TUESDAY TIDBITS: Good Enough Never Is.

      
     I'm finishing up my Caenus manuscript. It has seen a lot of iterations. It's gone from plot twists to plot strangles. It's marginally recognizable from it's younger days, in the same way that a grown person doesn't really resemble themselves as a baby, yet you can still see the signiture lines and features. My manuscript is grown now... or at least I hope it is.

     Which leads me to my next point. WIP's are *never* really grown... they're always growing. They can always be improved, yes? So, thinking that my Caenus WIP is all *grown* is simply to say that I think it's ready to be queried. But even as I think that, every time I read back through it, I change something. OK, who am I kidding... something(s). A writer's job is never done.

     Which leads me to my next point. Good Enough Never Is. Agents and editors turn down "Good Enough" every day, all day long. "Good Enough" still needs more work. In some cases, lots more work. Even "Great" manuscripts need more work. So why try to submit something that is simply "Good Enough?"

     Keep working, striving for perfection, honing, sanding, smoothing, sharpening, and polishing. Look at every word, every verb, every dialogue tag, every sentence through the *Good-Better-Best* lense. The difference between "Good Enough" and "Great" is not huge, but it is significant. And it could mean getting an offer of representation versus simply a request for a partial/ full and then a response of "not for me."

Here's a great post from Clarissa Draper over at Listen To The Voices

Two Things Every Sentence Must Accomplish

Here's another great resource

Adventures In Children's Publishing

And with that... I'm off to hone some more before I travel maneuver wind through get beat down by enter the dreaded gauntlet of querying.

Happy Writing. Happier Editing.