Best Thing to Hear

I read my books (and others) to my husband. I always catch things to fix and he's ruthless if something isn't working. The collaboration has it's down sides. Sometimes we butt heads and it's a real struggle to work through it.

This last novel was no exception. I had my heart set on infecting the hero of book number one with a brain-eating parasite and Lee just wasn't happy about having his favorite character get his brain eaten (even though I was going to make him survive). My medical friend actually sided with him so we did something different-ish.

Had to find a different way to pull it all together, but, in many ways, it worked out even better. Which is why I work with my husband.

So, I just read the finished book to my husband, cleaning up this, straightening wording here, tightening up this phrase or that. Still needs some polish, but, really, I thought, not as much as I expected. I seem to need less and less polishing the more books I write.

My voice, with my allergies was going, but he kept urging me to read more. How can you not want to read more if your audience is wanting it? Very gratifying. We managed to finish it up at 2 am yesterday.

What does he say to me this morning? "You know the worst thing about that book? There's not more of it."

If we're never published, I'll still have that.