It's amazing how much hard work goes into putting out a brand new book! When I first sat down to write my first story, I had no idea the long, arduous process I would end up going through. By spending time writing, I'm definitely learning the hard lesson of persevering no matter how hard it is to keep plugging away. Everyone loves their book when it's in the rough draft phase. You've got the general idea of the book, you've outlined enough of the story to write the thing, and you're putting your ideas down on paper. The story just flows up from the depths of your soul, and it is creation at its purest. Genuine bliss! But once it's done, that's where the hard work comes in. First draft, polishing the thing so that it's as well-written as you can possibly make it. The pace of writing slows to a crawl because you're agonizing over every word, trying to get it just right. The first draft is probably one of the hardest parts of the book, at least for me! Then comes the second draft, after the beta readers have got their hooks into the book and told you "Boy, this bit sucks!" I basically had to rewrite 30% of The Last Bucelarii (Book 1): Blade of the Destroyer thanks to comments from my beta readers. That second draft was NOT easy, and it took a lot of work to get it finally write. Of course, after that comes the arduous process of reading over every word myself and finding anything that stands out as odd or poorly worded. Once I finish reading the book and marking it all to hell with my red pen, it's time to make those changes and try to fix the wording as best I can. Definitely not an easy task. Finally, there's the comments from the editors that need to be incorporated. This can take another few weeks/months, and by the time your book is actually ready to be published, you're incredibly proud of the masterpiece you've put out until---god damn it, there's a typo! Writing (proper, professional writing, not just throwing books up on Amazon willy-nilly) is an arduous process that demands perseverance. Thankfully, all of the work is paying off, for the book is being picked up by a publisher. That won't make writing Books 2 through all the rest any easier, but it proves that the perseverance is worth it.