Thursday, September 24, 2015

Guest Post: All Those Words! by Lynn LaFleur


Most authors have a system for keeping track of their writing, whether it be words written, or pages completed, or chapters completed, per day or week. I’m no different. I keep track of the words I’ve written and how many pages I’ve completed each day on a calendar. At the end of the year, I add up all those words and pages and put them in a spreadsheet.

But a good friend of mine mentioned the other day that she’d added up all the words she’d written since she became published. That’s something I’ve never done, and it made me curious. So I pulled out my spreadsheet and did some calculating.

1,789,864.

That’s how many words are in my published books to date. It doesn’t count the words in books that I’ve never published. If I added those up, too, the number would be closer to two million.

Two million words. Wow!

Other authors have written less words than I have, and some have written more. Some days I’m lucky to complete 200 good words; other days, I write thousands. Every author has to write at his or her own pace. No amount of words is right or wrong, as long as the author finishes the book.

I’ve recently joined several other authors to publish boxed sets for Under the Sun Publishing. Our first set was released September 22nd, entitled Falling in Love. It contains eight stories from multi-published, award-winning authors, all about the special journey of falling in love.


Here’s a little taste of “Worth the Wait”, my story from the Falling in Love boxed set. I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Lindsay drew her bottom lip farther between her teeth when she saw Sam unlock the door to the storeroom. She glanced around the bar, searching for the other bartender. She didn’t see him, but she could hear what sounded like dishes being shifted and stacked in the kitchen.

She had no idea how long Sam would be in that storeroom. If she did something, it had to be now.

Don’t be a wimp, Lindsay. Go for it.

Lindsay sipped her Coke and took a deep breath. Grabbing her purse, she rose and strode to the storeroom.

She stepped into a room larger than she’d expected. Long and wide, shelves sat along all the walls and down the middle, holding boxes of liquor and glassware. She saw a door straight ahead of her that she assumed led to the kitchen, or perhaps opened for deliveries. She couldn’t see Sam, but she could hear bottles rattling.

Laying her purse on top of a case of bourbon, she pushed the door shut and flipped the deadbolt.

The rattling stopped. “Monte?” Sam called out.

Lindsay leaned back against the door, her hands behind her for support. “No, it isn’t Monte.”

Several seconds passed before he appeared at the end of the middle shelves.

Lindsay said nothing and neither did he. She watched his gaze slowly move over her from head to feet and back again. Her heart pounded as if she’d done an hour of hard exercise. Sweat formed on her palms while her mouth became dry. She waited for him to move closer, but he remained still.

The first move had to be hers.

* * *

More information about Falling in Love and all my other books on my website:

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