Update #4 - November 2024

 Finally started getting a little writing done this week. We got a little snow yesterday - maybe a couple of inches following some rain - so there's no temptation to do yard work today. So far I've got about a third of chapter 19 ("A little teaching") done, and have an idea of what needs to be in the rest of it. After that Gwernin and friends will be moving on to Oweynagat in the next chapter.

Rowen and I and a couple of friends celebrated an early Thanksgiving last weekend at her house, so the friends could celebrate today with their family members. Among other things we had roast duck, and I made a cheesecake. Good food, good wine, good company. May everyone reading this have as pleasant a Thanksgiving today!

Update #3 - November 2024

 Another week without much writing progress. I decided I needed a database of character names from my books, and especially from the last three involving Ireland - The Fallen Stones, The King's Druid, and what I've written so far in The Well of Wisdom. I am trying not to use the same name for different people - at least important ones. Common names for secondary characters are less of a problem. I realized a while back that I'd used the name "Fedelmid" for both Togi's chief Druidic teacher in Ireland and Fráechán's magical teacher and predecessor as Archdruid, but since there was 500 years between them, and it was a popular name in early Ireland, "borne by mythological and historical figures, kings, saints, and many exalted ancestors in genealogies", according to the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (one of my name sources), so that's okay. I hope to make more progress on chapter 19 soon, once that's done.

In other developments, my neighbor on the south asked Sunday if he could take some branches off the fence-line elm tree which was overhanging his power line due to the snow, and I said, take what you want, I'm thinking of having the whole tree removed, and could you take some branches off on my side which are on my lines while you're at it? The upshot was that he took the whole tree down in pieces, and I have been spending a couple of hours a day reducing big branches into smaller pieces for large item pickup Monday. I'm going to have all the firewood I need for quite a while!

Update #2 - November 2024

 The last week was somewhat chaotic, to say the least, which is why I'm writing my Thursday post on Saturday. Last weekend involved three days of snow shoveling in order to get out of the drive and attend the last farmers' market on Sunday, and another day's work removing a lot of the plum tree which was blocking the front walk due to the snow having bent it over. After that I tidied up chapter 18, and got a little writing done on chapter 19 - about 700 words. 

Then on Wednesday evening my furnace developed problems (it was doing something called "short cycling", where it repeatedly tries to start and then stops), and it started to get rather cold in here. I managed to schedule a repairman for Friday afternoon. Thursday I went out and ran various errands, including buying a second little electric heater like the one I keep in the bathroom. The repairman arrived as scheduled on Friday, rapidly diagnosed the problem (a gadget which tells the furnace if it is getting enough air had died), located, fetched, and installed the replacement part, and did a complete evaluation of the furnace using a bunch of high-tech instruments. (The rest of the furnace checked out fine.) This all took a little over two hours, and was not inexpensive, but now the house is warm again, and I can try and figure out what day it is <grin>, and hopefully start writing again!

Update #1 - November 2024

 I didn't mind dark days when I lived in Juneau, but now I miss the sunlight when I don't have it. A little of it this afternoon is nice. We've had - 7? 8? 9? - inches of snow over the last couple of days, with more in tomorrow's forecast. Winter has come down on us like a wolf on the fold, after the last 3 or 4 dry months and a mild autumn.

I more or less finally finished chapter 18 Tuesday, although it will need a little tweaking. In the latter part of it, Fraechan tells us a little more of what happened to him during and after his last creation of the Druid Fence. It was worse than what he told Gwernin et al in The Fallen Stones, and he only survived due to King Suibne's folk aiding him and taking him back to their camp, and later to their rath for healing. King Diarmait would have left him to die on the hillside after his magic failed.

I should get more written soon, when I'm not shoveling snow!