Meredith Mansfield, Author

Don’t worry. I’ve fixed it again.

What I broke was the end of THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. You see, one of my critique partners had what sounded like a really good idea. I tried it. It didn’t work.

If you’ve seen the blurb:

When the two kinds of magic combine in one person, unexpected things happen.
Sensing the presence of lions is one thing. Any member of the Lion Clan could do that. When Vatar sees the hunt through the eyes of one of the big cats—well, that’s something else altogether. And that’s only the beginning of the unusual manifestations of his magic.

When a mysterious voice only he can hear volunteers ancient wisdom, Vatar knows he’s in trouble. After enduring an Ordeal to prove he isn’t haunted by an Evil Spirit, Vatar thinks he may be possessed after all. Or losing his mind. Or cursed.

He must hide his Talent from his magic-fearing people or face consequences that don’t bear thinking about. But he has to control it in order to keep it secret. And now he’s not sure he can. It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether.

But he’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to defeat those who want to use him and his unique abilities for their own ends.

You know that the main conflict of this story is The Voice. What is it? What can it actually do? And what does it want? Those questions aren’t answered until the very end of the book, though hopefully there’ve been enough clues sprinkled in that the reader knows the answer before my characters overcome their blind spots and preconceptions to figure it out.

The change sounded like a great idea, mostly because it was what the source of The Voice would actually do. But I read through it again yesterday. In the execution it just falls flat. It’s not supposed to be the climax, but I don’t want it to be completely anti-climactic either.

This is where having those online backups helps. I can get back what I had before that change. I won’t be going back completely to the original version. I like some of the things that I added. And I intend to cut some of what was there in the original version. It’ll end up better.