One of the things I’ve been doing lately as I work on Holiday Heat edits is this: as I build the file that will eventually become the final manuscript, I take notes on which characters appear on each day. This helps me make sure I don’t forget anyone as I’m writing the “Some characters in this story previously appeared” sections.

Well, November is the month of the Lone Star Spanking Party, and I have my characters attending it. A lot of my characters.

• November 9: Jeannette, Charlie, Shawn, Julie, Zach, Alison, and Kyle all appear, and Rachel and Kristine are mentioned.
• November 11: Alison, Zach, Charlie, Jeannette, Shawn, Julie, Patrick, Kyle, Kate, Trish, Zoe, Dave, and Maria all appear, and Rachel is mentioned again.
• November 12: Jeannette, Charlie, Kate, Jocelyn, Shawn, Julie, Trish, Zoe, and Andra all appear, and Patrick, Kristen, Erica, Mel, and Rosemary are mentioned.

In the past I’ve been putting “previously appeared” even when characters are just mentioned. I can only imagine how long those paragraphs are going to be when I get around to assembling them. They might take up an entire page of the book before I get to the actual text of the story. This is what I get for being particular about these things.