She was in SERIOUS pain. It was seven hours of agony and suffer- ing. She hated every minute of it. Then, when our son was like, nine months old, we were at dinner with some friends and talking about kids. She said, “I can’t wait to have our next one. The first birth was so pleasant and wonderful.” I went slack-jawed, “What?? Were you not there? You were in scream- ing agony the whole time. You yelled curses at me and at God.” She kind of looked at me funny, “Yeah…I know you’re right. I know that’s all true. But I don’t remember it that way at all.” That is what writing a book is like. You hate it at the end, and love it once it’s out. If you need a frame to help you decide when and if you are done editing, you can use what we call the Edit Stop Quiz. It’s two ques- tions, and you can use it over and over again until you are done. EDIT STOP QUIZ, QUESTION #1: IS THIS THE BEST BOOK YOU CAN WRITE, RIGHT NOW? If the answer is yes, then send to publish. If the answer is no, then go to question #2. EDIT STOP QUIZ, QUESTION #2: WHAT CAN YOU DO RIGHT NOW TO MAKE IT BETTER? If there is an answer, something you can do now, do it. If there is nothing you can do now—if the answer is something like, “Become a better writer”—then send to publish. The point of this is to get you out of your spiral of “Well, if I did a hOW TO EDiT yOUr BOOk · 171