Fathom Five is in its final stages of its first draft. The story is almost entirely mapped out and only the climax (and the immediate buildup) need writing. But there was something missing, which I think I've now found.
The story starts off very much focused on Peter, coping with the memories of his parents' death, his developing feelings for Rosemary and his isolation at school. Rosemary plays the secondary character here. Then, when Peter and Rosemary fall off the cliff into the Siren world, the action gets divided between the two. Peter learns about the Siren world and grows accustomed to its ways, while Rosemary struggles to survive and find Peter.
I think the climax focuses on Rosemary too much. Peter, heavily under the influence of glamour (okay, I borrowed that from the Faeries and applied that to the Sirens. Consider that artistic license), doesn't have much to do, other than walk through the ceremony until it is disrupted by Rosemary. Although this makes for a nice balance (story focuses on Peter for the first third, divides the action evenly for the second third, and then gives the action to Rosemary for the final third), it doesn't give Peter the emotional payoff required. And I've just thought up some ways to grant that payoff. We'll see how they work out.
Overall, it was a good weekend. Sunday was a bit boring, but Saturday Erin and I went into Toronto and headed back to Greektown. We spent a good couple of hours touring the shops, and sitting down in more than one coffeehouse to write.
Greektown doesn't have the crowds of downtown Chinatown on a Saturday, but it's a bustling place nonetheless, and great for windowshopping and peoplewatching. The best part of Greektown is between Chester and Pape stations on the Bloor-Danforth subway line. This is where the high-end stores are. Although elements of Greektown can be found as far west as Broadview and as far east as Donlands, the neighbourhood takes a noticable downturn here, and the people just seem to fade away. Still, well worth a visit.
After paying our respects to Greektown, we hopped back onto the subway and returned to our car, which was parked at Kipling station (the western end of the subway). We got hungry driving back through Mississauga, and decided, especially after the wonderful smells of Greektown, that a fast-food restaurant would be decidedly anticlimactic. To our surprise, we discovered Mississauga's Chinatown just east of the Dundas/Cawthra intersection.
As is appropriate for Mississauga, its Chinatown was a stripmall. However, there was no questioning the success. Even at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, the parking lot was full, the architecture was distinctively Chinese, people were bustling between the stories and we, being white, stood out like sore thumbs. We found an inexpensive restaurant (the Best Friend Chinese Restaurant, I think it was called) that smelled wonderful, offered chopsticks before cutlery, and was filled to the brim with Chinese families eating dinner (a very good sign). We ordered satay beef and cashew shrimp, plus spring rolls and steamed rice, and were quickly presented with huge plates piled high. The food was as good as the Cameron Restaurant in Kitchener (the best Chinese restaurant we've found in Waterloo Region) and stood up quite happily amongst the best that Toronto's Chinatowns have to offer. The total cost of the meal was a very reasonable $26, and we had enough to take home and have a very satisfying lunch the next day.
Erin and I are slowly building up a list of restaurants we love to eat at. I'm not nearly the experimenting sort that she is, and so this list has some difficulty in growing, as I tend to stick to the Wendy's that we pass on our way back from Burlington's Ikea, or things along those lines. The days that we take a chance, and succeed in adding another restaurant or store to our "list", live in our memories for a very long time.