See, I told you I wouldn’t get to “Go” any time soon.

The problem is cutting things down, streamlining them, making sure everything that is needed is in the first chapter — and nothing else. I have to give the reader just enough to understand and empathize with Sadie, without giving her too much background to slow the story down. And it’s work.

It’s more work cutting than it is writing in the first place. Because economy is all. Being spare and quick is what it’s all about. Otherwise the reader gets bored. They want to cut to the chase, and if I don’t do that, they won’t read.

So, I’ve been reworking the first 10 pages over and over and over. I’ve probably written 15,000 words to get 4500 words eventually. I hope. I’m not there yet. The rest of it flows reasonably well. And the first chapter will eventually. I won’t let it out of the house until it does. And once it does, the last part of the book should come up much better too.

Less isn’t only more, it’s harder.

Are we having fun yet?

Wedding Bells II contest closes Sept 1. Enter now on my website for a box of “wedding-related” books and other goodies.

I’m trying to think of things for the scavenger hunt. Hmmmmm.

This is the part that takes the longest — getting everything set. We might be here a few more days before we get to “go.”

Right now I am back threading through the subplot stuff that I didn’t know enough about when I first wrote the book to be able to include it then. But now I do, and ideally it should just fit right in without me having to strangle characters to get them to accept new words. Hahahaha.

So I’m currently messing in chapter one, trying to help Sadie sort out all the stuff and put it in the right order so when it all comes to pass in chapter six (and later) there won’t be any surprises. Well, there may be, but they will have been set up earlier and so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

But doing it takes time. It’s nitpicking. Tedious. Mind-dulling. All of the above. And yet it has to “sparkle” on the page or the editor (and readers) are going to toss the book across the room, yawn and say, “Why bother?”

I want them to bother.

So . . . if you don’t hear from me for a few days it’s because I’m threading and sorting and lining up ducks and then I have to go back and finish the book. This is what usually happens. The last part gets written after everything else is sorted out. And there’s no quick way to do it. It’s just a matter of slogging through.

Right. Back to work. Have fun out in the real world.

And don’t forget to sign up for the wedding bells II contest which is ending September 1st. You can do it on my website .

What I said last night about being unable to find the way into a scene seems to have resonated with a few people, as illustrated by Anne Frasier’s comment and some emails I’ve had. It has made me think about how to approach a scene — or how I approach them.

My beloved copy-editor, Judi Cross, who has tangled with many of my books over the last 17 or so years, has often pointed out to me that I garble my tenses. And I don’t do it to annoy her, regardless of what she thinks. I do it so I can plunge myself, my characters and my readers immediately into the action at hand.

Sometimes the only way to do that is to dive in in the middle of the scene, right where the tension is high, and then back off just a little to develop the setting and the mind-set of the characters going into it after. This, of course, makes me write in past perfect, which is the part that drives Judi understandably nuts, but she’s learned to be a good sport about it. And if things get too garbled, she makes me take another look and straighten it all out chronologically.

But I do think that, despite the dependence on past perfect, jumping straight in — even with a brief backpedal — is a good way to do it.

It’s easier, of course, when it can just progress chronologically. But sometimes the set-up is too long and boring that way. And a writer needs to drag readers into the action first, then give them the set up, which they wouldn’t have had the patience for if they didn’t already feel the tension.

I’ve been aware of this again as I’ve tried “tweaking” (editor term for what a writer might call “gutting”) a scene at the beginning of Spence and Sadie. There is a long “set up” when the book starts. I didn’t want to start it there because of the length of the set up. But setting it when the conflict was about to start meant I had to go back and do too much set up later. So I needed to hint at tension from the start.

I’ve got a first line now that I think will do it. As long as readers keep it in mind while I’m doing the rest of the set up, we’ll be okay.

Or my editor can think of another way to accomplish the same thing. That’s her job, after all. And she’s good at it. I’m curious to see what she thinks.

In the meantime, at last . . . chapter nine.