I received my revision letter for In the Midnight Hour yesterday. Not all of them--there will be more to follow--but getting part of them was a huge relief. Especially since my editor included all kinds of compliments about the story and my writing! We writers really, really love to hear things like that. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I can't imagine anyone feeling differently.
The biggest change I had to make (so far) was my hero's real name and what my heroine calls him. This was actually okay, since my hero doesn't use his real name, doesn't even think of himself by that name. Everyone has always called him Deke. If I'd been asked to change the Deke, that might have been a problem, but changing his real name--Deke just shrugged. He didn't care. His name was Irish, Daire (think diacritical mark over the a), he's now become Daniel, but he was called Deke because his dad was Dan. I did a search and replace, but now I'm going through, looking for little things that have to be adjusted. There's a scene in LA that I want to change to explain how Deke got his nickname as a baby.
Then there's what my heroine calls him. Daire is pronounced Daw-ra, so she called him Daw in the book. Or she did. Thanks to find and replace, she now calls him Deke too. :-) This was actually something I debated for more than a week once I sold Midnight Hour and started writing it again--what she was going to call him. I was this close (holds fingers a quarter of an inch apart) to having her call him Deke, but I stayed with Daw, but both me and Ryne were both ambivalent about it. It really helps when the characters are cooperative. :-)
So I worked on this yesterday instead of writing new stuff and I think this was beneficial, not just because I was getting my revisions done, but because it reminded me of things about the Gineal that I'd forgotten. Since my next book involves Ryne's sister, this is a good thing. There was also a very useful discussion on one of my loops involving writing a series. What I got out of it was that notes are invaluable. :-) So that's what I'm going to do as I read through Midnight Hour--make notes. I use some Gaelic words, so I'm writing those down as I come across them and I have to remember to write down other important points. I have loose leaf paper, a ton of three-ring binders and if I can get my hands on some tab dividers (I'm sure my dad has some), then once I have notes, I can separate them out by book, by character, by culture--whatever works best.
Actually, notes would have come in handy while I was writing Eternal Nights. I can't tell you how much I'd forgotten from Ravyn's Flight, and I spent a lot of time thumbing through RF, looking for details.
