Baaaaaalzac

This would be a perfect opportunity to write a novel. Social distancing for three weeks; stuck in the house with food and a computer and time.

And I feel pretty healthy. Weevils got into my grain supply and I had to throw some out. Something in a sealed bag seems to have gone a bit off, though. Painful, sweaty cramps until it worked its way through and out. But the next day I walked down to the shop, practiced trombone, picked up my trumpet to carry home, and purchased a battery charger to try to get my car running again.

Anyhow.

Writing a book in which the central theme is being under siege, a conflation of memories of huddling in underground shelters during the Blitz, personality conflicts and my protagonist's inner struggles, and the rising tide of the same North Sea that swallowed Doggerland. It seems a perfect match.

As of this moment I have 36,000 words of notes -- 140 pages if you want to count it that way (page count is a very poor way of estimation because the value of "page" is application-dependent).

And another 7,000 words of collated research, mostly on the first couple of settings.

For all of all that, I have 800 words of first draft of the prologue scene -- a draft which doesn't work and will need to be re-written practically from scratch.

***

While we're on the numbers game, it turns out I red-lined almost 2,000 words in the current version of The Fox Knows Many Things. The Fox will know a great many fewer things by the times I'm done editing. The cuts are relatively easy. I'd actually like to expand a little on Ancient Greek myth and literature, though. At least explain better the references I'm still using so the reader who hasn't been soaking in the subject will be able to understand.

***

I have this impression that if I could just start, this one might go fast. I suspect that's a dream. I know I will be mostly doing research-as-I-go. Like, I have a couple of cute things I want to do at the Imperial War Museum. One of them I dreamed up last night will take, err, a bit of research to do right.

Sigh. By the end of this, it is going to look like I am a total World War II buff and couldn't keep myself from showing off everything I knew by cramming it in the story. No, I really don't. I'm going to have to research the hell out of most of this. And after I do, I'll leave most of what I learn...out.