Happy Friday, Aledan Merfolk! I’m recovering from a nasty cold that kept me home on the couch yesterday, but don’t worry: hubs made a fantastic spicy dill pickle soup last night that has me feeling much better today (the Nyqil also helped).
Since I was couch-ridden, I spent most of the day watching HGTV and hanging out at #PitMad, pitching and RTing the pitches I enjoyed. A lot of fellow pitchers were excited by StO, but I didn’t get many favorites, and those that I got were small presses. While I think this will end up being a small-press book in the end, I would like to at least try to get an agent first, so I’m keeping them on my radar while I query.
Which isn’t going to happen right away. If there’s one thing I learned from PitMad and PitchWars, it’s that I have to age up Erie’s voice. I mean, I’ve known that from the beginning, but I also knew I could get away with it if anyone was accepting NA Spec-fic. They aren’t. So it’s time to make my little mermaid grow up, while still keeping her naïve enough that Finn doesn’t abuse her. It’s going to be hard. I’m going to ask a few people who critiqued my first Finn chapter (which was last week’s FEF if you missed it) to check out Erie’s first chapter, too.
I also decided I HATE StO in past tense. HATE IT. I couldn’t even get through the whole manuscript, so I went back through the present tense version with my brain that was primed to look for those weak spots I was finding, and edited that instead. I don’t know, maybe an agent or editor will tell me to change it someday, but for now I’m leaving it in first present. If I do end up changing it to past tense, it’ll be changed to third person as well. Which Erie’s half of the book was already in, so… yay?
The baby chickens have grown enough that they’re once again fearless. They may have forgotten the hawk, too, but I think they’re probably big enough that they’d cause some headaches for that hawk if it tried to catch them now. They run all around the yard instead of sticking to the bushes, and have started following Hubs and I around whenever we’re outside. They’re not quite sure about the dogs yet, but since this is our second set of chickens the dogs aren’t as interested in them. Hopefully we’ll get some eggs from them in a couple months (although it’ll be cold by then, so it may be next spring).
My dad’s transplant went well and he’s been resting all week while his body deals with the new bone marrow stem cells. After tomorrow he should start feeling better in exponential bursts, and plans to be out of the hospital by next weekend, so that’s awesome. Thank you for all the healing thoughts, Aledans!
Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you all next week. Perhaps for Science Tuesday? We’ll see how long it takes me to kick this cold 😉
Glad to hear your dad’s transplant went well!
I’m not a fan of present tense, but if you think it works then keep writing it that way.
Thank you!
I’m usually not a fan of present tense either, but it works perfectly for Finn’s voice. And of course Erie sounds better in third past 😛 If I have to switch the whole thing to third past, Erie’s parts will sound better, even if Finn’s suffer.
You’ve been busy on so many levels! I’m glad your dad is doing well.
I think you have to go with your gut on the tense of StO, especially if you’re thinking about revisions. Get all the revisions done, make the story as strong as you can, and worry about the tense later.
Yeah, right now my gut says Finn’s so much stronger in first present (he’s such a selfish douchbag in the beginning, the voice works so well). I started re-writing Erie’s first chapter this weekend, and so far I’m liking the aged up voice 🙂