Alison Strobel

One would think that putting that final piece of punctuation on a manuscript would deliver a feeling of closure. It's done! You know how it ends! You managed to string tens of thousands of words together in coherent sentences that created a decent plot! Certainly it's a cause for celebration, but when you're hoping to get that thing published, it's more the equivalent of arriving to the airport on time for a round-the-world excursion. You'd think it would signal the end, and of course it does for that book. But for the project as a whole, not so much.

Last night I hammered out the last lines of my fifth novel, code name MuMe. I'm pretty proud of it, but then I haven't read through it yet so I might not be in March when that task gets tackled. For now, though, I'm happy with it. And when I hit the . for the last time, I sat back with a big ol' grin on my face and thought, "Yeah! It's done!" And then I thought, "Well, after I turn it in April 1 it'll be done." And then I thought, "Well, after I get the developmental edits done, it'll be done." And then, "Well, after the content edits." "Well, after the galleys are proofed." "Well, after I've got the final product in my hands."

Suddenly that last . doesn't seem so monumental.

Publishing a book is one of those projects that just never seems to end. There's always another element you need to tend to. The cover has to be done. The marketing has to be figured out. The website has to be updated. Posts have to be written on blogs. Interviews have to be done. Blog tours need to be organized. And oh yeah, here's another round of edits. And while there are other people who are in charge of handling a lot of those other things--setting up the interviews, designing the covers--the author is still involved in one way or another in how it all comes out. At no point does the author get to hand it off to someone else and say, "Alrighty! I've done my part. Let me know when it hits the shelves." And of course that's good in a lot of ways--authors tend to be very protective of and emotionally involved with their books, and to just hand it off to someone else for good would probably cause some panic attacks.

But on the other hand, there are times when that last . brings with it an overwhelming desire to never have to lay eyes on that manuscript again. The tinkering, the rewriting, the agonizing over this plot point and that bit of dialogue, the cumulative hours spent staring at the screen thinking, "They will cancel my contract when they read this" and "Every creative bone in my body has turned to dust." And then you realize you'll have to read over it again...and again...and again, with every new level of edits you go through, and you think, "But if I have to talk to these characters again I may very well rewrite the ending to kill them all off."

This was a week of multiple last . actually. Not only did I finish the MuMe manuscript, but I completed yet another round of edits on Reinventing Rachel. Talk about a project I can't wait to be done with. It's so, so, so-to-the-forty-third-power much better than it was when I started it 4.5 years (!) ago. Essentially it's not even the same book. Thankfully David C. Cook is okay with this. But honestly, there were days when I could hardly type because I was so full of anxiety from trying to figure out how to make that story work. Stripping a story to the studs and rebuilding is an incredibly painful experience. I've learned and grown so much from it, though, that it's hard to speak too harshly about the process. But when I turned it in, I was like, "Sweet! We're done now, right?!" Nope. More edits to come.

But I'm going to try this month not to think about how many more hoops await my jumping on the three (no wait, five) books that are currently in process. (Those two children's books are just as bad! But, they're also totally awesome, I've gotta say.) I have a very long list of things I have (or want) to get accomplished before March 1. It's time to reestablish some margin in my life--get back some kind of weekend, not spend 5 hours every.single.day in my office staring at the monitor. It's time to get working on the crafty projects that have been patiently waiting for my time (scarves for the girls--yes, winter is half over and they still don't have scarves--and curtains for the girls that Abby prays almost every night "Mommy will get done soon"). It's time to clean off my desk so I have more than six square inches of works space, and clean my office so I don't have to waltz from my door to my desk. Tax stuff needs to be organized (though not actually calculated by me this year, thank heavens). And oh yeah, time to start the research for book number six. And so the cycle begins again.

But, lest you think I'm an ingrate, let me assure you that the blessing of work is not lost on me. I am a writer. I am what I've always wanted to be, and am doing what I never thought I'd be lucky enough to do. I don't have to drop my kids at daycare and spend eight hours in an office, dreaming about the novel I'd like to write one day. I don't have to open yet another rejection letter from a publishing house. More than once, when I've been staring at the monitor and wracking my brain for the next line of narrative, I've stopped and thought, Yes, this is frustrating--but what a blessing to have this frustration.

So even though we're only three days in to February and I feel like the month is already booked solid with the things I've been putting off since November, I'm happy. Because last night I yet again got to enter that last .