Forcing vs. trying really hard

Last time here on the blog, I said, "... when I force it, the writing is crap."

That is true. Such writing can be lusterless and shallow, having that phoned-in feeling.

But it's also true that when I push myself, my writing often breaks through to another level. Case in point: the toughest part of responding to my editor's revision suggestions on The Secret Year was the work I did on the ending. Almost everything else that I revised, I saw pretty clearly where I wanted to go, and then it was ju...