Also disconcerting has…

Also disconcerting has been the editing for Bodies in Motion. Marjorie sent me her suggestions, and for the most part, they were quite good suggestions, reaffirming my faith in the quality of New York editing. I think I'm going to like working with her. But one thing that has been very odd for me has been changing the names of a bunch of the characters. She pointed out, and rightly so, that I had kazillion L, S, A, and R names, making it quite difficult for readers to keep track of who was whom.

So I changed some -- and now Laila is Kili, Lekha is Harini, Lulu is Neriya, etc. and so on. Savitha married Thayalan, instead of Sanjeev. In my head, I'm keeping all the old names as middle names -- so we have Kili Laila Kandiah, Harini Lekha Kandiah, Neriya Luluah Kandiah, etc. But I don't think anyone but me will care about that.

I've mostly tried not to change the names from stories that have been published, so Lakshmi still marries Raksha, and Suneel still marries Sushila (and still has a sister, Medha). I also kept the names that were notably significant -- Chaya and Savitha are names with meanings that their mother deliberately chose.

Basically, this is only going to cause trouble for my early readers, those who have been following along from the beginning. Hopefully they can adapt with me. :-)

I've finished implementing all the simple edits Marjorie sent -- I have a few questions which I've sent off to her on some more complex points, and I still have a story to write. Possibly two -- she's thinking she might want to include another "Challah" story in the book. Which on the one hand sounds good, as it should further entice readers to buy The Arrangement when it comes out. But I'm a bit worried about writing something that then gets set in stone, and which I won't be able to use or will have to use exactly as is for the follow-up novel. We'll see.

While waiting for Marjorie to get back to me, I have two more tasks -- assemble a bibliography of further reading, to go at the end of the book, and do a large genealogy chart, that I can send to New York for them to reproduce in the book...

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