I’d quite deliberately handed ATLANTIS FALLEN over to beta readers who didn’t know the world the serial numbers had been scraped off, in order to see if the worldbuilding held up! Because that was my big concern!

Except I also sent it my cover artist, who did know the old world, and she emailed me in the middle of reading it and said “So how come you didn’t do X with this instead of sticking with the Y you had in place?”

…well, because I didn’t think of that. God damn it.

She said, “You can tell me “No no no, that’s a terrible idea, I am not revising the manuscript, why do you hate me?” and I will not be offended!”

Well, it is a terrible idea. It’s an absolutely terrible idea because it would mean having to revise a quarter of the manuscript. Possibly a third.

Unfortunately, it’s a terrible idea that solves a problem that I’d looked at early on, been unable to come up with a solution for, and had thought, Well, no, I mean basically that’s going to be okay….

And know what? I’m right. Basically it is okay. The beta readers haven’t had an issue (beyond some *very* minor, easy to fix problems) with the thing that flagged bright shiny red for the person familiar with the old version of the story.

But god damn it, it’s a better idea. It’s a better solution. It will be to the book’s betterment. There is a lot of better involved here.

But god damn it, there’s a lot of revision, too.

Honestly, if it didn’t solve that problem I’d been unable to come up with a solution for, I would leave it alone. But it does, dammit, and…this better be a great cover, is all I’m sayin’.

Dammit. :)