Pond Novel

I've officially thrown myself into a new project and I'm having a lot of fun.

It’s official: I’m actively working on this Pond Novel! The next novel will be whichever manuscript reaches the finish line first, but the Pond Novel has momentum.

It started a year ago. I think I was the one who jokingly suggested to my friend Anna that we write a novel together, set on a fictional pond based on the pond where her family lives. Anna is not a fiction writer but she is a voracious reader, and she reads the kind of plot-driven novels that I usually do not, so she is very good at coming up with storylines.

Over time, what started as a joke began to seem more possible. Why not write a novel together? “Well, you’ll do the writing,” Anna clarified. But together we dreamed up the characters and what they each wanted and the things they would make happen. And then, in August, we began to break the story.

It will take place over the course of one summer on the fictional pond: Memorial Day to Labor Day. Three main characters, three interwoven plot lines. A mystery that needs solving.

On September 1, I began writing in earnest, and I’m preparing to send Anna the first draft of the first chapters. This is how it will work: I will write daily in a shared Google Doc. She will, at her leisure, give comments and edits and provide crucial pond knowledge. (For instance, she already informed me that no one swims in the pond in May; it’s more of a dip-in-and-out situation because the water is so cold. This may seem obvious to you if you grew up around northern waters but I have only been to the pond in July and November, so it had not occurred to me.)

More to come! In the meantime, another photo for the mood board.