One of my major goals for this year is to publish Flight of the Scions before ICON. I just finished integrating the changes from the last reader/editor and I think I'm finally at the point I need to just say “I'm done.”

This is a hard point for me. Mainly because no book is ever going to be perfect, but “done enough.” I've been working on this for almost two decades. I've failed to publish it more than once. I lost my way many times. I started it up again for a terrible reason but then decided to keep going through the guilt.

Flight was “supposed” to be my first book published, but will end up being my fourth; but the writing skill is still colored by being the first. I can't rewrite it again to try making it perfect. I can't keep going over the same words over and over again, polishing them until they end up being an muddled mass (like my first novel, First Trix).

I want it to be perfect.

It can't be perfect.

It has to be done.

...

But, I'm pretty good about doing things even when I'm a mess. This means, I'm on track for getting it done by ICON and being able to have two new books on the table (I'm publishing two more this year, they both “should” be up by then).

The next steps are fairly simple. I need to obsess about the cover a while longer, decide if it fits a cohesive style. After that, get it printed and get a stack of them to stare at them nervously for hours.

In the end, I'll be doing the one thing I love as a writer: standing in the middle of a room, holding the book, and saying “I wrote this.”