I didn't go back to the beginning. I'm listening to some great advice and finishing the draft. 6.4 is finished and I'm emotionally drained. Word Count - 1024.

After a few weeks off for the holidays, I started working on LF again. Over the break, I thought a lot about the direction it was heading. My main character wasn't as developed as she should have been, so I'm working to fix that. I cut the opening, which had been monster-gets-old-man. While I really liked the opening, the story isn't about the old man, it's about what happens after his body is discovered, and it needed to start with the main character. So the opening was chalked and E got her first scene. Then the dominoes started falling. The next scene had to start at a different point, so rather than just quick edits, it needed a thorough rewrite. I have a feeling much of the first chapter will be like that. Ah well.

I need to stop thinking of this as something with an end-point that needs to be in the immediate future. If rewrites take longer than a few months, that's okay. If they need to go all year, that's okay too, as long as I'm working at it consistently. Some writers take months, some take years. I'll fall somewhere in there too. And I need to allow myself to do so, to take the time this story needs. Because I like this story. I think it's fun and will be worth a read once it's finished. And if I keep plugging away at it, I will finish it.

Word count for today - 893.

HP Wars

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071204/20071204005361.html?.v=1

JK Rowling and WB sue RDR books to block publication of a Harry Potter lexicon.

Thought 1: Where do authors’ rights to/control of their own material end?
Thought 2: Why should other writers be able to make money off lexicons/compendiums of characters/worlds they didn’t create themselves?
Thought 3: Would blocking a “companion guide” like this one bleed into other areas of commentary?
Thought 4: Doesn’t JK already have more money than the queen of England? Should it matter?

new attempt at the query

Small town coroner Evie Foster has a big watery problem. After investigating the mysterious death of an elderly man, she became pregnant, but this will be no ordinary child. The father was the man in the lake, and this child will be able to control not only water, but the emotions of every person he comes into contact with, including Evie’s. Now she must choose sides between the sexy man in the lake, who could help her raise and control this child, or the old woman in the rain, who could take the problem away and leave her to live a normal life. But as she finds out more about these creatures, she starts to wonder if one or both of them was responsible for the old man’s death, and what will happen to her if she gives either of them the child they each so desperately want.

My friend Ann played with it a bit and came up with this:
While investigating a mysterious death, small town coroner Evie Foster had a strange encounter with a man in a lake. Now she’s pregnant with a child that will have abilities beyond her imagination and control. Should she trust the enigmatic father who promises to help raise the child, or the old woman in the rain who offers her a chance for a normal life? Unraveling the truth behind the murder may hold the key to her future – and to the child everyone so desperately wants.

This feels more precise, but I'm still running into a problem. Little Fish has 3 main characters, but in a single paragraph query you only have enough to stick in one, otherwise you end up with too little about too much. This one is Evie's perspective, but as Pat (http://shadows-on-the-wall.blogspot.com/) keeps pointing out, most of the investigation is coming from Mack, who's been in love with Evie since they were kids. Then there's Mrs. Packard, whose husband was a mythology teacher killed because he found out too much and tried to control one of them (not the murder investigation they're currently on - that was 8 years prior, open and shut because the killer shot himself well before questions of motive could come out). His library is where most of the research happens. I'm thinking the main storyline revolves around either Evie or Mack, but between the two, I need to figure out whose story this is.

At 1:30 this morning, I realized that the purple mug that I'd only refilled twice had actually finished off the 6 cup pot of coffee.
Pro: 1500 words written last night
Con: I couldn't actually fall asleep until 3, skipped the elliptical this morning, and am dead tired right now.

my favorite bit of last night's writing

If she just said yes, all of this would be gone and life would go back to normal. No more man in the lake, no more craziness in the fish tank. She would go back to the morgue, enjoy her afternoon coffees, practice yoga at the Y on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and watch medical dramas on television until she fell asleep. And maybe one of those Fridays, she’d take Mack up on his standing dinner and a movie invitation.
She stared at the window pain, watching the droplets gather, merge, and fall. Gather. Merge. And fall. She thought maybe that normal life would be the best thing in the world.

I did another one of those pitch/query contests. I sent the pitch to an agent (Jessica Faust over at Book Ends) and she posted her responses on her blog. So I know the pitch was jumbled – I was pretty hyped on caffeine when I wrote it, and she pointed out the confusion, but she liked it!

31. ChristineLittle FishPeter Dodge fell in love with a woman he was not sure even existed. Fifty years later she came back for him on a foggy cloud, leaving his aged body behind with a dagger in his heart. When Evie, the beautiful coroner, touches the dagger, she catches a glimpse of the watery world Peter's murderess came from, and the beings there could help her understand one of the town's long unsolved cases, if only she gives them the one thing they are fighting for, a child she'll lovingly call Little Fish.

The first line is really good and definitely grabbed me. After that though I was confused. Is the story about Peter Dodge or Evie? Is the conflict of the story Peter Dodge’s love and later death or is it Evie fighting for a child called Little Fish? I think you have some very intriguing elements here, but it feels like two different pitches. Would it be better to say something more like, “When Evie, a small-town coroner, touches the dagger in Peter Dodge’s chest she is somehow able to see the watery world Peter’s murderer came from, and the beings that help her understand one of the town’s long-unsolved cases. To do so she’ll have to give them (who them?) the one thing they are fighting for, a child she lovingly calls Little Fish . . .”? I think it needs one more line about Little Fish and why she’s so important. Otherwise, you’re right on the verge of a fantastic pitch.