A river runs through your writing and it must roar or whisper in every story. You are the source of the river.

There’s a problem I see arise sometimes when writers are working toward creating content for their book—creating that river, and I’m going to tell you how to fix it.

Often when someone writes only once a week to complete an assignment the day before it’s due, the perspective of the whole project gets lost. The reason you are writing, the theme, the point of view, and the statement you want to make—gets lost.

You are not seeing the river that runs through our story because you’re only looking at pieces. The best move is to stop moving forward. Stop and delegate time to thread the pieces together you already have.

Copy and paste till the pieces flow in a healthy river. Test it until you’re happy. Be brutal.

Once you commit and you’re up to your knees in the process, you’ll feel exhilaration as it comes together. You can go back and write new pieces once the river is re-affirmed.

When we blindly keep writing separate stories for a book we can lose sight of the big story we want to tell and why we’re telling it! The BIG STORY that runs through your life and affects almost everything you say and do. Your signature. Your book.

I excused myself from other obligations, hunkered down and concentrated for eight-hour days to arrange the pieces in one of my book projects recently. I chopped chapters that didn’t seem relevant or vital. And the river flowed.

What is the theme, the truth, the point of view you want to draw attention to—the reason you’re writing! It’s always more than the stories themselves. It’s what the stories illuminate. What is the river running through your book and is it clear and beautiful like you?