Today I was kidless and, in the quiet, I started arranging pictures on paper for the collage of my next book. And as I chose pictures I'd cut from magazines, then searched the web for pictures to fill in the holes... I am amazed at what is coming to light in the story, and how much seemingly little things are adding to my knowledge of the characters. For instance, the picture of the heroine's ex-husband is priceless... worth many more than a thousand words.

The story is set in Dallas because I need a big city with lots of midwives... which narrows things down real quick... Dallas in the only option. It helps that I lived there for three years. One of the blanks on the collage was their houses, which I first put off as not important enough to take up space, but decided to go look. Realtor.com is a wonderful thing. In under 5 minutes I was staring at the hero's house and saying 'My God! That's it!' His house says so much about who he is. And the house the heroine's Ex bought for them is so very typical ostentatious Dallas that I just want to scream at her "This should have been a clue, you idiot!"

Then the point finally came that I had all the holes filled, and I had the pictures arranged on plain white cardstock and I knew something was missing... the feeling. So I pondered for a bit, then realized that feelings to me equal color and pattern. But how could I add that to an already overburdened collage? Ahhh... as background. Her parents are now on a leafy green background, work is on purple, but most of hers is still stark white. His work is on ripply silver, and the rest of his is on a warm gold. What a different story those colors tell of these two people and their lives.

I can't wait see it all glued down... it will definitely tell the story, and make it worlds easier to get that story down on paper.