A New Look

I said I was going for a new look, so here it is.  Still not perfect, but I guess it will do for now.  Or...will it?

Is that what you say when you've revised and revised and revised until your face is the color of this page?  And then do you say...It's still not perfect but I guess it will do for now?  That usually means...it will do for sending out to see if I get a bite from an editor, and then revise what she wants me to.  Is that the best way to go?

I'm also a professional artist, and I can't count the number of times I've told my private students...Leave It!  Quit fussing with it, it is fine the way it is, any more futzing around and you are going to muddy the picture.  Do those words apply for writers?  We edit, revise, rewrite and edit some more.  Rewrite some more.  When do we get to say...my manuscript is as perfect and polished as it can be, any more messing around and I'm going to muddy the works.

My last ICL instructor told me when I finished the course that with a very few exceptions, my manuscript was ready to send out.  I "polished" those exceptions the way he suggested.  Then I 'polished' a few more places.  Then I rewrote a little bit of dialogue here and there.  Then I added a scene I'd been thinking about.  Then I changed the ending...not much, just a little.  It reads better now.  I think.

So if all this futzing around has been so good, and the polish is bright enough to blind, WHY haven't I sent the manuscript out?

When is "good enought" really, truly, good enough?  I guess that's a question I, for one, am not going to have an answer to until I actually start sending it out.  Then I figure there are about three options:  behind door # 1 is acceptance with a minimum of revisions;  behind door #2 is acceptance...maybe...with a LOT of revisions; and then there is door # 3...rejection.

But you know what?  I won't ever know which door I have opened until I start sending the manuscript out.

How about you?  Have you opened one of those doors yet?  Let me know.