This Old House: Write about an old house that is abandoned or being renovated
Chase Lovell was, how to put this delicately, not good at all with his hands. Which is why it was quite strange to all his friends and family when he had sold his elegant downtown apartment and purchased, what could generously be described as a dump. Ever since he saw it he had been spouting off things like good bones, natural light, and real hard wood floors. It was like he binged every episodes of HG TV and now felt he would be able to revive this hovel he purchased.
Granted it was in a lovely little seaside town and he probably paid for the land more than anything. In fact the relator was over heard in town laughing historically when he recounted the story of Chase telling him he was going to live and fix up the place. After all anyone that took one look at Chase, knew he was city through and through. From the soft manicured hands to the stylish loafers, he hadn't spent a day doing manual labor in his life. He was a writer by trade, a quiet successfully one at that. His early work was unpublished as he drank away his earlier 20s trying to write the great American novel, and thought he could only achieve this in a Hemingway like fashion. However his inheritance slowly dwindled and he took on a ghost writing gig for a well known mystery writer and took to it like fish in water.
In about 5 years he went from ghost writing to five best sellers and two movies and a TV show. But he still wanted to write something deeper and after hours of staring at the blank page he took off into the country for inspiration. A few days later and many terrible bed and breakfasts, he stumble across his new home. He paid cash and even though he didn't need to sell his place in the city, he felt that if he had a safe net, something to come back to, he would abandon his quest for the prefect prose.
He also believed that it would be this project could be his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He could work on the house all day and then reflect on his accomplishments with a Zen like clarity. He knew this work would give him the way to encompass the true spirit of the nation. It would also insulate him from distractions like Television or the other great distraction his smart phone.