Fiction mission statement

I am over 18,000 words, aka 67 pages into my third novel. This particular book stems from an idea I had about a year ago during a ten minute ride home from the grocery store. In those ten minutes the entire backbone of the novel came to me as well as almost all the main characters. The location of the story, which is as pivotal as the people who populate it, was the wow factor and ah ha moment of impetus. It was a few days after the idea hit that I realized, I have driven by the location hundreds of times in the past ten years. Sublimely I think the seed was planted. Sublimely the message finally broke through the day I had to get the ice cream home and in the freezer before it melted.

Having the story, as they say, pop into my head so completely and so quickly, had me working over the last year in fits and starts without true commitment. But because I pass the location at least once a week and sometimes more when I food shop, it’s been hounding me to keep on, keeping on. Seven days into this new writing relationship, the amount of words I am producing per day are impressive. I'm waiting for the blush of the honeymoon to fade but hoping the passion will endure.

So I’m back at it, loving the process of creation. Will I finish, will this be the breakthrough into fiction I have been seeking? Who knows? With all the other writing I do, and my column deadlines which loom like continuous gestational due dates trip me up, who knows?  Because I have written two books which are dangerously close to being drawer novels I wonder if the time involved is worth the effort. Who knows? But I will dance as long as my feet hold out, or should I say, write until my hands fall off.

All I know is that after I put my ice cream in the freezer a year ago I sat down at my keyboard and wrote the query for the book. In a year I have barely changed a word. It still stands as my talisman, my focus, my one page outline, contents and synopsis path. More than a query maybe it’s my fiction mission statement.

Have you ever written the query first?