When to Stop Polishing the Stone

Edits are progressing. My focus lately has been on continuity, and I'm amazed at how things can drift over the short distance of a novella. A city councilman's name changes from Westerfeld to Westerly to Westerfield. Timelines get all crazy and mixed up, where some events happen right on top of each other while others are temporally impossible.

Fortunately, this is a great place for our robot friend, the AI. I've passed my manuscript over to Claude and asked it to create a punch list of everything I need to fix where there's a continuity problem. To be clear, I'm not asking Claude to fix it; I'm asking it to point out all of the mistakes. It loves to point out my mistakes. It even loves to point out things that are not mistakes. One character in the book has a very distinct speaking style. Near the end of the book, that character varies from that style. I did this on purpose—it's part of the storytelling. However, Claude keeps pointing out that this character's voice has suddenly changed. Yes, Claude, I know. Thank you for helping. Now, give me the list and be quiet.

Now that I have my punch list, I can work through the manuscript from top to bottom and fix all the mistakes.

I'm still struggling with the question of what is "good enough." There are parts of the book that I like very much, and there are parts that I feel are less developed. It's still a complete story, but it lacks some of the depth and nuance that I had hoped for. I know I shouldn't badmouth my own work before anyone has even seen it. But that's the nature of you watching the sausage get made. I have one other reader I'm sending my book to shortly before I send it off for a formal copy edit. I want to get their take and see if they think it's worth developing further.

At the end of 2025, I set out the big, hairy, audacious goal of writing this book within a year. As it is, I fudged it a little by saying I wanted to have it publication-ready by the end of 2026. Since I started in October 2025, that's actually just over a year. The idea of going back and developing the weak points further almost guarantees I won't finish this before the end of the year. So the question is: which is more important, finishing by the self-imposed deadline or producing a product that I'm happier with? Fish or cut bait?

Part of me is ready to be done with this project and move on to something new. A different part of me wants to continue to polish this stone until it is the perfect first step for future publication. As the adage goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

As you may recall, my wife, Taleena, is also busy writing and publishing books—and she's doing it at a much faster pace than I am. She has released books two and three in her John Recht novel series, and you can purchase the whole series now in Kindle or hardback.

You can also pre-order the first book in her upcoming fantasy series. It releases at the end of the month.