Starting a new novel is always fun. The opportunities are endless, the plot twists many, the character options countless. Now that I have a good rough outline, I've been doing that cool writer thing -- even when I'm not at the keyboard, I'm working through my novel in my down time, coming up with ideas, thinking about character histories, etc.

One thing I hadn't thought about before is there are so many choices that need to be made at this point in the draft (I'm about 1/2 way through chapter one right now). Is my main character white? What's her background? When is the story set? Where? Who are her friends? What sort of interesting baggage does she have?

So many questions to be answered -- it's all a lot of fun.

I got a good bit of "research" done the other morning, while Mitch was wide awake at 3 a.m. and I was trying to coax him back to sleep. His reflux makes him a wee bit grumpy at night. So I spent that hour walking the floors and rocking him thinking about my novel...

And I came up with a cool place to start the story, once more outside of Chapel Hill. This place:



(I actually talked to someone about renting out a room/apartment in this old house way back in '94, when I was looking for a place to live. This house is seriously out in the middle of nowhere, and it's nice and bizarre -- I took long lunch the other day to snap some photos.)

And today, in between day job stuff and holding the baby (I'm working from home, woo woo!), I managed to get some good writing done on chapter one. Enough good stuff to put together an Excerpt page for Maps and Legends.

And that's my Friday! Now we're off to the NC Museum of Art to check out their Landscapes exhibit (thanks to Cammie for the free tix, and to Lizzie's mom for watching the boys! We're having a DATE!). Later...