When to let go

At the 2008 Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne, one speaker offered some advice which stuck with me. "The world is not hanging out for your book," she said. "Take your time. Get it right. Wait until you're truly happy with it." A few months later, the speaker at another workshop I'd signed up for advised the opposite. "Don't hang onto your manuscript too long. Let it go. Take the chance at getting helpful feedback."

I puzzled about the apparent contradiction. Then I realised both bits of advice were spot on, depending upon the writer's personality and the manuscript's stage of development.

When I finished my first draft, I was impatient and over-confident. After years in the corporate world, I'd been indoctrinated in the 80/20 rule. It was more important for me to meet deadlines than drag the chain on minor details. What I didn't understand at the time was the benefit of perspective. You can't judge your own work without getting some distance from it.

So, after several strong doses of feedback about the shortcomings in my work, I started diving deeper into my ideas and their expression. Seven minor redrafts and one major redraft later, I'm experiencing the other side of the timing dilemma. I'm scared of letting go. Having put so much of myself into this book now, I'm much more afraid of failure than earlier in the piece when it was more of a mental vs emotional exercise.

A long time ago my brother told me that I should follow my intuition rather than my impulse. Differentiating one from the other has never been easy for me, because I'm hot-headed. But if I relax and let my cannier side come through, my timing is usually impeccable. I'm almost ready. And I know I'll know when I should try again.