WIP Wednesday: Finished Yet?

Last night I finished the first edit of my new novel, Any Day But.

I sat back in my seat after I typed that last word, staring at the computer screen, and let myself indulge in a moment of satisfaction at my accomplishment.

Then I shot off an email to my writing group: "I think my WIP is ready for you all to look at."

Well, that was premature.

I woke up this morning still thinking about my WIP, and I was suddenly seized with doubts. I remembered two or three threads that I hadn't wrapped up. And I also realized I still wasn't quite sure that all of my scenes were realistic. This story has a lot of medical emergency situations involved. Thankfully I have a resident doctor (my father-in-law) who doesn't mind answering my weird questions ... "So, if my anorexic main character has been running away from a crazed gunman all day, how would the paramedics treat her if she...." You get the idea.

Anyway, I realized that I might not be ready for my writing group to look at this thing yet.

That's the problem with writing: you always think you're done when you're far from being done.

I'm going to let my WIP rest for a few days. I'll verify the medical details I need to verify with my doctor-in-residence. And then sometime next week I'll read through it again, and keep hacking away.

What can I say? It's just a long process. *Maybe* in a few months it will be ready for my writing group. We'll see.