The Letting Go

For the last few days, I suspect that I've been dawdling, inventing reasons to keep noodling with this manuscript, to continue living these character's adventures for just a few more days.

Just one more reread, I tell myself, though I've been over my "child's" face so many times, I cannot see its flaws. Either that or I see all flaws, with no redeeming qualities. Myopic by now, I'm at risk of, at best, losing touch with the magic of my original vision. At worst, there is a danger that I'll become so self-conscious, so obsessed about every darned apostrophe that I'll never letting manuscript go out into the world to live its life... a life that, despite its origins, will be independent of me, and largely lived inside the minds of strangers.

Some of these strangers with welcome it with open arms, others will be hostile, looking only to find fault. But this is the way of the world and the story has it's work to do...

So I, at long last, attach the file and hit "send."

Have you ever had trouble letting go of a project you need to send out? Or do you have the opposite, and equally troublesome problem: an itchy trigger finger that has you letting go of things before they're really ready? How do you find the balance?