Let It Go

Well, I did it. I pushed the big red button. The queries are flying.

I've been biting my nails and hemming and hawing over this particular line in the sand for some time. After all, I've jumped the gun before with other projects. And I mean, the thing looks pretty solid and final to me, but I've thought that at the end of every draft so far. I've put it through beta readers, pro editing, and umpty zillion re-reads and pickings over of my own. In the end, how do I know I'm ready? Like, REALLY ready?

That's what it boiled down to as much as anything else. This is a thing I know about myself: if I stand at the edge of a cliff for too long, I will pitch myself over it. It's like a law of nature. I just can't contemplate a course of action for any length of time without doing something about it. And after contemplating the big red button for long enough, I eventually got to a point where, if I didn't feel precisely ready, I no longer felt unready enough to hold myself back.

I'm far from sure that the book is perfect. What I am pretty sure about - as sure as I'm going to get - is that this is my best crack at it, the closest I am capable of getting to the shining platonic form of this story in my head. This is, honest to god, my very best work to date. If it's not good enough, well, so be it, and I may as well find that out...but if it's not good enough, it won't be because I could do better.

And anyway, it might be good enough. There exists that faint, tantalizing possibility.