Post-submission Neurosis

Last night, I finished editing my latest manuscript.  I’d gone through it, let it sit, and went over it again to find that it was good to go.  So I emailed it off, feeling fantastic.

Laying in bed with my husband, I got to thinking about the manuscript. What if I completely removed a section and rewrote it from a different point of view?  Would it improve the book?

So I got out of bed, dashed to the living room and started up my computer.  After doing some fiddling with the manuscript, erasing an entire section and settling in to write, I realized that no, the first way I did was much better.  The scene just didn’t work from the other perspective when you got down to the mechanics of it.

So I closed the document (without saving my numerous, unnecessary changes), turned off my computer, and crawled back into bed next to my husband.

“Did you do it?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said.  “But it was a dumb idea.”

“Ok,” he said, pulled me close, and we went to sleep.