Change is Good; Say it Three Times!

I'm revising the first three chapters of my romance. It's in the proposal stage, sold proposal stage, but proposal stage never-the-less. It's amazing the changes, some obvious (Duh! How'd I let that slip by) and some not so obvious (Hmmmm, but that was the black moment!) Sitting next to me, I have the email with eight suggested changes. I cross them out as I do them.

The first change I made was easy. My editor kindly pointed out that in my last book the son's name was Justin, so it would be a good idea to change the name of this son. Somehow I managed to name him Justin, too (could be because this second book was actually written years before the first). Hmmm, since my husband and I are trying for baby number two, and my husband's clan seems to only produce boys, maybe I'm thinking of naming baby number two (sending up prayers here) Justin.

No surprise, the next change I'm making is deleting back story. I equate back story to brownies. See, I love brownies. I have a hard time eating just one (btw, I just finishing one and am licking crumbs off my fingers). If you look at my picture, you'll see I'm definitely a three brownie at a time kind of girl. I guess I'm that way about backstory. I'm going to give you 66% too much, so I have to delete (it always makes my story better to do so, too).

Change number three is a 'fact' point. The editor pointed out a logic error. I hit myself on the head, and changed it (I've never had to do a second mortgage).

Last, at least of the easy stuff, I'm changing family members, combining them, making them younger, and moving them to different towns even (I love this part!)

There are a few changes I haven't even addressed. Sometimes a change changes the whole book (if I were grading this, I'd say get rid of one of the change words there). Some of the changes I have no idea about yet. One change affects my black moment. I have to chew on that change for awhile. Black moments are, well, black. I don't want my black moment to become a gray moment, or even a senior moment, I'll take my time with this one.

Happy Writing!