A small point

I’m working on a new Julius Katz story, and wrote the following sentence:

Cramer somehow showed enough restraint to keep his mouth clamped shut.

That struck me as being not quite right, and I changed it to the following:

Cramer somehow mustered enough restraint to keep his mouth clamped shut.

This is a small point, but writing fiction is made up of a lot of small points. You have to recognize when something needs to be improved and keep working at it until you’re satisfied with it. I imagine writing as a sculptor who is constantly chipping away at a block of marble and smoothing it until it matches what had been imagined.

How do you get to the point where you know when something’s right or when it needs more work? I have to think it’s something of a feel and instinct you develop the more you write (and read). And of course, the more you write (and read), the better you get at spotting and correcting certain weaknesses. In any case, I’m better at it now after writing over 25 novels and 120 short stories than I was after writing 10 novels and 50 short stories, and far better than I was when I first started putzing around with writing.