How Do You Know When You’re Done? -- Jennie

After writing a YA story, you revise and revise and revise it. The revision itself takes twice as long as the actual writing. You are determined to make the manuscript the very best it can be.

But where is the line between polishing and obsessing?

After five months of editing, I can still add/delete/change at least ten words on each page.

It just never gets perfect.

At the Big Sur Writing Conference last winter, literary agent Laura Rennert advised us that the more we revise, the stronger the book’s voice becomes.

How do we know when that voice is strong enough?

Maybe we don’t.

Maybe we get to a point where we need to trust our writing groups and readers.

It’s hard to do, that letting go. Especially when, after one more revision, or maybe two or twenty, the book would be absolutely flawless.

Until an agent gets her hands on it.

It's Just That Good - Christy

I’m the kind of person who never misses a meal, even if I have to take beta blockers in order to deal with the social anxiety of sitting with hundreds of strangers. So last year at a writing workshop that I attended without the camaraderie of my writing group, I tried to time it so I’d arrive for dinner right as the dreaded “wine reception” was ending. Unfortunately, when I got there it was in full swing so I had to grab a drink and make a few laps, hoping for someone to grab my arm and say something, anything, to me. While social, even gregarious, in many ways, I am absolutely incapable of walking up to a cluster of strangers and joining in the conversation, especially if the topic is oneself and one’s writing.

Dizzy from my fruitless laps, I took my wine and slipped out of a side door into the wet, black night where I found a fellow writer having a smoke—a very bold choice at a Children’s Writing Workshop. I liked her instantly and we struck up a friendship that lasted through the conference and even beyond; we emailed for awhile and she sent me some new work to edit and I felt like we had a good thing going. Until I sent her a book. It was my absolute favorite book on writing, a gem that I reread at least once a year—Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life. And then I never heard from her again. Not a peep.

I feel weird about it, and I think about her and the book every now and then and get that icky cringe sensation. But I can’t stop giving that book away. If anyone within earshot mentions that they’ve thought about writing, I note their address and send it off. In fact, I sent one off yesterday to a woman I met on my trip to Palenque who is full of stories waiting to be set free. When I was checking out of Amazon I looked through my account history and saw that I had given the book away 16 times—four of those even after it ended a relationship! It’s just that good.

If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to order it in hardcover so you can reread it yearly as I do. Or, if you’re at a Writers Workshop and see a woman walking laps and trying to look as if she has a destination, for the love of God grab her arm and introduce yourself! You might find a box from Amazon on your porch not long after.

-Christy