How To Finish a Work of Art?

I’m working on a book right now.  It’s fairly short, but it’s taking much longer than I had anticipated. Most of the content is there, but as usual, the devil is in the details.  Good writing is crisp, clear, and compelling;  there’s always something to tighten up and improve.    (It’s currently over 11,000 words.  No wonder longer works take years to write.)

But the Truth is, any work of art, any thing we create , is very personal–it represents us.  And it’s never perfect, and we could spend an infinite amount of time on it.  I didn’t fully realize this until my first startup expedition.

For this reason, Ayn Rand, as well as other authors, considered using a pseudonym for her books.  She knew it would always have shortcomings.  She wrote some of the most epic novels of the century.

The strategy most product-related artists take is to push the work out the door as soon as possible and fix it later.  This strategy puts pressure on the artist to improve it as soon as possible (you don’t want something subpar out there) and allows you to start getting thoughts and feedback to improve (or to learn from in your next work.)

Anyone out there that makes stuff have any thoughts on getting a creation out the door?  or deciding when it’s finished?

-Kevin
12.29.2009