The Editing Never Stops Until You Stop It

So, anyway, as you all know, I'm in the final stages of getting Natural Causes ready to launch into the world.  In fact, I'm doing the final read-through for typos and gaffs.  Or what I thought was the final read-through.  I'm finding too many irritating things that I need to go back and fix.  Once I fix these, I'll have to do another read-through to make sure I didn't insert any typos again. 

Ugh.

This is not my editor, btw.  She's awesome.  These are things I'm finding personally irritating.  A word here, a phrase there.  It all has to be changed before I can let this out into the world. 

It's entirely possible that any given reader wouldn't notice.  But I would. 

And I was thinking about it yesterday.  When is editing actually finished?  Well, never, I guess.  Or rather, it is never finished until the writer says 'enough is enough'.  I made my peace a long time ago with the idea that I will never produce a perfect manuscript.  Every read-through will offer up some little thing I would rather have this way than that.  (Sometimes taking something I already changed and changing it back.) 

I think this is the whirlpool some writers get themselves into.  Everything has to be perfect before they publish (or attempt to get an agent or whatever), and thus, they never do get it into the hands of readers.  Which is sad. 

Don't get me wrong.  A manuscript should be as error free as possible before someone slaps down their hard-earned cash.  That's proofreading.  (And even then, it isn't foolproofreading.)  I'm talking about wording and style and all the little things that make a manuscript a book.  Larry walked across the room versus Larry sauntered across the foyer versus Larry skittered across the brightly-lit entryway like a cockroach. 

At some point, though, a writer has to say 'enough'.  The writer has to stop the editing and make the decision to send their book out into the world. 

For me, that will be either this week or next.  Definitely by the 13th, as promised.  Exactly when depends on how long these last 70 pages take to read-through and then how long it takes for another proofreading.  (One where I actually proofread and don't edit.) 

Meanwhile, I'm busting my hump to make sure that exact release date is as soon as possible. 

While you're waiting, go 'want to read' it on Goodreads.  And if you haven't read Accidental Death yet, now might be a good time to do so.  Or, if you want to wait, I have plans to do something salesy with AD around the time I release Natural Causes, so you might save a couple bucks.