When is your Picture Book Manuscript Finished?

We had a fantastic discussion at Picture Books Only #pblitchat the other day about the book writing process ("From Idea to Polished Manuscript: How Do You Get There?"). One of the topics we covered had to do with knowing when your picture book manuscript is finished. In other words, when do you stop editing and send it out to agents and publishers?

Some of the useful tips I picked up were:

• it can take many, many revisions before a picture book is ready to send out
• keep copies of your old drafts in case you want to go back to them
  
• it is not just a case of writing a 500-word (or however many words) short piece of text and calling that a picture book. There's a particular craft involved in picture book writing that takes time and effort and attention to master
  
• you should always have someone else (and preferably more than one person) give a critique on your picture book manuscript. You need someone who can say - "Have you thought about this?" or "I'm not sure this part works"
  
• once you have edited your picture book manuscript and sent it out for critiques, take those comments on board and begin the re-editing process again
• some authors have revised a particular picture book manuscript 60 times before it is "finished"

One particular piece of advice which rang true to me was - read your manuscript through at least ten times, and if you don't change a single word, you'll know it's ready. A useful guideline, particularly if this process takes place after you have finished revisions suggested to you by critique partners AND if your final readings take place over a period of days/weeks, so you can come back to the picture book manuscript with fresh eyes in between.

In the end though, you'll know when it's ready! Trust your instinct, and remember there's nothing to say you can't come back to your picture book manuscript down the track and begin revisions again...

The curse of the story that's just begging to be told...

I personally think one of the most exciting things about writing is the story that's just begging to be told. It can come to you at any time - when you're washing the dishes, sitting in your office at work, changing your baby's nappy, driving down the street. You spend the next few hours thinking about the new plot, working things up in your mind. You get so excited about how it will all work out, how well the plot will fit within the current trends of the day, how easily the words will flow from your head onto the paper.

Then, you sit down to start writing what someone I've recently met calls "your shiny new story".

And you put the story you were working on just yesterday on the shelf next to the six other stories that are already there.

Sound like you??? I know it's something I do. A lot.

I must say, I haven't yet worked out how to stop my brain from coming up with all these new ideas. And I'm starting to think they're actually a curse rather than a blessing. You see, I'd really like to finish one of the books I've already started. And I think I need to work out a way to do that. Fairly soon.

So, the question of the day - how do you stay focused on the one piece of writing for long enough to finish a whole book?

Gotta go, just thought of a fantastic new idea...