The Sound of Silence That Tells You Your Work Is Finished
How to know when to submit, when to keep editing, and when to press pause
My agent once called me a “finisher.” It was a nod to my persistence, since I can take anywhere from two to seventeen years to finish writing a book — I don’t give up easily. But I seem to be going for a new record with the family memoir that’s now giving me the side-eye from my desk’s darkest corner.
I started work on this project when my father died in 2007. It moved in and out of focus as I ghosted four other books over the intervening years, but in 2021, I believed I’d finished it. My agent disagreed. He said the voice was off, the structure didn’t work. It didn’t pack the punch he’d need to sell it to a major house
I mentioned a small press that might publish it as-is, but my agent asked if I really wanted to undersell myself. I was sorely tempted to say, yes. I yearned to be finished with this project. Fourteen years is a long time. And yet, I knew it was still too soon to quit.
The project had merit, my agent was telling me. It just hadn’t yet found the form that would let it sing. I knew he was right.
One year later, I thought I might have identified the right form, but I’d barely begun to revise the memoir (for the…
