Ok, so I have:

1. Theme: protagonist's identity as a depressed, lonely, lost and confused woman (I’ve had enough with the Capitals – I hope we get it that I’m a bit gauche.)
2. Rule: fiction, and
3. Characters (3): the toad, the man and the alien.
Location: Chernobyl.

1. Describe Chernobyl
a. Mushrooms covering reactor
b. TED talk on mushrooms
c. Chernobyl, Pripyat, Slavutych and area before the accident, during and afterwards

2. The man and his family –
a. what’s going to happen to this man?
b. Who is he?
c. Why is he in this story?

3. The alien
a. Research aliens in fiction and in real life, to help create a more realistic alien and/or to create a more interesting version of an alien
b. Work up the connection of the aliens to the radioactivity (or not)
c. What’s going to happen to the alien?
d. Who is she?
e. Why is she in the story?

4. The toad
a. Research toads to help create a more realistic toad
b. What’s going to happen to the toad?
c. Who is he/she?
d. Why is he/she in the story?

5. Radioactivity
a. Research radioactivity – what does it do to living things?

All right! This is a pretty good plan – though this novel is going to get pretty sketchy from here on in, as I gather my research data in my nightly writing sessions.

I think that’s the thing to do: take notes on all of the above, while keeping the novel in mind, and once I collect all the data, write the bitch! This should work great – and it should be long enough to make a real novel.

Here I go….

Chernobyl:
Before the accident:

Prypiat was a city built to house the nuclear power plant workers. It had 50,000 residents prior to the accident. It is in the northern Ukraine, close to Belarus.
- founded in 1970