Easy Breezy

I’m taking another quick break from wrapping up Odd Mom Out. I’ve been writing nine to eleven hours a day and the computer screen’s getting blurry and my fingers are numb from typing so hard and fast.

On Friday I did a call in to a book club which won copies of Flirting with Forty through a contest at www.readinggroupguides.com (or was it www.bookreporter.com??). The group seemed to like the book, and someone mentioned they liked what a fast read it was. Many of my Amazon reviews mention what a fast read it is, too, kind of a cotton candy type of thing and I’m flattered, really, that it goes down so easy because it’s so hard for me to write light, crisp and tight. I work it to get it to have that brisk fun tension, the tension that keeps readers turning pages and wanting to know what’s going to happen.

I just don’t want other writers to think, snap, Jane’s got it made. Snap, she just churns those puppies out. Hardly. I struggle at the keyboard, gutting books regularly, flipping them inside out, posing dozens of questions to myself about the story, the characters, the motivation, never mind the entertainment value as I pace the house, the yard, the driveway. But if in the end, I can turn a pedestrian story into something lively and lovely, the kind of story readers race greedily through, then all my blood, sweat and tears (fears) are worth it.

The reader, in my book, rules.

The reader deserves something fantastic, something to make her smile, laugh, maybe even cry.

So reader, if you felt good reading my book, if you found it too fast and you finished too soon, thank you. I did a good job then. But please know, I did it for you.

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