Never-ending Story

Is a book, I wonder, now approaching my ninth year of taking writing seriously, ever really finished? It seems to me that I have rewritten, retouched, edited, contracted and bled out far more than I have actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

At the end of last year, I finished my first full length novel for adults. Having read and re-read and edited it to the best of my ability, it is now being introduced via the miracles of email to those who might take it onwards. I’m fearful in case it is rejected, I’m equally fearful lest it might be considered worth pursuing. Why? Because a publisher will want me to change bits, cut things out, kill off characters, and, worst of all, they may decide to surgically remove its very soul by the lifting out of my beloved Oxford comma. I shudder at this prospect.

I am done with the book, I want it out there being read. I’m tired already, of efforts to perfect it. And yet, I know that if I’m fortunate enough to be picked up, there will be more work to do. I sigh inwardly as I write this, because of course, I know it must be done, and I know that the other work I have rewritten is better than it was before. If the first draft were perfect, we’d be living in a dream world. And we are all aware that the getting it out of our heads onto paper or screen is just the beginning of the writer’s labour.

I do wonder though, if everything I’ve ever written will continue to haunt me in this way. Perhaps some of the veteran writers out there can tell me. I spent last November refining an old ebook of prayers, and have just begun reworking a non-fiction title that needs updating due to those pesky world events that are always happening. No-one even asked me to do it, as these are indie published titles. I just want them to be the best they can be. Does it never end? Can I, will I ever be able to say that a book is once and for all put to bed?

Maybe children’s picture books are the answer. Maybe they are so short and so finalised once they go out that you never have to update them? It could be a plan. Except that like poetry, each word needs to be exactly right and in the perfect place. The truth is, I know, whether universally acknowledged or not, that if a genius such as Jane Austen tinkered with her work right till the very end, constantly seeking improvement, then a mere mortal like myself definitely needs to keep doing just that.  

Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a disabled writer and artist with a passion for poetry, mysticism, story and colour. Her writing features regularly on spiritual blogs and in literary journals. Her full-length publications include Garden of God’s Heart and Whale Song: Choosing Life with Jonah. She lives in South East England and is mainly housebound by her illness.

Picture from Pixabay