Why I Stuck a Fork in It

That title came to me so much faster than it should have. Why can't I come up with a title for Alana that easily?

Anyway, to my point. How do you know a story is finished? That is something I've been trying to figure out with Alana. As I said in my previous post, I think Alana is pretty much done, but I'm not totally sure. I am terrible at judging my own writing.

I'm pretty sure that this is where other people would say that your critique partners come in. Seeing as I don't have any (I've unsuccessfully tried to find CPs multiple times. Inevitably the relationships have just fallen apart. No one's fault, they just haven't lasted), I can't really comment on that. I have had a few people read the book. One of my close friends who is also really particular about their reading material and I trusted to give me an honest opinion gave me some great insight, which I used in the fourth draft. But she's not a writer, so it's still hard to know if the book is done.

Still, after going through and doing a fourth draft, I really feel like it's done or as done as I can make it on my own. Why, you ask. Well, because on this run through, though I did find things that needed some changing, and I added some more small scenes, overall, I felt that the story was told. There didn't seem to be anything missing after the additions I made. It felt complete and cohesive to me at this point. I added far less on this go around than I have on any other draft (while I'm calling it a fourth draft, for this particular book, it's actually something like the 15th. This is just the fourth draft aft a complete rewrite of the entire thing a couple years ago). And while I'm sure I will always find things that I could change, overall, I really like the story and the way I've told it. I feel like it's good and might even be ready to be seen by the outside world.

So I've decided that I want to start submitting it. Which means I have a ton of research to do. And a query letter to write. And I need to write up basic outlines of the other two books in the series. And anything else that I might need to come up with for submitting purposes. Oy. Excuse me while I go cry in the corner over there.

Better get to work.