Last week my editor from Switching to Light, Leilani, reached out to let me know that she’s back in the editing game. She stepped away and took a break for a year and asked if I have anything that I’d like her to edit. Do I ever! I let her know that I have written four books during her hiatus with two books ready to publish.

Talk about divine timing!

Here I was, getting ready to publish Turning to Color (TTC), but still not feeling concrete about releasing the story into the world. I had already gone through a whole rewrite after my developmental edit from my amazing editor, Ema Barnes (you can find her on Reedsy!). But something about the book still wasn’t working for me. I was stuck in this very position with my first book, not knowing if it was really ready to be printed into book form.

Basically, I had questions about Monica, one of the main characters. 

• Does Monica cross the ‘sassy line’ too much into the land that would label her as a ‘you know what?’ (Starts with a ‘B’). 
• Does Monica stray from her arc too much? 
• Ultimately, I wanted to know if Monica is likable.

I excitedly sent my manuscript to Leilani, hoping for the best. She had a quick turnaround of one week and received five pages from her of a breakdown as well as comments in the actual manuscript. Did she give me a glowing review? 

Nope! 

Sure enough, she didn’t like Monica. : ) My feelings are far from being hurt. This is business after all! I’m actually thrilled that she hit the nail on the head, being able to voice the same concerns that I had with this character. This went to show me that despite making tons of edits after my first round, I still had work to do…and that’s okay!

I went back and forth for a few minutes, unsure if I should hire Leilani for a quick developmental edit, or if I should leave everything ‘as is’ in order to meet my publishing deadline of July 15. Several questions came to mind: Do I want my book to be the best that it can be? Do I want to satisfy readers, bringing them back to more of my books, or do I want to take my chances and possibly repeal them from my writing?

The answer was obvious for me. 

So, I’m resetting my countdown and shifting my goals. It’s not a huge shift since I’m still aiming to publish in July. The benefit of taking a few more weeks will be a stronger book for my readers and possibly more realistic characters for all of you to connect with. I’ll have the peace of mind knowing that I’m putting my best effort into the book instead of wondering if it’s good enough once I hit the publish button. 

Is it going to be worth combing through the book again and making changes again? I think so!