Sending out a manuscript too early is like taking your NICU baby home before she has fully developed. Her little lungs are too immature to work properly and her voice isn’t going to be heard.

I remember sitting in the NICU with my brand new granddaughter – wires everywhere, alarms going off, specialized nurses scuttling here and there and other families like mine hovering over impossibly tiny bodies struggling to breathe. That little granddaughter is 12 today, healthy and happy. Truly a miracle. That time in the NICU was the difference between life and death.

The same goes for our stories. We can get so excited to write THE END on a brilliant first draft that we may feel but for a couple of corrections and a shiny cover, it is ready to be out in the world. In reality, that little baby is too immature, too weak to be out there and instead it needs time to rest. As the author, we can give it that. We, too, need that time so that when we pick it up again, in a few weeks or even months, we have fresh eyes to diagnose the issues holding it back from being the story it was meant to be.

Patience is difficult and very necessary. You wouldn’t check your preemie out of the hospital before she was ready just as you wouldn’t expect your two-year-old to ride a ten speed. You would wait and watch for those developmental milestones while you nurture their minds and bodies. In writing, we have much the same role, to nurture the story, so that in time it will develop into the best possible version of itself. A short story, a book, a poem, a song, a message that will change someone’s world.