I’m back in my main office for the week-end, after being away for six months. It’s my favorite place in the world to work and I’m happy as a pig in mud.

I need to get the room ready for the four-month-write-The-Next-Novel stint coming up, and getting it ready means quite a bit of sorting. There are stacks of paper and piles of books here and there: what was I thinking? I’ve just gone through some of the books, re-piling them, for now I have different priorities.

I’ve just come upon the “scene cards” I made for a novel about La Grande Mademoiselle. It’s a thick stack, divided into parts, representing over six months work before I rather suddenly got swept away with my new subject.

What should I do with these cards and all the other papers and notes I’m bound to find? I’ll put them in a box, label them “La Grande Mademoiselle,” and place them high up on a shelf. In my latest Q&A on the Blog Tour, Julianne Douglas, author of the blog Writing the Renaissance, asked: “Who is a character (from any place or era) that you wish someone would write a novel about? Are you tempted to try??” Part of my answer was:

“From the Sun Court era, I’ve tried a number of times to find a way to tell the story of La Grande Mademoiselle, the King’s eccentric, rich cousin and an early feminist. I’m reminded of a painting I bought, the image of a mountain in our area. The artist told me, ‘I’ve looked at that mountain for years, wondering how to paint it.’ La Grande Mademoiselle is my mountain.”

I think I’ll name that box: Mountain.

Photo taken last spring by Debbi Christinck.