On September 23, 2013, A Difficult Mirror will be released for your consumption (and, hopefully, joy). That the novel took a while to write is no secret. Those who have followed this blog or otherwise read things I posted here or there know that A Difficult Mirror has been around for a long time.

It even had a different name for nearly 10 of those years. (That’s a contest entry for later, though.)

So, how do you end up taking nearly 20 years to write a novel when your last novel only took a year?

That’s not really an easy question to answer without getting into things that are entirely too personal, but I’ll give you some background into the process. (By the way, I don’t recommend trying this at home.)

Step 1: Find yourself in a hooch in central Honduras without phones, the Internet or television that isn’t in…