Writing in the woods: Second day with blue skies!

The second day of the vacation was the most BLUE SKIES I've ever seen in Holland! Or maybe that's just because I'm really happy at the moment. But hey, it was sunshine and blue skies all day today. It was amazing and the mood was high in our cabin :D

Today I was so relaxed. I took my time with breakfast, taking two cups of coffee, sitting on the couch and just staring into the sunshine pouring onto my shoulders. We just took it easy and slowly made our way to the indoor playground for my niece. She participated in an activity where she made a "candy house", which was some construction made of 6 slices of pepperkoek and a heck-ton of different candies. And she ate half of it in 15 minutes :S
Sugar rush!

After that she played in the in-door playground for a while my sister-in-law and I did some handicrafts! I finally worked on my cross-stitch project that had been set aside for a couple months, while she worked on a super-cute felting project: making little flower dolls!

And of course, we also went BACK to the swimming pool for my niece. This time she jumped right in and had no fear. My sister-in-law was teaching her how to swim and she actually swam on her own for like 15 seconds! I posted a video of that on my Facebook page, but it's friends-only just so yah know.

*******

But this time I didn't jump into the pool. Instead I sat on the sidelines and opened up my notebook. I re-read all the notes I wrote about my novel. I went through the character profiles I originally setup, the plots, the bad-guy and his motivations. It was nice to refresh myself with the "world" I had built for my story, instead of only seeing the plot that was right in front of me. 

I spent the two hours at the pool actually writing my character's profiles - and their families! Do you know I had never written about my main character Jason's parents? I didn't even know how he grew up. And it was refreshing to go into his life and childhood.

Then at the end of the night, when my sister-in-law and I both had our laptops open (in our pajamas with fruitsalads and tea :D ), I completely typed out Jason's profile in Scrivener. I identified as his parents as being hippies and returning to "original" way of life: growing their own vegatbales, their own water filtration system, and even making their own paper. In my world where everything is digital, paper is a rare and special item! Even thought it might not be in demand...

So his parents are viewed as a little strange in the town. And he grew up being the "son of the strange couple." This affected his personality as he was growing up, to change his own image and separate himself from his family by learning more about technology. So he's kinda a rebel :P

I made a lot of progress yesterday on my "feeling" of the novel, characters, and world building - even though I haven't written a word on the actual story yet. I want to "fall in love" with my novel again and I think that is already happening. I'm super excited about what will happen on vacation day number three!