February 1 is the day I'm scheduled to send Yesterday's Murder to my editor. A deadline is one of those shivery moments: There's the joy of sharing the book with someone who knows the ropes and will make suggestions to improve my work. There's also the dread of being told, "No, no, no! Not that way!" 

I believe the right editor is a jewel beyond price. I've had some bad ones, one that wanted everything written the way he'd have done it (and he was no prize at writing) and a couple who thought they were helping by telling me the book was perfect and I'd done a fantastic job (Highly unlikely.) 

A good editor looks at the story from a reader's viewpoint. Where is it confusing? Repetitive? Where do readers resent the plot slowing down to tell a character's backstory? (A book I'm reading right now gets so caught up in the protagonist's past that I keep forgetting what he was hired to do in Chapter One.) Where does the author's voice peek through the words and interfere with the story? (Last week I read a family-saga type book that was virulently anti-Trump, and while I'm no fan of his, it felt like index cards had been taped to the page: "Stop here: I want to talk about politics for a while!") A good editor sees that the story proceeds in order, so readers have a fair chance to predict events. (Experienced readers love to guess what's next, but they don't mind being wrong if there's justification. A plot twist isn't good unless the reader is delighted to have not seen it coming.)

Today (and maybe tomorrow) is my final look-through. I plan to add a couple of bits to clarify characters' personalities. I will look for places to add sensory details. I will check chapter lengths to make sure I don't have one that's three times longer than the others.

Then Yesterday's Murder will become someone else's project for a while. I'm excited. And I'm terrified.