You read a paragraph in my book and it just seems to flow effortlessly across the page.

What you don’t see is the work behind it.

I may have ripped that paragraph apart several times. Torn out words. Visited thesaurus.com multiple times to find just the right shades of meaning. Rearranged the sentences again and again going for maximum impact. Added the beginning sentence to the end of the previous paragraph, then switched it back. Divided the paragraph into two or three pieces. Put it back together again. Added still more words. Debated on using a proper name vs a pronoun. Read it over again and realized three sentences in a row have started with the same word. Torn out more words and added in more replacements. Read it out loud to hear the rhythm and flow.

Finally approved it and moved on to the next paragraph. But I might come back to it later and think of something and change it again.

In other words, that flawlessly flowing paragraph is the product of painstaking hard work.

My first book is 133,091 words long. That sounds like a lot, but as the story developed I probably put in and took out ten times as many words before I settled on those 133,091.

You could say I’m an incredibly fussy perfectionist. I prefer to think of it as pursuing excellence in my writing.

People have asked me why it takes so long to get a book published. Now you know what goes on in this writing life of mine.