This month’s question is: When do you know your story is ready?
Um… I don’t? Looking back at Twisted Magics, I’m sure I could have spent more time on it. I could have driven myself even more mad and kept working on it. But then I’d never move on.
The truth is I had someone else tell me it was time to let it go. With Shattered Illusions, I’ve set my deadlines and I need to meet them. While writing is fun for me, I also treat it like a job. Since I’m my own boss it would be easy to simply push off those deadlines or not even make them at all.
But I won’t. Part of it is my small audience looking for more. As much as I continue to doubt anyone actually likes my work, the occasional comment keeps me going.
The rest is likely insanity. I’m still working out this faster paced schedule, but it seems to be okay so far. Though I know I drive my husband mad sometimes with how obsessed I get with needing to get work done so I can meet my self-imposed deadlines.
Now I have to rely on myself to schedule when I’m done (pending massive issues of course). Â Unfortunately I still haven’t figured out how to do it with my shorter stuff. Mostly because I dabble with those stories in between everything else.
And I think I’ve come to accept the phrase about how it is never finished, just paused. Or something like that. Honestly, I’ve forgotten the actual quote.
About the Insecure Writer’s Support Group
J.C. Jackson 
Yeah, I think it helps when someone you trust also tells you that something’s ready. It’s often hard to let go or see clearly when you’re so close to a project. Another set of eyes always helps.
IWSG October
Yeah, when I was chatting with Jim about endlessly tweaking a story until I hit the submission deadline, he told me sometimes stories must be abandoned, in reference to Heinlein’s rule #3.
At this point, I think I will finish writing MMF, pass it through some betas, and then call it abandoned.
But abandoned sounds so sad. It makes me want to take it home.
Though thanks for pointing me at those rules. I think I’ve heard of a lot of them, but it was always in passing.
The older I get, the more I realize I need deadlines to keep me on track. External deadlines work better for me than my self-imposed ones, but that’s something I need to work on, keeping myself accountable to/for me.
It’s quite hard to have the discipline to work to those self-imposed deadlines, but sometimes we need to in order to move on. I have to rely on others to know when something’s finished too. Never finished, just paused – I like that!
I also set myself deadlines and also drive myself nuts with them. All the best!