Hello Dear Reader Friend,​

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I recently saw an online conversation spark up about readers who leap over chunks of the work, sometimes even read the last pages first to find out how it ends… Something about being able to relax, something about not being able to enjoy the read if they don't...

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WHAAAAAT??!! People do this? Oh, how could you. 

The slap of this monstrous imprudence. As a first time published author to learn this happens, and happens a lot, was as horrifying an affront as I could fathom. You, you....MONSTERS!

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Or then again, maybe there was something significant at play, something worth learning, something far more important? 

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The work after all, all of it... The thousands of hours as it was in my case and others like me who don't find that mercurial place where paragraphs turn into long sections and chapters pour out; the wrestle to reach that exact word; the years of writer's block (yes, years, not a drop); the arguments with myself about the plot; the lost ideas that slipped before landing - but I knew they had called - the frustrated attempts to share with friends who couldn't possibly figure my incoherence, the words sticking in my throat; the uncertainty of the placement of a stop, the snaffoo over the naming of the serial comma; the actual real mistakes; the utter ecstatic joyful abandonment and promise of maybe putting something of beauty out into the world - it was all for the reader.