring a Fashion Writer.

The Boston Globe is hiring a Books Editor.

The Lever News is hiring for multiple newsroom roles.