Researching again. One thing leads to another, but some details are coming into better focus. Several of the books I'm currently working with are listed here, but these two are especially interesting to me at the moment.



The Iona book is one I bought a while back thinking it would be useful for book #6, but I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the discussion very pertinent to one of my current concerns.

Back to work.

-GRG

Friday...

A cold, cloudy day with a touch of light snow - not a day to tempt me into the garden at all! I've done no writing so far this week, but reading and thinking, yes, and this is a good day for more of same.

Sixth century Ireland seems in many ways to be as obscure a time and place as sixth century Wales, despite a much greater quantity of written sources. The sources, however, are none of them - or almost none of them - contemporary, and the writers and their later copyists had all of them their own agenda, not to mention the thick forest of oral tradition and legend which has grown up around the few solid facts we have. In the end the storyteller - and I am a storyteller, not a historian - can only pick and choose the fragments which make sense at the moment, and do her best to tell a coherent and interesting tale, noting any exceptions in the afterword...

Today's picture: the crest of the Hill of Tara, with a few anonymous figures seen from a great distance - a suitable visual analogy for the problem at hand.



Back to work...

-GRG

Monday...

I didn't post last week partly because I wanted to leave the daffodil picture on top, and partly because I was mostly doing garden-related carpentry (of which more below) and other yard work.

This morning when I went out a little after sunrise, I found this beautiful feather. I think it's a breast feather from one of the flickers which frequent my bird feeders and bird baths, probably one of the females.



The carpentry involved building some raised box beds out of scrap lumber - about 3 days work, 2 of which were spent on the lids (the chicken wire is to keep squirrels out - they love to dig in any exposed dirt in order to bury things):



Hopefully back to work writing soon, although I've thought of a bit more reading I want to do first...

-GRG

Tuesday...

Hmmm. Progress of a sort... I did get some writing done yesterday, but then had some thoughts about the overall plot structure which led to another pause for research. I think a little more action is called for...

Daffodils from the market, not the yard, alas, although the temperature here was in the 60's F. yesterday:



Back to work...

-GRG

Monday...

Back writing today after a weekend off. I think chapter 8 is pretty much finished, and I've started chapter 9. Gwernin is at Tara now...



Back to work.

-GRG

Saturday...

Where did the week go? Snow shoveling on Tuesday and Wednesday, writing on Wednesday and Thursday... sometimes one thing crowds another out. In this case, it was blogging which got displaced. However, chapter 9 is more or less finished at last.



Nicer weather yesterday made it hard to stay inside, especially after some of the record cold weather lately.

-GRG

Tuesday...

Snowing again today; about 4 inches so far, I think.

Current book references of the week:



More snow to shovel, then back to work.

-GRG

Monday...

Spent yesterday shoveling snow and working of The Druid's Son. More of the same today (well, minus the shoveling -- that comes tomorrow morning...).

A shot from yesterday morning:



Back to work!

-GRG

Thursday...

After three days of atrociously low temperatures, things are finally getting back to normal here, and I'm hoping to get some writing done today. Just another Irish picture, to get me in the mood:

Tuesday...

Whew! Winter has come back with a vengeance. Temperature by my back door this morning is -12 F., and tonight is supposed to be colder. After starting with freezing drizzle, it snowed gently all day yesterday, although the total accumulation is only about 3 inches. We canceled Welsh class tonight - no weather to be out in if you can help it.



The line of tracks in the lower right corner are fox tracks.

-GRG