This weekend I went through a bunch of old school papers from high school and college. A lot of it was set aside to be discarded—useless notes from math classes, unwanted papers from classes I'd half-forgotten I'd even taken, lots of handouts that I'll never want to look at again. However, I did come across a lot of my essays from my English classes, and it was rather painful to note a similarity among many of them, specifically critiques of my beginnings and endings.
One professor in particular wrote on nearly every essay I turned in that my ending and beginning needed "tweaking." A better word would probably be "strengthening." Aside from reminding me that my grades, while great, weren't perfect, this trip down memory lane got me thinking about Madison.
When I got home, I went over the beginning of Madison. Yes. It needs strengthening. Not story-altering, scene-changing type edits, but definite enhancement. I imagine I'll find the same at the end.
Sigh. Yes, I knew I wasn't completely done and that I had two more edits to run—one to check for passive verbs and one for typos—but I'd hoped that no other changes would be needed. I'll continue apace with the query-readying and sending, but there's several more hours to put into editing before it's a polished manuscript. Unfortunately, I suppose that no matter how many times I look at it, there will always be something else to change. I guess the time when I'll stop tweaking it will be when the editor says it's ready to publish. I'm really looking forward to that day!
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