Focus. Concentrate. Think about your book 24/7. Do not read anyone else’s book, lest your mind shift to another story. Put in the hours – if ever there was a time to work long and hard, it’s now.

And that, dear friends, is why I haven’t blogged in a while. Blogging takes effort, concentration, and creative energy, all of which I’m putting into While My Sister Sleeps. I’m working on the final quarter of the book – the last 90 pages – and, in fairness, lest you start feeling sorry for me, this is the easy part. I know my characters intimimately, and I know what they have to do before the book ends. Their emotions are running high, which means that mine are as well. Self-discipline isn’t a problem at this stage, as it was at the start of the book. Back then, knowing that the whole book was ahead of me was slightly daunting. Good reason to knock off, have lunch with a friend, go shopping, or knit.

Now I have no such temptations. I’m running the final leg of this race (one of the characters in While My Sister Sleeps is a runner -- good analogies here). No way am I stopping until the last words of this book are done.

That said, I’m still talking with book groups on the phone, though I try to group them together so that my actual writing time is unbroken. I’m also delivering the occasional speech, as those of you in New England who received my recent eblast know. This is the business side of my work, and it isn’t very sympathetic to the creative side. I discipline it, but only to a point. It's part of my career.

Which, by the way, is something I’ll be saying to my Boston College audience of writers-to-be Wednesday night (click here for details). Writing a good book alone isn’t enough to make an author successful. She has to be able to handle the business of writing as well, which means managing a website, giving speeches, making appearances, doing interviews, and, yes, blogging.

I’m aiming to finish While My Sister Sleeps by Memorial Day. I’m actually hoping to finish a week earlier, so that I’ll be able to read through the whole thing one last time and make final edits before sending it on to my editor in New York. Then I’ll hold my breath, waiting to see whether she likes it. If she doesn’t, there will be revisions to do on my end. If she does, we’ll be into the afterwork work of novel writing. But that’s easier. No blank screen each morning. Just refining. It’s very satisfying work.

I’ll write more then. Thanks for understanding! Remember, I’m doing this for YOU!

Oh, and my publisher is working on a cover for While My Sister Sleeps. As soon as it's done, I'll post it with a summary of the book. Sound fair?