Letting It Live

For the past few weeks, I've been slowing down. Well, I've been busy with numerous things, but I've decided to let my poems do what they will and to let my manuscript breathe. For a while, I was reorganizing the manuscript every few weeks and becoming irritated that I couldn't find an order that told a story I wanted to listen to. I also knew that if I didn't like the sequence of the poems in the book, then an editor wouldn't, either.

Of course, there's no way to judge whether an editor will like a manuscript, but I don't want to send a book out into the world until I'm happy with it. And that's not to say I've done that. I've made mistakes.

Those mistakes led me to this: let the manuscript breathe. By leaving the manuscript alone and letting it live, I've let the poems have a life of their own instead of forcing them into a pattern where they feel trapped. They tell me where they need to go, what story they need to tell. All I need to do is listen.

On a similar subject, an article over at Publishing Perspectives that's well worth the read: http://publishingperspectives.com/2012/06/good-books-are-worth-the-wait/