Conferring with Susan, my editor, this morning, her advice to me was to top off my sanity tank by letting go of the nooze and working on my book all day. I’ve been doing that, and I feel saner already.
My current villain, Ysbott the Snake, fleeing a well-earned execution, has found a young girl named Qeqa living all alone in a strange, uninhabited sector of Lintum Forest. How has she managed to survive? She claims she’s been protected by “gnomes” who are only visible when they choose to be. It’s got to be a lie–but how else could she be living there? She’s strong and healthy, well-fed… and she just might turn out to be a more dangerous character than Ysbott himself.
Meanwhile, special to Joshua–
You can’t spend much time with the Lady of the Lake without encountering a pre-Christian tradition among the Celtic peoples that certain lakes, ponds, and bogs were sacred places endowed with spiritual energy. Celtic chieftains threw valuable items into those pools as sacrifices. Kings sometimes sacrificed their finest swords.
Might Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, have been recovered from such a place? That would certainly explain why people believed the sword to have special qualities. I think that might resonate with anyone familiar with Japan’s sword tradition.
Well, the landlord’s done mowing the lawn, so I’ll go back outside for another session with my book.
I enjoyed reading about King Arthur’s sword! What a sensation will occur when the real sword is actually found!
Qeqa sounds most intriguing! How is her name pronounced? And where do you come up with these names? The dictionary? Past readings? The subconscious mind?
Say “Kay-ka.”
A lot of the names are taken from all kinds of legends–Welsh, Norse, English medieval, Babylonian, Persian, etc. Sometimes I give them a little twist to make them original.