Snowdrops

The snowdrops aren't actually out here yet, lest you be all excited. But I am patiently waiting for the bulbs to sprout. The picture is to keep me going in the meantime.

As usual, we've planted bulbs all over the flower beds, and no longer have any idea where they're going to come up. It'll be a nice surprise, I think, and at least I won't notice if any don't make it.

With the New Year comes the New Novel. I'm patiently polishing the synopsis and first three chapters for Saving the Unicorns, and will be sending them out to prospective agents over this month. But I promised myself that come January 2007 I would start writing So Far and Out of Sight, and so I have.

Over the festive period, in the hour or so I had to myself during the week and a half spent at my parents' house, I set out my vague outline, splitting the major events of the novel into the relevant time frames. And when I say 'vague', I mean 'smoke-like in its ability to slip through my fingers'. But, it's there, and I've worked with less. I know that once I get into it, things will start firming up, and becoming clear.

I'm aiming for 1,000 words a day, averaged out, and am on target so far. I like my beginning. I'm becoming interested in my characters. I'm unsure as to why Saskia is staying in the Yellow Room, but at least it's over the Rose Garden, even if the colour is going to give her a headache for the next 100,000 words. And Edward's looking pretty cute already.

I've been thinking about this story for about the last year, so even if I don't know exactly how I'm getting from A to B, I do know the heart of it, which helps. I put together a sparse storyboard of pictures for it last month, a triptych of images that define the three parts of the story, and it's hanging over my desk. If I remember, I'll take a picture tomorrow to post here.

This story is my snowdrop; a sprouting idea of a thing, and I'm unsure where it will emerge, bright green against the backdrop of the everyday, and growing, growing, growing. But soon it's going to start to flower.