On Saturday I found myself with some time, so I decided to edit China Tour. I started from the beginning, and got all the way to page 48 in the couple of hours of quiet time I had. I enjoyed this time. Editing doesn’t bother me.

What concerns me, however, is how few changes I have. Granted that I’ve been over some of this before, when I read the last five pages before going on to new material. But I’ve found in past novels that I always have some things to change in the early chapters based on what I write in the later chapters.

Perhaps it will be the need to foreshadow a plot element that I added, which I didn’t anticipate early on. Perhaps it was foreshadowing of something I later decided not to put in the book, so I have to take something out. For whatever reason, I’ve always found the edits to be necessary.

This time, not so much. I’m editing at the point in the story where the mistaken identity has happened, but the CIA agents haven’t figured it all out yet. They are about to meet the tourist couple, and learn the extent of the problem.

Perhaps I’ll find more to edit as I get into it more. I might find some time tomorrow, Christmas day, to edit twenty to thirty pages. We’ll see how that goes. I’m anxious to get back to the writing, to adding new material and completing the story. Right now I’ve fallen behind the pace needed to have it done by early February, but there’s still time to catch up.

Stay tuned. And Merry Christmas.