Revising

It's happened again, that thing where I wake up with a good idea for my work-in-progress. I rush to write it down, or to record it on my phone. And now I'm sitting down to weave it into this manuscript, which I hope will become the third Blackie & Care mystery.

So that's all good, right? Well, yes, except that I thought I had a finished manuscript. All the clues were laid, the action was written out, and I was even pretty happy with how I tied it all together. (If I re-read the climax and realize I'm holding my breath, I figure that's pretty good!) I'm supposed to be in the revising stage now. And this isn't even the first revision. I read the entire manuscript through last month, before taking a week of vacation. Now I'm reading it through on paper, supposedly just for things like awkward sentences or updated bits that somehow didn't make it in. I'm not supposed to be plotting at this point. But... writing is messy, I've found. And rewriting is an essential part of it. And so I'm working on this new twist, seeing if I can indeed fit it into the manuscript. And then, I guess, I'll be reading it through, one more time, before sending it in!