February 15.

Today is the last day I have to work on my book. When I sent it in today, at noon, that’s it. No more changes. It’s set in stone.

So I expected, when I woke up this morning to do the final edits, that I would encounter an enormous amount of resistance to working today. I watched myself put in a load of wash. I watched myself brush the dog. I watched as I made a complicated Mexican breakfast for myself. And, I watched as I looked for “lost” papers, as I frenzied about where had I put my editor’s crucial email? Had I left it at school? Should I go down there now and look for it? I opened my phone book and got ready to call my editor. I would have to have more time!

Then, I led myself to my yoga mat and sat myself down. I held myself. I literally gathered myself together. Nothing is lost, I reminded myself.  You have everything you need. Your book will not be perfect. But it is the best you can do. You’ve put your whole heart into it. Yes, you could keep working on it and changing things and maybe you’d make it even better. Maybe you wouldn’t. But now it’s time to let it go. This isn’t easy to do. Not-working and delaying are one way to ease the pain of letting go. Is that the best choice for you to make?

Instead, I decided to make a little list of the things I still had to do on the book. Change “Wha” back to “Wah.” Change the name of the doctor. Make the final changes the copy editor wanted. For example, she wants me to spell out Dungeons and Dragons, because D and D is too unfamiliar. Things like that.

It’s really, really hard to try to do an excellent job and also let the work go. Sometimes, doing an excellent job can feel like this: “I won’t ever be finished!”  The only thing I can compare it to is raising children. You never really are excellent and you are never finished and you always want to go back and fix.

But they are off, books and kids, in the world, leading their own lives.

I am sending my book off today. I have done my work.