Final Edit Fears

My alarm has been going off at 4:30am lately.  It's a little louder than the alarm that once woke me up for an 8am class.  There is no snooze button, it's wet and smelly and requires more attention than the flipping of a switch.  While daylight savings time used to only require a slight adjustment, my current alarm clock doesn't seem to understand the update and continues to operate on it's own schedule.

When I was 24 and had my first child I used be tell people, "He sleeps through the night.  Entirely.  Always has."  Lately I've been putting it all together and while my Axel eventually did "sleep through the night" – at first the only reason he appeared to was because I "slept through the night."  I'm starting to think that having children in your early 20's is preferable because when you sleep like a log, so do they...at least that's what you can assume.

When you have a baby at 30 and beyond it seems that they don't sleep through the night as readily because quite frankly you have one eye open and notice the nuances of their sleep – their weak cries seem much more serious in the dark, in the silence.  You are quicker to jump up and silence that alarm because – to be honest – you were just about to get up to go to the bathroom anyway.

I used to be able to crawl back in for a couple hours after dealing with my initial wake up call, but with a book on the horizon I have to say I've been thankful to be woken during the silence, when my morning brain is fresh and I can get a couple of hours in before the herd is on the move.

I'm having difficulty with this final edit.  Anyone having the same issue?  The publisher has asked that I submit my "final edit" by January 1 – something I wasn't prepared for (I assumed my final edit was when I submitted it to them for consideration).  

With this added chance to look things over I'm feeling like there's so much I would change, so much I would re-write.  My book being a memoir it would be like re-writing history.  It can still be true but perhaps a bit prettier, maybe with a pinch of grandeur.  This is tough!

As I read over my manuscript for probably the 25th time I feel lost in the words I wrote 5 years ago.  I feel they are insufficient in telling my story.  I feel that they aren't "good enough."  I feel like they are juvenile.  (What a way to sell books, huh?)

I try to remind myself this morning, like many a 4:30 morning before this one that people will be reading my story for the first time and they just might think it's spectacular.  It might be thought provoking for them, it might bring back a few memories of their own.  It might just be good enough to read a 2nd time (and probably not 25 times).

I can't help but think of the zillions of books on the billions of bookshelves around the world and how each one was written by one person – a person like me.  That person had to call it quits at some time – call it "good enough."  Each of those authors then had to chew on those words and read them in public for years to come and if they were lucky got to answer questions from an adoring audience.  Each author has had their final edit and moves on.

While I've accomplished many things in my life it seems that each "first" is just as difficult as the "first."  Perhaps each manuscript I publish over – what I pray – to be a LONG career at this will get easier and easier.  Some day I will know when to let it go, let my publisher take the reigns, and accept that just by getting this far I'm just just good enough but great.