So far today, I’ve only gotten out slightly over a thousand words on my novel. To pull this off, I’m going to need to increase this substantially. Yet the novel is taking on a life of its own. The other night, I had a dream, in which people’s feet were turning black and swelling up. It struck me that this must be part of the plague predicted in the novel.

As I work on the biology of the novel, I frequently ask Kim for pointers to make sure that I’m still making sense, and at least on somewhat solid footing scientifically. However, today, I started writing about the travels of one of the characters. I won’t say whether or not he is a key character, because many of the characters are fighting for my attention to be key characters.

With this, I’ve needed to research a little bit, the history of the potato and the coffee bean. I also need to be much more up to speed on the geography and history of Ethiopia, Yemen, Turkey, Indonesia, perhaps some additional places in Africa, such as Kenya, Uganda, and the Congo, although those stops may play minor roles. Then, I need to be much more versed in Columbia and Peru. In need to be able to write much more intelligently and coherently about radical Islamic clerics as well as early to middle archaic Peruvian culture and archeology. I could get lost in all the research.

So, if this sounds interesting and you’re an expert in any of those areas, please let me know. I can always use good sources and informed readers.