The Pieces of Mudlavia

I’ve had a lot of people ask me if I dropped off the face of the earth, and if I was still working on the Mudlavia book. The truth is, I’ve chased a rabbit down the rabbit hole. One trail leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. I am fine-tuning the details of my Mudlavia novel, and while writing the initial story was easy, researching it has been quite a challenging adventure.

If Mudlavia was a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, it’s like someone stood in the middle of Indiana, and tossed the pieces into a windstorm, scattering them across the entire state. I’ve disappeared from social media to chase down all those pieces to hopefully put together a well-researched work of historical fiction.

Trying to track down the facts to get a picture of what Mudlavia was like in the 1900’s has been hard. One historian I worked with explained that there have been several people in the past who have talked about writing a book about Mudlavia, but no one has ever completed one. That’s because there are a lot of gaps in the research, there’s a lot of conflicting details from sources, and you really have to travel all over Indiana to find the information you are looking for. It seems like every person I talk to has a different piece of the puzzle. I always learn something new and I always walk away with more questions than what I started with.

The key to the missing answers?

I spent three hours reading the backs of old Mudlavia postcards to see if I could find any clues from the guests themselves.

The postcards, written so long ago, unveil a time when life was full of handsome fellows, picnicking, buggy rides, evening dances, and playing cards on the front porch.

Such beautiful handwriting on the postcards!

I read many accounts of guests who enjoyed the mud baths, two accounts of people who did not like being covered in mud at all, and one account of someone who was absolutely ecstatic because the dark mud made them look “just like real Africans”. The same words show up on many different postcards, describing Mudlavia as “a fine place”, “grand”, “beautiful”, and “especially delightful”, showcasing that this hotel was truly a place to behold.

I have not set out to write a nonfiction book about the Mudlavia Hotel, but a historical fiction. There’s a part of my brain that wants to find every little detail and fill in every little gap I’m missing. I still have a zillion questions about the hotel that can’t be answered unless I happen to fall into the right rabbit hole, but the other part of my brain is thankful for the missing pieces, because those are the parts I get to dream up and create to make the story come alive.

I am looking forward to sharing the information I’ve learned with you… missing pieces and all!