As I've mentioned, I'm revising Dead on Delivery, the sequel to Don't Kill the Messenger. It's been a fun book (once the horrid misstep with the Maenads, etc., got cleared up) and the notes from my editor were far from onerous.
But I hit a spot on Sunday where something was wrong. I knew the smart next step for my heroine was to do something that in the original she doesn't do for another sixty pages or so. Neither my agent nor my editor brought it up and for a moment I was tempted to just let it be. I mean, if it didn't bother them, why should I move it? Especially because there's a deadline looming and another book that needs to be written and my son needs a haircut and my mother hurt her arm and the cat is licking at his leg in that weird way again.
I actually left it and moved on. Then, with my head hanging in shame, went back and moved the scene. It's going to be a pain. It's going to cause ripples for the next one hundred pages or so that will have to be addressed. It would have been so much easier to leave it, but I just couldn't. It would have shamed me.
It was one of those moments that I have to ask myself for whom I'm writing. Sure. To an extent, I'm writing for my editor who signs the checks and for the readers that buy the books (please, please buy the books), but I think in the end, I'm still writing for me. I'm still writing for the joy of being as storyteller and part of that joy comes from pushing myself to be the best storyteller I know how to be.
