One of my mother’s favorite aphorisms was this: A wise man changes his mind. A fool never does.

This week’s blog deals with mind changing, including a bit of literary history.

Decades ago, when I was working on Beaumont #9, Payment in Kind, the story ground to a halt part way in—at Chapter 11—and wouldn’t budge.

At the time, I was both a writer and a soccer mom. Shortly after the writing stalled out, I went to soccer practice where I sat down next to another soccer mom, a woman named Vicki. She asked me how I was doing. “I’m really struggling with Chapter 11,” I told her. “Oh, my,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were having financial difficulties.”

Once I assured her it was a writing problem as opposed to a financial one, she became an instant fan. Soon after that encounter, she and her family moved to Oklahoma, and I lost track of her, but that incident popped back into my head just this week.

It turns out that changing one’s mind the most difficult task any writer can face, but shortly after that talking with Vicki, I managed to do just that. I realized that the person I thought was the killer just didn’t have the gumption to do it, so I had to look around my cast of characters to find out who the real culprit was. In the end, the answer to the problem was just that simple.

This week I faced a similar issue. Smoke and Mirrors stalled out, but in Chapter 17 rather than Chapter 11. When a book stops cold for some reason or other, I usually spend several sleepless nights, tossing and turning and trying to come to terms with the issue. For a time it looked as though things were bad enough that I might have to abandon the plot line that was the origin of the book’s title.

Then, two days ago, after getting Bill settled for the night, I was walking down the hall when the answer lightbulb lit up in my head. It turns out that a character I had always assumed was a bad guy turned out to be a good guy after all. And that’s all I needed to do in order to fix the book and get it moving again—I had to change my mind.

So here’s a Mother’s Day thank you to Evie Busk. She just managed to save my bacon one more time.