How to write a novel.

I start at the last line of the book.

You have to tear your heart out, every inch of the way, back to the beginning.

When you can't take any more... Not another moment...

You're halfway there.

I don't know how I feel about who I am sometimes. What kind of person poisons three people and kills an old, honorable, hard-working man before he goes to work in the morning?

How do I look myself in the eye, knowing I am planning the deaths of several characters who are wonderful people? They don't deserve to die but they must in order for the story to move forward.

I can write with my eyes closed so I don't need to be able to see through the tears in order to kill a beloved person. I can kill them with my eyes closed.

I can tell you. If my story makes you cry... I promise I cried harder as I broke my spine and removed my heart to let you feel some of what I felt as that person died. I felt it more than the reader and for the reader it was brutal.

I hope it was anyway because that's how I meant to write it.