It happens every freakin' time! You'd think I'd get a clue, since I'm working on my 40th historical, but nooooo. Every time I think I'm at the "minor changes" only stage, I find...not exactly huge changes, but enough to make me revise/reprint/revise/reprint some parts of the manuscript. This time, I hit this situation at the end of Chapter One. Sheesh. It's not as if I haven't already revised Chapter One about fifty times, either. Sigh. Sighsighsighsigh. It's times like this that are really tough to explain to a non-writer, too. Why didn't I see the problems earlier?
Sometimes, it's a case of needing to read the manuscript in "bigger pieces," as a reader would. Then pacing problems become more apparent. Sometimes, I've changed something and realize I was right the first time. Sometimes I've forgotten something, or that a change I made in an earlier incarnation should have influenced something that came later, and hasn't.
The bottom line is, though, I have to work on the manuscript until I'm down to changing a word here or there on a page. That's as close to "done" as I get.
Sadly, I ain't there yet with HERS TO DESIRE, and I thought I was.
Ah well, I've still got just over a week. No need to panic yet. But it does mean I worked after my husband's concert on Friday (he sings in a choir), and after going to a craft show with my mom and sisters on Sat. It means working literally morning, noon, and night until the book is down to the small changes. And then I have to prepare the computer disk the way production wants it, which is not the way I write it. But that's small spuds compared to getting to the end of Chapter One and feeling the pace slow to a dead crawl. Now that's disturbing.
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