Reprinted from Boomacious.com, L. Mims

I’ve begun the task of preparing my story for publishing. Quite honestly, I’m a little tired of my characters, and I’m no longer interested in returning to their neighborhood.

Now I must begin the job of extricating myself from them! That means editing without any conscious or feelings for those guys. We have broken up! I have a new interest and no matter how sexy, bewitching, or dangerous those characters were, it’s over!

It’s time for final proofing, last edit, and finally, formatting the book to publish on Amazon for Kindle (if that’s the route I’m going). Time to ship theses babies out and watch them stand on their own.

Kindle formatting means adding a header, page numbers, an acknowledgement and/or dedication page, a table of contents and something at the end to entice the reader to review this book and buy my other published works.

Throughout this process I must be wary. This is where a weaker writer could question herself; break down; and begin to tweak or change the story. If that tweaking were to result in minor changes, I’d say fine, go ahead. However, in more than a few cases, tweaking has led to a major reworking of the story. Tweaking lends itself to doubt.

If you suffer from this malady, then I say your story has been told. You and the characters have said goodbye. Now, get your hands off of it! Move on! You want to tell a new story. That’s why you’re stuck on this one.

Trust your story. Launch it! There are new characters waiting for you to develop them. They need your direction. Don’t worry. As you flesh them out, you’ll fall in love with them too.