Going going gone

Phew! I finally handed my novel in to my agent on Friday! Hurray!

God knows if its good enough - I suspect there may be more work to be done - but after 5 (count 'em) redrafts, I was starting to see double and finding it hard to care anymore... I was just so desperate to get rid of the thing!

The rewrite was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was actually painful. For my brain. For my stressed-out body and for my poor husband, who started to think he was married to a laptop.

The hardest thing? When to stop. It was never going to perfect - but when would it be good enough? My teacher said keep going till you're happy with it. But I felt like I might go on fiddling forever.

By Friday, I reached a point when I felt like I was doing more harm than good - there's only so much you can cut and tweak something before it gets painful.

Who knows what my agent will make of it. He signed me up on basis of 15 chapters out of 7o! But even if it's crap at least I've done it. Stuck at it. A lot of people want to write a book. Few start. Even fewer finish, and fewer still get up pre-dawn and sit up past midnight polishing the thing into oblivion.

Keep telling yourself that, Jude.