I have started a new novel.
I’m not sure how it started. Several wants were gnawing at me. I wanted to write a book like Barbara Kingsolver. Her characters are believable, her plots interesting with surprises thrown in but the best thing is the way she weaves many of her novels around a deep concern for the environment. In Flight Behaviour, published in 2012, her fictional story reveals the consequences of climate change on a small rural community and on the iconic Monarch butterfly.
My second want came after hearing a news report about the deadly 2019-2020 bushfires in NSW. The fires had burnt with such ferocity that the heat had baked the earth deep down, killing the underground ecosystems. One of the most important of these were the underground fungi that have a vital symbiotic relationship with trees and other plants. To my surprise I heard that about 250 native truffles have been identified but scientist think there could be as many as 1500. The entire health of forests depends on the intimate relationship between truffles, trees and animals but we never hear about them. They are hidden.
My third want evolved from the truffles. I wanted to set the story in the south-west timber country in WA where still survives my first home in Western Australia. These days the old farm house has almost been reclaimed by the bush. I wished I’d had a machete when I returned to explore it.
My fourth want is to use the hiddenness of fungi as a metaphor for my characters.
Now all I have to do is find out what my characters want.
