The Last Edits

I am almost done with the edits for Devlin's Team # 4: Missing Persons.  This one fought me for three months and then suddenly fell into place  I give credit where it is due -- to the two new stuffed plot bunnies I sat on top of my monitor and who are keeping close watch on me, along with their larger companion, also new.  This is stuffed plot-bunny season, people.  Go out and buy yourself one.  Or two.  Or three.  And when you do that every year -- well, yes, I have run out of shelf space and they are on the monitor for a reason.  (Also don't forget chocolate plot bunnies.)

I do have a large collection of stuffed bunnies, bears, cats, and even a few penguins.  I like them. They make me smile.  Yeah, people look at me oddly as I grab stuffed animals, but I'm a writer.  I am allowed to be eccentric, right?

Ummm, right. Back to the novel.  Devlin's Team # 4 had to have a lot of rewriting and editing.  I added entire chapters.  I changed the ending.  I rewrote it again.  I am finally happy with what I have for the story.  I'm not as sure about this cover yet, but it does show the sort of neon, futuristic city where the team is heading to investigate why scientists are being lured to the world and then disappear.  Devlin comes in thinking this should be an easy case.  Ha!  It's one of the cases where she makes a major mistake.  It's a good thing she has the rest of the team this time!

I enjoy writing the Devlin stories.  She and 'the boys' are fun to write.  Because of their work, and because the series does go on for several books, they are able to cross paths with some people more than once.  That's going to start happening with the next book in the series, The Aldebaran Stopover.  Just a quiet little stop on the way home, right?

LOL

This novel, though, will be done by the end of March.  I'm determined to stop nudging at it and simply get the work finished.   I have that problem sometimes.  I get very close to being done and I slow down.  I want to have it done and published, but the little doubts come in.  I should change this scene, I should add this bit -- I should rewrite the entire novel from scratch again.  Those are all my versions of the kinds of doubts all writers get.  I have to push past them. The last edits are going well enough and I think I've made most, if not all, of the major changes.  Right now I'm down to correcting commas, changing words, and maybe adding a touch more information in some places.

After that, I'll be preparing Raventower & Merriweather 2: War for publication.  The book is written.  I need to sit down with it and do the edits, which I don't think are going to be nearly as difficult as Devlin's Team #4 have been.  The Devlin stories are much older and need a lot more care.  Raventower and Merriweather are new and better written from the start.  I also have the start of an idea for book 3 in that series.  It should be fun.

Journey of a Thousand Truths is very close to being done in the first draft.  For my birthday, I started Amusing Grace, the sequel to Muse.  I've had this outline waiting for years.  It's fun.  So I have a lot of odd little bits and pieces of things going on, including the first notes on the 10th Devlin Novel.  Oh and yeah, that other one about the Egyptians is still playing at my mind.  I just refuse to commit to it yet.

I am looking forward to spring getting here so I feel less confined.  We were supposed to get less than an inch of snow last night -- we ended up with about four inches.  Not a horrible amount, but still annoying when you keep hoping to see green again.  It is pretty today, but far too cold again.  I would like to see some colors out there and have it warm enough to take one of the cameras out and find pretty stuff. 

But right now ... time to work on the novel again!