Why didn’t somebody tell me that writing a novel was going to be so much fun?  I would have done it sooner!  No, that’s not sarcasm.  I have had more fun writing than I ever imagined possible. My imagination has been allowed to run wild, my flare for drama has finally come in handy, and I’ve been getting away with talking to myself fairly frequently. If anyone catches me I just claim to be testing lines of dialog. “Um….” I say, ” According to Judy Blume, you have to hear the dialog out loud in order to see if it really works.”

Of course, no one ever told me how frustrating it would be either. It’s not that I expected it would be particularly easy. I just didn’t realize that I would be driven made by the conflicting opinions of my editor and beta readers.  The editor tells me to add more detail. Reader A says there are too many unnecessary descriptors. Reader B tells me a character needs to be more villainous. Reader C claims he’s not sympathetic enough. The list goes on.

I do appreciate their feedback. Multiple perspectives are a good thing. But now I have to figure out which pieces of advice to take and which to ignore. In the end, no matter what everyone else thinks, I have to decide what story I want to tell. Better yet, I have to tell the story of Lily and Tony. It’s not my story anymore. It’s theirs.

Once I’m finished… whenever that is… I only hope that it’s a story readers will enjoy and won’t regret paying for!