There comes a point in every creative journey where the making ends, and something else begins and I think I’m standing there right now.

The book is done. The story has been lived, rewritten, edited, and reshaped until it feels less like something I wrote and more like something I’ve survived. Ok that's a bit dramatic, but you get what I mean. But I keep reading it. Line by line. Comma by comma. Looking for the missed breath or the imperfect beat. Knowing, deep down, that I may always find something to tweak. Something to tighten. Something to “make better.”

And that’s the trap. Good friends told me in their own ways that Perfect is the enemy of done. Two people who I've known for 20+ years. And they are right.

This is my first shot. My first attempt at writing a novel. The seed has been planted and I wont stop. This much I am sure of. I know there's always room to improve and that improvement will come with book two, Empires of Durajan. But with every pass, I find refinement. Minute details sharpen. Cadence improves. A passage deepens. It’s like adding layers to a painting. But somewhere in there, I start to wonder: when does refinement become erosion? When does the pursuit of perfection begin to sand away the fingerprints that made it human to begin with?

Because perfection, while tempting, is sterile. A perfectly rendered scene loses the smudge that made it real. A story scrubbed too clean forgets that it's meant to feel, not just impress. I think I am stuck somewhere in there.

I’m afraid of releasing something flawed. I’m afraid of the comma I missed. I’m afraid of the criticism that hasn’t come, but might and will, without question.

But I’m also tired. Not tired of writing or tired of my book. Not at all. Just tired of the analysis paralysis that I am feeling.

The story is told. It’s walked with me. And now I want it to walk with others.

And I think that’s what this moment is about. Being unfinished and being done enough to matter.

I believe the soul of this book is intact. I believe the people in it are real. I believe the place I built lives beyond the page. And if I keep  polishing, I believe I risk losing that spark, texture and tension between the raw and the refined.

So this is me, acknowledging the fear… and choosing the release.
Because what I’ve made isn’t perfect.

But it’s true.

And maybe that’s the whole point.