It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I mailed out the Stealing Nasreen galley, marked up with anxious notes and strikethroughs and last-minute edits, to my publisher this past Monday.
It’s been emotionally difficult to stop editing the book, to quit fussing over it, to let it go. I’ve heard many writers talk about being unsure when a writing project is finally “done”.
Sometimes, when I read my previously published short stories, poems and chapters (pieces I would have deemed “finished” when I sent them in), I find myself mentally making tiny changes and additions to the work; adding a comma here, italicizing that word, deleting that paragraph. And why? They’re already published, bound up, out there in there world.
I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? To release the writing, to finally let it go beyond the private and into the public is the difficult and exhilarating part of the work. So bon voyage, Stealing Nasreen! Go out and be seen and may your travels be safe and smooth and full of new adventures…