I woke up strangely early on 1/1/11 with some new ideas for the novel. Here’s the first paragraph I wrote in the New Year. It’s a work in progress (of course). This is in the middle of Act II but I don’t think it contains any spoilers.

The walls of the tent were too close, confining and cave-like. Despite the cold she decided to sleep with her head outside the tent, extending a thin gauze of mosquito netting over her. She wondered briefly if sleeping with your head sticking outside a tent was a breach of protocol, but decided a sounder, sleep recharged mind was worth the possible indignity – the FTC geniuses were crawling with more substantial idiosyncrasies. She rested her head close to the soft dirt and felt her body slowly relax with the open sky around her, the soft whisper of the trees and pre-dawn bird chatter. The particulates in the sky would make dawn slow and glorious.