Insecure Writer's Support Group October 2016 Entry

Hello and welcome to the October edition of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brain child of our fearless leader Captain Alex! It's a monthly airing out of writerly insecurities and offering of support to those in need. Please check out the website and sign up if you aren't already involved! And don't forget to visit the sites of our co-hosts and thank them for helping out with this month's blog-hop: Susan Says, Beverly Stowe McClure, Megan Morgan, Viola Fury, Madeline Mora-Summonte, and Angela Wooldridge!! This month I'm feeling a bit frazzled but not particularly insecure. I've submitted a small recipe (still heard nothing back) and I've got one magazine submission on my desktop awaiting edits. My WIP is plodding along, I'm chewing on a story for a blog-hop AND I've just now started work on my submission to the IWSG Anthology Contest. All this is stacked on top of two other articles that need projects completed before I can write them/photograph them. Whew! See. Frazzled. The question this month is "When do you know your story is ready?" I've done a bit of thinking on this and I've two answers. When I'm working on a short piece (university term papers come to mind) I know it's ready when I read it out loud and it has a definitive end. I always read my work out loud, especially if it's something I need to submit. When I can read the end of the piece with an air of finality then I know that it's finished. Now for longer works, novels for instance, I don't really know! I've finished three in the past, none of which are publishable, and any time I pick them back up I cringe at them. They are most definitely NOT finished. How will I know when a novel is done? Perhaps it will be the same as with the short works. Perhaps I'll spend a week reading it out loud and when I reach that last page, when I breathe the final words, exhaling "The End" perhaps it will ring with a finality that will make me sigh with relief. That's what I'm looking for, anyway. What about YOU? When do you know your story is finished? I'm especially curious to hear from you published novel writers. What told you your book was ready? Happy writing!