Getting All the Way to Final

On completing a manuscript

Hi everyone,

Some big news: I submitted the final manuscript of my first book to my publisher a few days ago. All revisions are done, except for a few tiny tweaks, and it’s now off to the copyeditor. Hallelujah!

This day has been a long time coming. So many words thrown around, both in my head and in my drafting. So many ideas created and then tossed. So many document versions on my computer. So many darlings killed (you can read about those below).

Killing My Darlings

Yes, even in the very last few weeks, while working on my last major round of revisions, I kept thinking: UGH. Beautiful paragraph, I love you. But now it’s time to say goodbye.

I also kept thinking: How do I know when this is final?

What even is “final”? It can feel like a tricky question. I’ve been trudging upward for so long, through so many iterations of these words. How do I know when I’ve really gotten there?

Trust the process, just keep going, etc etc. But, to quote that Internet meme: Does the process even know that I am trusting it?

All right. All jokes aside, when I read the manuscript over the weekend and then sent it in a few days ago, I knew. I really did. Somehow I’ve always known when a piece of writing is done. Sometimes I’m sure it’s because I’m sick of looking at my Word document — but it also has something to do with achieving a certain feeling, perhaps the feeling I’ve been shooting for all along.

And now we are there, very last little tweaks aside. I’m very excited to share these pages with more readers this September.

As laughably painful as writing can be, the satisfaction of reaching the summit is immense, especially since this book is now turning into more than a giant Word document. It even has a cover, which turned out SO nicely:

Major kudos to my publisher’s art team for all the creative efforts that went into this cover — and also to everyone else who’s been involved with these book discussions, in ways large and small. My biggest hope for this manuscript is to pull even more people into deeper considerations of what it really takes to communicate, what language can really be, in all its layers and complications. It’s been fun to see many of those insights become manifest through the publication process itself.

I’ve also recently learned that the book is available on Amazon for pre-order, which feels wild. Link available here.

I’m a big supporter of purchasing from local bookstores, especially these days, but this Amazon link is the forerunner of more things to come. Further updates coming to this space in a few months!

And finally, I look forward to taking a breather from the manuscript for a few weeks, even as I also look ahead to various production details and to eventual book promotion.

That leads me to one sincere request: if you’ve been enjoying this newsletter, or if this book pre-order news catches your eye, please do share around with a few people you know!

I’d love to get these ideas out to more people. Articulate may be one person’s take on language and voice (aka yours truly’s), but I’ve seen for a while that personal narrative can reveal so many larger and more sweeping ideas. Now I’m most excited about those ideas, and also about where our collective discussions can go.

That said, all of you take care, and thank you for the support. We’ll be back next time with another Q&A installment that relates to these larger themes, which I’m looking forward to sharing!