The Importance of an Icebox

by Margie Senechal

We have a refrigerator!

After five days, we have a working fridge. Do you know how long five days without a fridge are in real time?? Fore-freaking-ever.

Seriously. You have to start devoting time to thinking about what you're going to eat that doesn't need to be refrigerated. Which basically means, where are we eating tonight and Starbucks for breakfast???

 Since I had to venture out for breakfast, I decided to use a few mornings for writing. 

I was able to puzzle out some character issues. Like why is Ana's mother bed-ridden. At first, I'd thought she was just being manipulative, but I came up with something so much darker that touches the core of Ana's being. Cool, huh?

And the hero, Danny, also has a dark past that he should be recovering from but is basically emotionally stuck back there and it will be Ana who draws him out.

Today, I'm going to a flea market in Oregon. Because the Appleton Flea Market is like a secondary character in this book. That is the place where Ana finds her suitcases and where she meets Danny who is a vendor there.

 I am so loving this story. I hope it lasts forever---the feeling, not so much the book. 

Someday I'd like you all to read it. But, right now...

---Ana nodded acknowledgements at fellow bargain hunters when chance led to the meeting of gazes, but otherwise kept to her own thoughts. And today those thoughts were of cobwebbed dreams being dusted off and placed back on the shelf.
            ---Chrysalis  

I'm still in the discover stage. In fact, I've already rewritten most of the first chapter--had to, once I figured out why Ana's mother is the way she is. Added Danny as a viewpoint character--which meant inserting his story earlier.

But, I hope to get to this point eventually--where Ana gets to fill a suitcase or two and take a new journey.