It’s really difficult for me to relate to you the amount of creative energy, determination, courage, and plain old stubborn hard work it takes to write a book, especially the continuation of a series. It’s a lot, like powering a major city a lot. You can’t let your characters grow stale, yet they need to evolve in the world you created for them. Then there are the crimes wrapped around the characters, the culture that the characters relate to (or don’t, depending) the conundrums of the various relationships, and the proverbial monkey wrenches of past baggage crawling out of the woodwork to muck everything up. All that has to work together and keep people interested, more importantly, keep me interested.

I look forward to the editors sending me back their comments. I really do. It means the book is almost done. All that work will amount to something. All I have to do read, acknowledge, and mostly but not always follow the directions of my smart, insightful, passionate editors. That’s so much easier said than done.

First, there are the punctuation and spelling issues. I fully acknowledge those. Some are funny. When I’m in the full swing of a rewrite, I’ll post the mistakes that strike me silly on my facebook fan page. Some are hard, and even though the editors are probably right, I have to check to make sure. Modifying predicates seem to be a sticking point in this book. And don’t forget the evil commas, like irritating little ticks; so innocent by themselves, so destructive when there are too many.

Content is what gets my ire up. I’m personally invested in my content. Like any jealous god, I take umbrage of those who poke holes in my universe. That’s mine! Yet, logically I know it must be done. The editors keep me on task, even when I secretly resent it. It’s necessary for the sake of the story, and I want the story to be the best it can be. If I didn’t value anyone else’s opinion, I wouldn’t bother editing. I’d just spew out crap and sell it in the 99 cent section and see if I could make a few bucks. That’s just not me (sometimes I wish it could be. Life would be easier).

So, for the sake of quality and consistency and actually giving a crap, I systematically go through every page from every editor and give careful consideration to all the dreaded universe holes and work out how I can fix them. Thank you editors. You’re like the kicker on the football team. I don’t always appreciate you, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

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