One more edit may be an edit too far

I finally have my almost finished manuscript, but the editing stage has gone on for so long I am starting to question why I even bothered to write my book.  is it really any good?  Will anybody want to read it?  And, if I start sending it out to publishers and agents, will it come back to me so fast it's like there was a boomerang attached?

All sorts of worries go through my head and the thought of them makes me doubt my work and then I start to think - do I need to change what I have written?  Should I keep this bit? 

One of the best pieces of advice I read came from a very successful author who said that there is a danger of making changes to your manuscript not because they are better, but because they are different.  I have that on a post-it note and every time I consider making changes I stop and ask myself 'is this going to make my book better?'  If the answer is no, then I keep it as it is.

Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me

Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me: "I began contributing to magazines when I was 15-years-old and had my first piece in Jackie magazine - a piece on superstitions. From then ..."

Why Vile City?

My novel is set in Glasgow and begins with a young woman getting off a bus with her boyfriend. They take a short cut down an alley (not a wise thing to do anywhere) and are attacked by an assailant unknown. The boyfriend thinks he's been stabbed, but he's been knocked out cold by a sedative and his girlfriend is abducted. Vile City follows DI Duncan Waddell, who wishes he'd become a history teacher, as he tries to track down three women who have been taken by the beast the press have dubbed 'The Glasgow Grabber.'

The title comes from the fact that DI Waddell is becoming disillusioned by the fair city he once loved thanks to the nasty underbelly he uncovers in the course of his work.

As well as this novel, I am also working on a book of 23,000 words aimed at one imprint in particular, about Kirsty, a one legged barmaid who goes on the run after killing a gangster's goon who got a bit too touchy feely by putting her stiletto through his pug ugly head. You had to have been there to know her violence was justified.