Ha! This topic reminds me of a response historian Barbara Tuchman gave a student when asked, “How do you know when your research is complete?” She said, “You know what they call a historian who waits for his or her research to be complete?” Pause. “Unpublished.”
At some point you have to let go. I’m not at that point yet, but I’m getting close. Of course, when I say let go, I mean letting go for the first time. Letting go when the book is as good as I can make it — at least this month. But then I’m anticipating the famous agent “R&R” — not “rest and relaxation” but Rewrite and Resubmit. Then, if I am fortunate to find an agent who is willing, we go on submission. Perhaps the book piques an editor’s interest. The editor says, “Close, but [for instance] I found the antagonist one-dimensional, and perhaps you could change the MC (Main Character) from a 16-year-old-boy to a a 14-year-old girl with a multi-cultural background and ambiguous sexual identity.”
Hence my initial barked and sarcastic “ha!”
Nevertheless, I’m getting very close to subbing. Especially to this one unnamed agent who closes submissions on May 1 for the summer. Time is getting short on that one.
