By Corbin Lewars

I recently had the opportunity to host a woman and her two sons for a week and a half. They were in Seattle under difficult circumstances, the death of her mother, who happened to be a writer. During one late night discussion, the woman told me her mother had been working on a memoir and it would be published posthumously.

“But how do you know it was finished?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s done,” she said with confidence.

I thought back to all of the times I claimed I was “done” with a book or essay and shuddered at the thought of anyone believing me and publishing those pieces. For me, and I believe many writers would agree, “done” has many meanings. The first phase of being done is a draft. Sure, it can be two hundred pages of incoherent spewing to a reader, but somewhere in there are all, or most, of the key elements that I wanted to address. The original goal of writing a book about (insert idea here), in order to (insert reason why to write said book and who cares about such topic here) is accomplished.

Three years ago I started to write a memoir about my divorce. Why? Because I was able to do so in a non-acrimonious way and thought that was worth sharing. I wrote about two hundred pages of dating drama, soul searching, fretting over my kids, obsessing over my kids, more dating drama, some hot sex (to counteract the constant fretting and soul searching), and many, many stories sharing my gratitude and appreciation of my friends. It wasn’t necessarily chronologically coherent and it didn’t have a reliable narrator or theme, but is contained the key components I wanted, so I deemed it “done.”

I took a break from that draft and then tackled it again months later. This time, I took a rambling memoir about my divorce and started to turn it into a divorce guide book, with a heavy influence from my own life. After several months worth of dedicated writing, the book had a beginning, middle, and ending. It flowed relatively well, had a wide variety of references to back up my points, and it had a narrative arc, which ended with a conclusion. I once again claimed I was done. This wasn’t a proclamation that my work was ready to be published, it just meant I was taking another break from it. I knew it was time to do so because my edits started to resemble rearranging furniture. This means I’m tinkering, which means I’ve lost perspective on the book as a whole because I’m fixating on a certain word or scene rather than remembering why I’m writing the book. It is crucial that I take a break at this point and visit the “I’m writing this book because” question.

Six months later, I revised the book once again. Chapters were added, references were changed, characters omitted, characters added, characters changed so they wouldn’t be recognized, and the tone and theme were altered. Each chapter was revised to include a balance of my story and other women’s stories along with “expert” advice. New insights were added, outdated thinking was revised, and the audience changed from people I knew to people I didn’t know.

I once again announced that I was done. The manuscript then passed from my laptop into the capable hands of a developmental editor, who will once again reveal the “undoneness” of my book. It will be returned to me with many suggestions on how to improve it, flaws pointed out, and clarifying “What are you trying to say here?” questions. I will revise the manuscript again, claim it’s done when I’m finished and this time be held to that statement. Not based on its “doneness,” but based on the publishing schedule.

All in all, I claimed I was done for over two years. And that’s nonfiction, which I have an easier time claiming doneness too. I’ve worked on a novel for seven years and currently claim it’s a mess, but at least I know how I want to change it to make it done. As for the memoir that was published three years ago, it was far from being done. It was a first draft, but it’s in print. Go figure?

The catch about “done” is I’m still learning and growing, so feel the desire to add that new reference or insight or at least alter my work with my new intelligence. And with time comes clarity (hopefully), therefore time can improve my work. This is solid reasoning, but it can also set me on a perpetual cycle of revising. And sometimes revising is merely rearranging the furniture. Waiting to be done can also be detrimental because I may lose sight of the original story I wanted to tell and muddy it with a different story. I can also burn out on the topic and by the time it comes to print have absolutely no desire to read it or speak of it.

Even if your book is incoherent and lacking an ending, claim you are done before you burn out. Let it sit for a year, or two. Do not visit it with a grimace on your face. No one, including books, appreciate a begrudging visit. Let it have the space it needs and work on something else for a while.

You’re also done if you find yourself changing your young adult novel set in Spokane to a fantasy book set in the middle ages. That’s not revising, that’s writing another book. Do not combine the two, you’ll be left with nothing. If your revisions are helping your book be less raw, scathing, incomplete, jumbled, or inaccurate, they’re probably a good idea. But if these finesses are stripping the original story away and leaving a finely polished book that isn’t revealing or provocative, you just revised yourself away from your original story. Again, it’s time to stop and ask yourself, “Why am I writing this book?” “Do I want this book to be about questions or answers?” “Do I want to leave it messy, because that’s life, or do want to leave it wrapped up?” And most importantly, “Is this the story I’m trying to tell?”

You probably have many stories to tell, but is this the story you are currently trying to tell? Become clear on what that story is and keep yourself to that story. The clearer you are on what your story is about, the more comfortable you’ll become with the idea of being done. And don’t worry, your new insights, knowledge, and theme will all be revealed in your next book.

Corbin Lewars (www.corbinlewars.com) mentors other writers in her office in Ballard and virtually. She is the author of Creating a Life: The memoir of a writer and mom in the making, which was nominated for the 2011 PNBA and Washington State book awards and her divorce guidebook will be published this summer. Her essays have been featured in over twenty-five publications including Mothering, Hip Mama and several anthologies. She teaches writing at The Richard Hugo House and at national conferences. She lives in Ballard with her two children.

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