Tell Me You Love Me One More Time

8x10 Oil

When is a painting finished? When is a novel finished? When is a film finished?

This is a question all artists start asking themselves as they near the end of a project. Sometimes it’s an easy answer. Sometimes it’s not. 

I wrote a novel called Lord of the Deep, a manuscript I dinked around with for months after it was “finished.” I’d purposefully left its ending open-ended, because its theme was open-ended — gray, neither black nor white. My idea was that a reader (or a classroom) would come up with their own conclusions. 

Still, what was this story really about? That question perplexed me, and I was unwilling to send the manuscript to my editor until I could answer that necessary question for myself. Though the story held itself together well, it wasn’t an easy question to answer. To help me figure it out, I recruited a seventh grader and asked if she would be willing to read the manuscript and tell me what she thought the story was all about, as precisely as she could. 

And she did.

“This story is about integrity,” she said as if it were as clear as the hint of humor in her eyes. 

Yes, I thought. Yes! That’s it!

From that enlightening moment on it all fell into place. After a few additional edits, I sent the manuscript to my editor. Lord of the Deep went on to win the prestigious Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, a completely unexpected honor for me and the book. But it had taken revision after revision and a wise teenager to get there.

There was none of that brain fog with “Tell Me You love Me One More Time.” No fussing, no hemming and hawing, no editing ad nauseam, no confusion. I just put my paintbrush down when it felt right and let her make her debut in her jeans and T-shirt. It’s what she wanted.

I don’t, and won’t, question her decision, but I will absolutely do what she requests in her title.

Because I do.