I’ve been writing like a madwoman these last few weeks. I’m trying to put the final touches on a WIP and call it done. Last week I wrote just over 11,000 words. I felt great!
This weekend I spent a lot of time thinking and researching. This book – the entire series actually – is constantly in the forefront of my mind. I think about it lot and have a hard time letting go of the characters when I’m not writing. I know that sounds insane. But it’s true. I realized I hadn’t really nailed down some important locations. I needed to know where the family estate was, where my main character worked and lived. Ya know. Important stuff like that. Oh, I had a general idea but no detail.
For me, it’s all in the details.
So I spent hours looking at Google Maps and street view and screen capturing things I wanted to remember and notate. I figured out where my main character lives and what her apartment looks like. I found a floor plan I liked for her but it’s just not perfect. My husband is going to do a CAD drawing for me. He rocks! I also figured out what her apartment building looks like from the outside. Where her business is and the name of her business. You know, it took me a while to come up with that. I had to know if things were within walking distance or if she needed a car. I had to know where the bad guys hangout was (I chose a cemetery for ultimate creepiness).
My next order of business was to tackle figure out where her family estate would be. It took me some time to figure that out but I loved doing the research on that. (It’s in England, by the way.) I spent a lot of time on the National Trust website looking at all the fabulous estates and dreaming of what it would be like to live there. Heck, I’d take a visit there. I found floor plans of the house I liked as the fictional estate. I saved off photos of all that. The picture I’ve posted here is what my imaginary estate looks like. 😉
I really wanted to have them all in one place I could access easily. I’m on Pinterest so I create a new board to put all my ideas and pictures. I love it! I only have a couple of people pictures. I haven’t found representations of my other characters yet. It’s hard to find that ONE image that depicts the characters and I’m picky. 😀
Anyway it was great fun. I loved doing the research and finding places. I also went out and bought some maps for the next book–Istanbul. I can’t hardly wait to “walk” those streets (all in my head, of course).
