6 February and 7 February 2017

6 February and 7 February 2017

Yesterday, Monday was a national holiday here in Mexico, Constitution Day. So things were closed and quiet. Marisa and I went to her lawyers office in preparation of a civil hearing she had today. His office was the front room in his home. It was lovely because he had these amazing paintings on the wall and his furniture was classic wood pieces with marble statues. It was great too because the sunshine was just streaming in from the windows that lined the whole wall facing the street.

We then went to the closest market to buy fruit and headed back to the apartment where I worked on my fiction piece for the rest of the day. In working on this novel idea, I realize how little I actually know. There is so much that I need to build as a foundation before I can really dive into the writing of the novel. It is a fantasy piece that is set in a fictional world and to really put my characters in that setting, I need to flesh out what that fictional world will be like. There are so many questions to ask: what is the geography, history, culture, religion, sociology of the place? What are important rituals, holidays, traditions? What happens if those things are broken? Have there been any wars? What is the government like? Who are the inhabitants? What does the economy look like?

To create this novel, I feel like I will have to have 10 times the amount of background information. I realized how much more work it will be, but it is exciting to face.

Today Yo and I went to another government office so I could register for my residence card (an official ID). It went fairly smoothly as I was out of there within an hour and then Yolanda and I embarked on a cross town adventure. We went north to Roma to scope out some places I had come across and then when those didn’t really pan out we headed South for a Columbian lunch which was delicious. Then we went even further south to Coyoacan to a coffee shop Yolanda wanted to show me. We sat there for quite a few hours and talked about our creative process and how to make it better. It was really great to flesh out some ideas that I have had with her. We had a coffee and then we were there for so long we ordered some Rose Bud tea that was absolutely delicious, probably the best tea I have ever had!