December 26, 2007

Today I drove to the Adolphus Reach, where part of my new book takes place. I was on my way to Boxing Day dinner in a place called Sandhurst and decided to go a little further, as I was early. I was actually in search of a home -- not for me, but for my characters. I prefer when my writing holds up under factual scrutiny. Of course it won't matter to most readers, but when I write about a full moon ocurring on a particular date or the tide being high at a certain time of day, then you can be sure those events match with reality. In this case, I wanted to see if I could find a home on the water similar to the one I'd imagined. I found four such homes that looked like the large family estate I was writing about, but all four were recently built. The home I'm writing about has to have been around more than 25 years because of something crucial to the plot. Now the choice is either to fudge the description so my imagined estate can't be pinpointed geographically, or let it stand as an act of creation. On the other hand, by the time this book gets published, the real places might almost be old enough.