Some people wonder why authors spend hour after hour grinding out a story, then refining it again and again until they’re either too exhausted to continue or they believe their work is finally ready to share with the world.

As I celebrate the birth of the paperback version of In the Dead of the Night (credit to Diane L. Turner for the fabulous book-birthday image!) I can answer that question with one phrase.

Because we have to.

There are any number of reasons writers pick up their pen (or keyboard). For money. To capture memories. Or maybe to make someone laugh.

But serious writers are motivated by more than these reasons. We write because, to not write, is to watch a part of ourselves die.

The truth is, authors aren’t just storytellers, we’re men and women who experience a lives, situations, and realities in our minds that we have to share with the world. While royalties are always nice, our goal is to present a message that we hope will impact, entertain, and inspire.

That’s how I see it anyway.

So as stores start to order copies of my latest book and I move forward with book signings, my prayer is that readers will catch the vision of this trilogy and find, in its pages, a story that will make us all a little more determined to be the light in a dark world.

JP Robinson