Raise your hand if you consider yourself a perfectionist! I have fallen into this category in more areas of my life than I would care to admit. Whether I baked something that didn’t quite turn out right, so I’ll bring something else to the party. Or I can’t get this one passage of music to sound right, so I’ll practice all night until it does. But when it comes to writing, I have struggled to know when to stop perfecting and ‘let it go’.

Anyone else singing Frozen in their heads yet?

I’ve lost count of how many ‘versions’ of Dawn of Fire I’ve been through – although Google Docs could tell me. But what frightens me sometimes is that I don’t know if I’ll ever be done. Every time I sit down and add a better motivation, or brush up a character, I think “Now, now its done.” When I sent the draft to my editor for the first time I thought I was done. But six weeks later there were at least seven sticky notes on the side of my monitor of things I wanted to add when she sent it back.

Needless to say from the first round of professional editing to the second, 5,000 words were added.

So when does it end? I will admit it has slowed down considerably. After my last walk through the entire book, I knew there would not be quite as much to add this last time. The book has been back with my fantastic editor for about two weeks and so far there is only one sticky note with two bullet points on it.

But the fear is, what if I publish, and then want to add something?

That is the beauty of self publishing! It might cost a little, but it is relatively easy to put out a second edition or even upload a new document to Ingramspark. But that annoying little worry does nag at the back of my mind. When it does, I try to remember two things. The first comes from a good friend of mine. I shared with her how I was going back and forth on the spelling of my country’s name, and she said something I will never forget. Somewhat a take on a Van Gogh quote she said,

“Books are like art that way…they’re never exactly done, we just stop working on them.”

So simple, but so true! It hit me upside the head and that quote has been on an index card on my wall ever since. I keep trying to remind myself that at some point, if I want to share this with the world, I do have to stop working on it. While it may never be done – creativity always finds more to add – eventually I will stop working on it.

The second reminder is a bit of an anecdote from a family friend. Barb also works in writing and when she was a kid she loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – who doesn’t! But she possibly shares the perfectionist gene, and would keep spreading the peanut butter until it was just right. Well if you’ve ever spread peanut butter on bread you know that it can be an interesting undertaking. After watching her for a while, her dad would say, “At some point, you have to stop spreading the peanut butter.” When I heard this story I instantly connected with it! Of course it also makes me smile, because I love peanut butter. I’ve often had to remind myself of what Barb’s dad said,

“At some point, you have to stop spreading the peanut butter.”

Remember, at some point if you hope to share it, you will have to stop working on it. At some point, you will have to stop spreading the peanut butter. I am blessed to have so many wise women in my life to help me along the way! These are just two examples out of many more to come!

If I can stop spreading the peanut butter, Dawn of Fire will be released January 2022!