Is It Soup Yet?

Allow me to expose my insecurities.

I don’t follow recipes very often. I mean, I do, the first or second time I make something, but I don’t usually take the time to pull out the directions and follow them carefully every time.

 This proved disastrous at one church dinner when the crunchy topping of my apple pie refused to crisp. I realized after delivering a rather soggy mess, that butter and brown sugar, without flour, wouldn’t do anything but melt. DUH! I just wish it looked as good as this one does!

Usually this method works fine, especially for the favorite meals that we have. When I do use a recipe, however, I find the easiest ones to follow aren’t the ones that give explicit step-by-step instructions, but the ones that tell me exactly what the food will look like or smell like when it is fully prepared.

I find myself struggling a little. Regardless of the “recipes,” the books, the articles, the blogs, and pointers, how am I supposed to know when this manuscript that overwhelms me is actually done? I thought it looked ready a while back and sent out queries to some of my favorite agents. Big mistake! The book wasn’t anywhere near ready and now I can’t really broach those hoped-for agents a second time. I sure don’t want to make that mistake again.

After months at critique groups, exhaustive study, and several more revisions, will I know if it’s ready; if I’m ready to find an agent and finally get to enter this world of authorship? If this story was a piece of fish instead of fiction, I could tell by the opacity. If it was a cake, I’d have several ways of checking its done-ness, but I can’t tap this or puncture it.

Doubting a magic button or color change, can anyone give tips on how I can avoid making the same assumptions that I did before?