Dedications...

I sent off my first edits for Eden's Pass earlier this week. Edits can be time consuming, especially the earlier rounds, because that's when the most changes are made. Just like with revisions before submitting anywhere. The first ones are the biggies - after that, the changes are a lot more minor.

But it wasn't the revisions that I struggled with - my editor pointed out some real winners that I'd done (insert head slap here) and offered up suggestions that tightened the story and made it flow a lot more smoothly. It's funny how things can escape you when you're so close to them, but they become glaringly obvious when someone else points them out.

Still, those revisions weren't at all painful. They took time, but I wasn't ripping my hair out. Until...

I flipped back to the beginning of the book and saw the thing that stopped me dead.

The Dedication.

Eek.

For my first book, the dedication was a piece of cake. I dedicated it to everyone in the family. I cringe now when I look at it, because it just seems so... so.. sappy. But I meant it, and I still mean it - just not in such sappy terms.

My second and third books were easy as well - the former to my husband and the latter for the Girl.

Then we came to Eden's Pass.

Oh. No.

I sat and stared at that damn dedication page for what seemed like forever. Who do I dedicate it to? Or is it to whom? Either way, I didn't really know.

I thought about it. Family. Husband. Daughter. That left one person, really.

The Boy.

Now, the Boy is but a toddler. How does one dedicate an historical romance to a boy of 25 months? How? How?

He doesn't sit still long enough for me to read to him - so I can't say because he loves pirate stories. He doesn't even know what a pirate is, let alone a romance novel.

But still, it felt as though he was being shortchanged and I could just picture him in therapy years from now: "Well, she dedicate one to the family, one to Dad, and one to my sister, but never one to ME! I guess she just never loved me."

Ah, how terrible a mother would that make me?

So, I had to dedicate to him, for the sake of soothing motherly guilt and preventing that trip to the shrink's couch.

But what do I say?

Hmmm....

It took a while (a few days of thinking about it - how sad is that?) and it came to me. Finally. But you'll have to wait for the book to see what I wrote. =)

Next book, I'll just dedicate to the first person I bump into after I sell it. So much easier that way.