When is your edit done?

I changed the header of my blog to include a sentence Anthony Bourdain used on No Reservations. I know I have heard it before, but it is like a professor/friend of mine said to me one day when I was extolling a painting I had passed dozens of times but the brilliance of it struck me that particular day.

“You were just ready to see it.” He said.

As I treat my writing, this time, in a professional manner, it is the journey of writing that is so important to me. The internet opens that journey for all of us and I am so ready to see it.

When I began my Mystery, oh so long ago, I purchased some books and, having read Mysteries for years, felt I had the skills to write a Mystery. I had some minor publishing credits and have written for years. I then received an excellent critique, at Of Dark and Stormy Nights in Chicago, from a published author. But, I always felt the plotting was faulty and I put my nearly complete, but not edited, Mystery aside.

In Wyoming I belonged to an eclectic writing critique group. There were rhyming poets, free verse poets, a romance writer who was currently specializing in gay romance, and myself. I received some wonderful critiquing and grew in my writing. I miss all these fine writers.

On my own again, in Indiana, I turn to the internet. You can find it all, except maybe for endings, you just have to be open to what you find AND you have to know when to quit searching the internet and finish the blasted thing. I'm ready for that now.

But, when are you done? One of my first painting instructors, during a discussion on how to tell if someone is a professional quality artist or not, said, “A hobbyist is someone who completes their work, steps back and thinks to themselves ‘look what I did.’ A professional completes their work, steps back and says, ‘I can do better.’

Sometimes you just have to let go. I tend to work paintings to death. Now, I may be working this book to death. I do not want to work the life out of it. I wonder if there is a search to be had for “knowing when you are done?” Because, I am ready for it.