Is There a Patron Saint of Editing?

Back in February, I wrote this post about finishing the first draft of book one and cheerfully announcing that I was starting the editing process. I believe I used words like "excited" and "ready." I am now ready to put my own eyes out with a fork.

I am 40% of the way through editing this book, and I would like to report that editing is not a process for which I am well suited. It is a hostage situation. The book is holding me captive, and its demands keep changing.

Here's what nobody tells you about editing a cozy mystery: you can't just fix a sentence. You fix a sentence, and then the clue you planted in chapter four no longer makes sense, which means the conversation in chapter nine needs to change, which means your victim's last day timeline is wrong, which means, congratulations, you have just unraveled your entire murder over a semicolon.

I've started googling whether there's a patron saint of editing. There isn't. There's a patron saint of writers (St. Francis de Sales), a patron saint of lost causes (St. Jude), and a patron saint of headaches (St. Teresa of Ávila), and frankly all three feel applicable. If anyone at the Vatican is reading this blog, can you let me know if I need to submit the request in writing?

The book will get finished. The editing will end. I know this because I’ve told you what the alternative is, and HRFP has hidden the good silverware.