Bwahahahaha!

The climax of Vanishing Act was originally supposed to take place in Rome, Georgia. But I had to invent a road and a factory that didn't actually exist there, and then Chris spent some time in their sheriff's department--and I've never been to the Rome, Georgia Sheriff's Department. What are the odds anybody would notice if I got some detail wrong? Who knows, but I didn't want to chance it, so I decided to fictionalize Rome, much as Linnea Sinclair turns Saint Petersburg, Florida into Bahia Vista in her Down Home Zombie Blues. That way I could fictionalize whatever parts of it I needed to. So after writing the novel, I did a global find and replace, replacing "Rome" with "Carthage." (Cute, huh?)

So today I'm doing some really close editing of chapter three, when I run across this little gem:

Chris’s father snorted and said, “It probably has her kid’s paper on Carthageo and Juliet or something. Pictures of her dog. There’s no angle there.”

I'm all like, Carthageo and Juliet?! Where the hell did that--oh.