I’ll be working night shift tonight but have been on evening shift this week so no editing got done other than some work on the outline and world building for Hedge House. (And June is half over already!)
Wait. What? World-building? Isn’t Hedge House set in our world?
Well…yes and no.
I mean, yes, it’s set in our world (with a few changes to reality) but the town and businesses are all fictitious and have you ever tried to build a town from scratch?
You need streets and businesses and services and they all need names and let’s not forget about the people who live there.
And events and festivals – all those things that make a town… a town instead of a collection of houses and businesses.
Seriously, just stop for a minute and start thinking about the things in your town. And start making a list. It’s… overwhelming. (And I love lists!)
And while I may not need all of this for the book, I need to know it, just in case, especially since I need to fill in some paranormal events in the rewrite and having the town all set in my head gives me ideas. (Yes, I am creating a back story for the town and plan to exploit it. I’m an author: exploiting back stories is what I do.)
I’m more or less basing the town on my hometown (kind of combined with where I live now) just so I have some sort of starting point and an idea of what all is needed. My list already has over fifty items on it and is still growing. (And between the two towns they have a population of less than five thousand; I’d hate to have to create a large city!)
So, that’s what I’ve been up to this week. Just a couple more weeks until Camp NaNoWriMo and I’m a couple months away from being ready.
Novel Notes 