After last weekend's snow, the weather has warmed up again. I spent a lot of time today doing garden cleanup and thinking about the next book. Clipping the dead sunflowers out of the potato patch, I tried to transpose a scrap of medieval gossip back several hundred years. The stated motives for someone's actions concerned illegitimacy - but this makes no sense in medieval Welsh law, where all acknowledged sons shared equally (see the history of 12th and 13th century Wales for working examples, or read Edith Pargeter's Brothers of Gwynedd quartet). So what did X think he was doing? There has to be logic in there somewhere... Removing the frost-killed pepper plants and tomato vines, I thought about balance. What, or who, is my story really about? The historical background, or Gwernin himself?
About that time my train of thought was derailed when a kestrel dived into the cloud of sparrows around the bird feeder. The sparrows took refuge in the rose bushes, chirping hysterically; the falcon, disgruntled, watched them for a while, and then flew away when the cats came to check on the excitement. And I went back to clipping dead tomato vines.
The plot? Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
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