I love writing. I like speaking. I even enjoy promoting (when it works). But there is a problem with this business: I never know when I'm done. Done for the day? Maybe not. In theory I work from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m., but that perfect idea, the solution to the plot-knot, the urge to edit just a few pages while the baseball game is on, calls to me and somehow I'm drawn back into what could be called work but is more like obsession.

Done with the book? I doubt that ever really happens. Once it's in print, of course, it's there, but if we could, we'd fix that spot where the character just isn't quite true to life. Best not to even look.

Done promoting? Now there's a joke. Even if I didn't have my own list of twenty different "must do" items to publicize my work and establish my "brand," there's always someone on this wonderful thing we call the Net who insists that I HAVE to be on Twitter or have a trailer or do a webcast or plan a blog tour...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So to misquote Yoda, "There is no 'done.'" I meet wanna-bes all the time at my presentations, and a good portion of them yearn to be writers because they see it as easier that "real" work. Nobody could tell them that the Muse is the hardest of taskmasters and Publishing the most demanding of employers.

Not that I don't love every bit of it.

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