I emerged from the study yesterday and said, “I’m done!”

My son looked up from his toy, eyebrows crunched together. “I thought you were done before.”

“Oh. Right. That was a different thing. I was done with the draft.”

He gave me one of those “ookkkaayyy, Mom” looks and left it at that.

It’s crunch time for me with Mom Zone # 4. With my deadline looming at the end of the month, I’m spending a lot of quality time with my laptop and printer. Writing a book is such an unwieldy project that I have to break the process into smaller projects. I have quite a few “I’m done” points, each one worth celebrating.

There’s “I’m done with the dreaded synopsis and first chapter.” I’ve fleshed out the plot, the characters, and have actual words on paper that might possibly make it into the final version.

Then, there’s “I’m done with the rough draft.” The whole messy thing is on paper.

Next, there’s “I’m done with the revisions.” Hopefully, the book is coming together at this point.

Since my books have tips in them, I have to devote the next block of time to researching, asking questions, and writing the tips that will appear at the end of every other chapter.

Then, finally, it’s time for the final read-through. Of course, I always find a mistake and have to make those corrections, which in turn, causes another final final read-through. It’s a bit like painting—I paint the trim, then paint the walls. But as I’m painting the walls I mess up the trim, which causes me to have to touch up the trim and while I’m doing that I—of course—goob the walls…you get the idea. It’s a never-ending circle. Same thing with revisions. There’s always one other little thing I could change to make it better.

Somewhere around the third or fourth round of final read-throughs, I print the whole thing, force myself not to look at again, and send it off to my editor. Then I’m done. Really done.

Unless, she wants revisions. Then it’s back to top.

What big projects do you have going in your life? Any endless loops? If you’re a writer, how do you approach writing a book—do you view it as a series of short races or do you think of it as a marathon?