Is it Finished?

I’m having the problem of knowing when I’m done.

My novella River’s Heart is the introduction to The Shadow Coven series and it’s scheduled for release on Friday the 19th of April, which is one week away, and during an extra read-through I reached the decision that I need to add one more scene.

Bad idea. This is the point I’m supposed to be finished. This is the point nothing should be being added to the manuscript. Which begs the question how do you know when the book is done? That’s the hard part. At least for me it is.

The trick is finding the sweet spot between not edited enough and over edited, but if I keep going, I find I can always find things to change, doubt that it’s good enough will always creep in.

So, what’s my advice on this? I do two things. One I make sure I put it aside and go and work on something else for a while. Maybe a poem, maybe a blog post, maybe another work of fiction. Anything that takes my mind off the piece of work I’m editing. The problem with going over and over something is that you can start to read the words as what you mean to say them rather than what they do say, so you need a pallet cleanser project to make your brain read it afresh, without it playing in your imagination before you take the words in.

My other piece of advice is to read it aloud. Tape yourself reading it and then play it back, and then you hear all the parts that don’t sound right. Maybe it stutters or it could be that you discover there are unanswered questions. Reading it out loud helps you to hear where your story isn’t smooth.

Now I have to go and take my own advice and read aloud this extra scene I’ve added before the release date of River’s Heart.

I Can't Stop Reading: Intervention!

What do you do when you have writing to do, but you can’t put down your e-reader? I’m lost in a sea of other indie romance writer’s words. I need an intervention. This afternoon my plan is to write, but even now other books are staring at me, drawing me in.

Once I find an author, I’m working through the entire book, but I don’t know if it’s lack of will-power or whether I’m procrastinating. All in know is I’m all about books.

The way to justify it is to look at it as a learning lesson, after all, they say you can’t be a writer if you don’t read, and boy do I read. But with every book I learn something, and I know it makes me a better writer.

I like to think that as a romance writer reading other romance books helps me to absorb their talent through my eyeball. I am not rationalising. It could be true. But if not, then there are some actual skills that can be learned from reading.

You can encourage inspiration and imagination, you learn what works and what doesn’t, you take in word choices, quotes, descriptions.

Still, it is an issue, that at the moment, rather than write, I read, because my shifter book is waiting to be finished, my characters are waiting to have their story told, and I’m too busy reading about other writer’s shifters to tell it.

I think I need someone to come and take the books from my hands and hide them from me. But then the reason I’m a writer is because I love to read, so maybe I should just continue.