During what I’d hoped would be my final pass through the novel, I found a few stubborn clunker lines that had somehow survived my past attempts to smooth everything out. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; 124,000 words gives lame writing plenty of quarter—proof, I guess that a book’s never really done.
I know I could keep tweaking and editing forever, but the end must come sometime, or the pages will never see the light of day. So, after 13 years in varying states of disarray and progress, here it is, in the photo above and on my desk: the very last draft of Two Performance Artists (I swear!). After one more read-through, it’ll head back to the editor for another pre-press read while a second copy goes to the publisher’s book designer so layout can begin on the galley proofs I’ll mail to early reviewers this summer.
Maybe “done” is best defined as when I walk away from the keyboard for the very last time.
*** UPDATE: The prepress edit is back from Charlie, my editor, and finished. OMG it’s DONE! Next stop: advance copies for reviewers. Thank you Charlie, KayDee, and Freakshow Books. Stop by the Two Performance Artists website to follow the madness. It’s gonna be a wild(er) ride from here on out!
“Books are never finished; they’re merely abandoned.”
—Oscar Wilde
July 26th, 2013 at 12:18 pm
mario puzo’s The Godfather is the greatest selling US novel of all time. He is probably one of the greatest contemporary novelists within the last half of a century because of his innate ability to tell an extraordinary story. But, because he was a guinea daggo whop he will get no laud from the literary world. He made several great fuctional novels outside of the gf, but because his concentration was on story telling and not pretentious literary drivel he will be a forgotten writer. His stories will live but the man’s talents will be put in the ash heap because he didnt hit the right thematic chords with the protestant pofessorial elites of the typical college campus.
With no more complaints about puzo’s lack of play within professorial circles i come to a point: puzo never felt satisfied with The Godfather. He felt that it needed more rewrites. If you read the book you would no that it trumps the movie…and thst movie was fucking excellent.
If you have done your rewrite and your agents love it and your friends love it and you are disatisfied, turn the fuckin thing in and dont think about it or read it for a spell. When u come back to it you may find that you created a very god novel and story.
May 21st, 2013 at 9:59 am
I think Oscar Wilde answered it: you’re never *really* done. It’s more a question of, when are you done *enough*? And the answer to that is multipartite: When you read the book do you find it to be error-free? Have you had it read by a professional editor (either your publisher’s or one for hire)? Have you read it through line by line? Does the text flow gracefully without awkward constructions? Do any unnecessary words remain? Does your sixth sense tell you there are logic or timeline errors (I say sixth sense because I usually feel these intuitively before I can consciously detect them)? Have you set the book down for a month (or months), then returned to it so you can see the text more objectively? And what about your readers? Does any passage or dialogue raise questions, seem to drag, or give them pause? For me, the editing process is iterative; I have to read the text over and over, asking all of the questions above, and with each pass, the red flags flap a little less (I hope).
At some point, the critical errors fall away, and you’re left with just subjective text twiddling; a given word or passage might seem to merit a change, depending on your mood that day; when you reach that point, where you’re making changes you feel could also just be left as-is, then you’re probably nearing “close enough.”
When you hit that point, it’s critical to let readers make another pass, just to be sure. And you may hit that point several times. Which may drive your regular readers crazy. But ask them for another go anyway. And then ask a professional editor to make another pass. And then, after layout’s complete, another pass, since punctuation and page breaks can easily mess things up. And then, while waiting for your galleys to come back, make another pass. And while you’re waiting for reviews, another pass.
At some point, the book will be selling. And any errors will be found and reported by nitpickers on Amazon and elsewhere. Which of course, is too, too late for changes. Which means, congratulations, you’re done.
May 16th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
How do you know when you’re “done”? I’m starting to write a novel now. How will I know?