Oops! A quick glance at my blog calendar–and the lack of recent posts–and I can certainly tell I’ve had my head buried in a book!

The good news is — it’s Bottoms Up, Book 2. I received it from Alyssa in January, 6000 words (bringing the total to over 120K!) and one sex scene richer. Now I’m going through the entire story and doing my “final” thing. I know I’m a slow writer. I know much of that has to do with physical limitations and my computer stamina. When I push, my body screams at me and it takes days, sometimes weeks, to get back on track. Ergo, I’ve learned not to push!

But I had a revelation over the weekend that helped explain to my highly analytical brain the other reason I write so slow. Check out this post. It’s one of the absolute best summaries I’ve ever seen on self-editing. Cutting the flab (unnecessary words, paragraphs, etc.) out of your manuscript so that your story reads as swiftly and flawlessly as you can make it.

That’s always been a goal of mine–to make every book the absolute best I can. Are there things I would do differently on my first couple of historical releases? Heck yes! But clarity comes with time, and I’ve learned do the best I can at the time then let it go.

So I know it’s taking a while but I can promise Jonah and Suzy’s story covers a lot of emotional ground, with plenty of surprising laughs sprinkled throughout. I hope everyone waiting for the second book in the series will love it, and I’m happy to report we’re definitely closing in on “The End”. (well actually, I’m closing in on “the middle”, but the end won’t be far behind! )

Stay warm! Larissa

Tags: Alyssa, Bottoms Up, current project, writing