How do you know when you're done?

Hello Cruel World!

After receiving what I can only call truly awesome revision notes from my truly awesome editor, I am currently working on printing out what I hope is close to being a finished revised draft. This is not to say it will be the final draft. Undoubtedly, there's still work to be done.

How do I know I'm close to finished with this particular draft? Well, I've addressed all of the issues brought up by my editor. I've reread it myself and found places I think could be stronger. I'm made my poor, beleaguered husband read it for me looking for typos, logic gaps, and places where I didn't actually finish cutting stuff I meant to.

But most importantly, the printer broke. I don't know why, but this always, always happens when I'm finishing a draft -- and the problem usually fixes itself right afterwards. I've had the feeder tray stop feeding, the ink cartridge suddenly start making crazy lines on the page. I've had it print gibberish. I've had it skip random pages. I've had it print the first 30 pages over and over. I've had it turn each printed page into an exquisite curly-cue and sent it flying to a random spot in the room.

This time, the printer jammed, and when I went to unjam it, I accidentally pushed the button that exists for no other reason than to make the side of the printer fall off. As far as I can tell, this serves no functional purpose, but the printer won't run until its side has been put back on. Putting the side back on is approximately impossible. It involves much swearing, banging, threatening, looking on-line for new printers, and brute force.

But, I finally got the side back on -- and it has now started printing away happily (although I should note that it is currently in the process of reprinting the first 60 pages and I don't know why). Tomorrow, I am sure the printer will work as perfectly as always.