The End of a Story

I have now finished Clara’s Story. It is running at 103,000 words.  All my novels seem to come out at that length these days – until the publisher’s editor’s had their say. I’ve edited it eighteen times, including giving it a final copy edit. I made myself concentrate on the words one sentence at a time and stopped myself worrying about anything else at this stage. I suddenly saw the text in a new light. Was this the way my readers were going to experience it?