I have a very hard time weathering the enthusiasm storm. When I write something, I usually get really excited around draft two or three. I think my story is fun, exciting, fresh, different, brilliant! Ready to be published! Of course, I'm wrong. But it takes a great amount of will power and patience to not just shuttle that little baby manuscript off to agents and publishers right that very moment!
I have learned that I need to step back. Let the words rest. Get my critiques in from my groups. Revise, revise, polish, revise. Do my agent/publisher research. Then revise and polish again.
Even after all that, I have regretted submitting the occasional manuscript too soon. The magical "it's ready" is a very elusive thing. Spotting it is not a skill I've mastered yet. But I'm making progress. How about you?
It's a toughie. Unfortunately, we probably don't know when "it's ready" unless we get interest from an editor or agent. But I've learned more about recognizing when it's not ready.
ReplyDeleteI think good critique partners can really tell you if its ready or not.
ReplyDeleteI haven't mastered that yet either. I think it takes others to let us know (oops, just like Corey said above). We have to trust ourselves and others.
ReplyDeleteIt is tough, but I think you begin to develop a feel for it with time and after enough feedback enough times from your crit partners. Even a ms that's "ready" is likely to get at least some tweaking comments from an editor. The thing that's easiest to learn (but still so hard to do!) is let it rest - and you already know that part :)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree - but then in order to stop myself from submitting too soon I end up putting it off for way too long and over-tweaking! The balance is very hard to find, I think it is just a case of trial and error.
ReplyDeleteI am sure you will work it out (and hope I will too!)
Interesting post, thanks Megan :)
Wow, what great opportunities. Thanks for spreading the word!
ReplyDeleteI think it's easy for a critique group who has seen it since the beginning to get excited towards the end. Maybe once critique buddies have okayed it, pretend it has gone out and let it rest again. It is so easy to see if it's good or not once you've written another two stories and look back. I don't think it's good enough to work on other parts of the same submission, like the query and then go back to it, I think you have to work on at least two other new stories to get some kind of perspective. Hopefully we'll know before we need a walking stick lol.
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