Starting Point - The Novel

Working title is The Ballerina, the Boy, and the Thing in the Water. Based on an unfinished short of mine that grew, which in turn was inspired by the Dali painting, Woman at the Window (Muchcha en la ventana). It's currently sitting at a little under 37,000 words of a projected 90,000 (first or rough draft), or seven complete chapters. I'm picking things up at chapter 8. Spent a couple hours today refamiliarising myself with chapters 5-thru-7, writing brief summaries of each, and putting down a few ideas for chapter 8 as well as one or two future scenes. Although it's been a little over a year since I worked on this project, it was surprisingly easy to reacquaint myself with it. Not only that, but I'm quite excited by it again, which I'll take as a good omen.

Chapter 7 excerpt:

Ella stood in the corner farthest from the window. She cinched her dressing gown tight and looked down at the small expanse of wooden floor in front of her. Faint lines, arcs, and whorls patterned the dust; memories of dances past. Each had been penned by her feet during the first two weeks of her confinement, written anew over the last in code. In secret code.