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Do you ever feel like you are actually done with your written works? I am constantly questioning if I am actually done. I always feel like there is something to add or take away. I guess I really want it to be as perfect as possible. Maybe I just have a hard time letting go of my work?

Does anyone else struggle with this too? How do you know a piece of writing is complete?

I just keep editing until I can't deal with it any longer, at which point I'm about to keel over and die. That perfection--you're just never going to reach it, you know? I've heard that great artists know the moment they've made that final stroke with the paintbrush. The rest of us are not so fortunate.

Gee, I wish I had a better answer!

Well, eventually you have to let a child grow out of the household and find his or her own way. But I understand. I finished my 3rd novel last April but "finish" wasn't really the truth -- I then began a serious and extensive edit and revision of the book, and only finished this painstaking edit in October.

Thank you both so much. I feel a lot better about letting my writing go now! I was so afraid I was doing it all wrong when I felt so hesitant to say I was "finished".

Wow, I didn't expect to be thanked, seeing as I had a raging case of PMS last night. What did I write? I know it was desperate and disturbed... ah yes, something about keeling over and dying... something about being unfortunate.

Geez Louise, let me try again.

OK, for me, if I have a scene/book/portion of a book/etc., done, I know it because it "clicks." If I write a scene wrong, it nags at me until I change it. If you feel that "click," then you can move on (editing notwithstanding, as regards to typos and such). If it feels right, you should trust that.

Yes, a book can indeed be "finished" but only after you've given it your very best. In my recently completed 3rd novel (now at the publisher) I literally spent months tweaking it and fine tuning it. This began right after I'd written the final chapter and "The End" and then the work really began!

I started a tight, critical word by word examination of the novel, ferreting out every typo and grammatical error. Thankfully I'm pretty literate so I don't really commit errors in grammar, such as mistaking "they're" for "their" and other junk high-school stuff. But I'm just a vulnerable as anyone else with good old typos, accidentally typing "McPherson" instead of "Macpherson" and things like that. Also omitting quotes or commas, typical errors.

Next I re-edited the logic of the mystery story, seeking out any false leads or clues that didn't make sense, composition errors. I also found places where I overused phrases. One of my weaknesses is to use "a bit" too much, like "He looked a bit like George Clooney" so I altered these to "somewhat" and other synonyms.

I also re-read the book aloud, especially the dialogues, to sound the conversations out, tweaking them so that they sounded realistic and natural, not contrived and forced. I pay special attention to dialogue because I think it's the lifeblood of any modern novel.

Finally I let the book sit while I started on the 4th novel and wrote some other things and then after 2 weeks, gave the novel a final re-read, catching those few spots that were slightly weak, pruning unnecessary words, tightening up the narrative and dialogue.

So yeah, now my book is ready. For a chance of pace, I downloaded it to my Kindle and re-read it once more, bedtime, so I'd get a different perspective on the text. I found zero things that I wanted to change!

Here's what I feel: If you don't meticulously pore through your book and ensure that it's the very best possible, how can you expect an agent or publisher or customer to buy it? You want the book to sing in the hands of the reader, and it's incumbent upon the author to ensure that the book is a perfect as it can be.

Nevertheless, there does come a day when you let it go.

I do a lot of that stuff too: use synonyms for my overly-used phrases, let it sit so that I can come back to it fresh (less for editing, more for storyline), etc. I actually do make high-school mistakes, but not because I don't know better--it's more because when I get caught up with my writing, I have mental spasms. I'll type they're instead of their, even though, again, I definitely know which one is which! It's a mental glitch thing. Earlier this evening, I almost typed "snow" instead of "school." You see what I mean.

As long as you catch them before you submit the book to the publisher, you're good to go.