I’m planning a research trip down to Sydney this coming weekend. I’m going with my daughter, who is about 18 months younger than Em in the story. She’s interested in seeing the inner city universities. It will be her first time, and I’ll be observing her reactions and bouncing off them for the next few chapters.

It’s important to do it now, because then I’m just writing off the top of my head regarding locations, and I’ve been stuck before, imagining geographies that don’t actually exist in the real world.

I won’t be mentioning the university names in the novel, but I need to decide whether Em has been accepted into Law at Notre Dame, UTS, or perhaps even Sydney — although the grades to get in there are very high, too high, I suspect, for our dear protagonist.

Here is a location list we need to check out

• The unis and surrounding area
• Share house – Surry Hills
• The walk between unis and the share house.
• Les Chat Reposant – Marcel’s French Restaurant, probably in Redfern
• A place where houses were converted into law offices before 2010, where Em would look for work
• A close hospital
• A takeaway shop that’s out in the unromantic ‘burbs, a long way from the city centre.
• Perhaps a place where George would live – a large fibro house on an overgrown lot in the mid-west?

I’ll post the photos and share my trip notes early next week.

Until then, here are the chapters I’ve roughed out so far:

Chapters One and Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four