My mother, author Delores Beckman said, “Writing is like using a wheelbarrow to pick up rocks in a field. Each rock makes the load harder to handle.”
I have said, “Changing something in a book can break everything.” I think this thought originates from my programming days. Fiddle with a few lines in a function over here, and something unexpected breaks in several procedures over there.
I recently realized I had the name of a town incorrect in WIP The Ship from Wolfskill. As Will and his companions fly the airship further into Freebooter territory, battles and rescues take place. In my 11,214th pass, I realized they were in the right town, but the town had the wrong name. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to put the wheelbarrow down and rest. Getting the town names straightened out might break everything.
I’m not even sure how this happened. I have an unsettling feeling that I was fixing something and typed the wrong name. Then as I checked other instances of whatever I was “fixing,” I was breaking the town names.
I have been told, “Outline! List the towns!”
I did that. The list was last saved in February 2020, but after a while, I had the towns in my head—I no longer needed the list. I had a mental image of each town. The problem was, my fingers didn’t get the memo.
So for a couple of evenings, I have “fixed” the problem—and checked the prisoners captured or rescued in each town.
Why is it that I have the uneasy feeling I may have missed something? If this wheelbarrow wasn’t so full of rocks—I could read the book in one sitting, with no interruptions. (I know, an impossibility.) Then I would know for sure nothing is broken.
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