23, 998 words.

I want this sword.

If only it weren't so expensive, I'd have me a subscription to 3rd Stone magazine. It's all about archaeology, folklore and myth. A little crackpotty, maybe, but that only makes it more fun.

This morning's discovery: very, very cool masks. (Link via Neil Gaiman, of course.)

Oh yeah, and a new character called Dubhghall showed up unannounced. I looked up Dubhghall on Behind the Name, and it turns out to mean "dark stranger," which is very eerily appropriate. I love it when things like that happen.

Yesterday it was finding out that the fairies had a perfectly good reason to kidnap Maddy's mother -- I was a little worried about motivation. Fairies, apparently, are always on the lookout for a good wetnurse, and women who've just given birth are very good at that. I knew this, but I'd forgotten. Guess my subconscious remembered. So when I read in The Enchantment of the Trossachs that it is "a wide-spread folk myth, in which a woman who has given birth to a child is spirited away by the fairies in order to nurture a fairy infant," I thought, "Of course. How silly of me to have worried." Even the fairies in my novel know what they're doing, quite without my help.

Phew! Busy day. Went into Langford with Sue to deliver the niece and nephew to their dad's, went grocery shopping, had a big roast beef dinner with relatives on the occasion of some more relatives being in town . . . Wrote 2, 357 words. Must sleep very, very soon (too much wine at dinner makes Niko a sleepy girl).

18, 770 words. And now I'm going to bed.

It may well be a deep-seated awareness that even matters of Faerie, being less disturbing than those of nuclear physics, tend to provide a modicum of balance and sanity in an age that has already demonstrated, pretty conclusively, its ability to obliterate itself.

That's Alisdair Alpin MacGregor, from Land of the Mountain and the Flood (1965), which quote I found in Louis Stott's The Enchantment of the Trossachs ("published for the tercentenary of the spiriting away of Robert Kirk," 1992).

16, 262 words and 4, 262 words ahead of schedule. Yee haw!

Mad-cloud, Mac-leod,
Sitting on a stump,
Wants to stop the ocean
From turning to a dump.

What's she gonna do about it?
What's she gonna do?
She'll try to tell the dol-phins
To blame it all on you.

I only used the first two lines of that one in the novel, but it didn't seem right to leave it unfinished.

In an interview (sort of) at Slashdot, Neil Gaiman says:

There was a Sandman story I wanted to write, which would have been a heartbreaker, and would have been about the dreams and hopes of an unborn baby, who was, for whatever reason, never going to be born. I didn't write it because I could imagine it being thrust in front of some pregnant teenager who didn't want to be pregnant to make her change her mind about what she was going to do.

I'm thinking Gaiman knows much about the power of story and the reponsibilty of those who wield that power. (Though I can't help but lament that I'll never get to read what would probably be a very moving story by one of my favourite writers.)

I was going to mention it this morning, that today is Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night.

Some of the English have been known to wonder whether they are celebrating Fawkes' execution or honoring his attempt to do away with the government.

I wondered that myself. We were going to have a bonfire tonight to incinerate all the stuff that didn't get lit in our Halloween bonfire, and toast marshmallows (which we forgot to buy for our Halloween bonfire). But nobody seems to be very organized, plus Angel's on, and once again, we forgot to buy marshmallows. So Guy Fawkes won't be burned in effigy at our house.

Another tool of procrastination (but I'm at 11,482 words and counting): Clay Kitten Shooting. (Thanks a lot, Sue!)

Here's a very funny Neil Gaiman interview from Sequential Tart.

Yay! I just passed 10, 000 words, a whole day ahead of schedule.

Fun with rhyme! I made up a few poems for The Secret Common-Wealth.

Mad, Mad Madeline, talks to leafy trees.
Mad little Maddy’s got grass stains on her knees.
What’ll Maddy do when the men-in-white come
To take her to the mad house like her daddy should have done?

My main character was considered rather odd as a child. She saw fairies and ghosts and things.

There once was a girl dressed in green,
Said she saw things that never were seen,
Said, "That isn’t a tree,
That’s a fine, grand la-dy,
And you just can’t see what I mean."

I'm a lousy poet, pretty much, but these were fun.

I mentioned to my uncle the other day that I was suffering the second cold in as many months. He said -- joking -- something about Samson and that it was because I'd cut my hair. Hmmm.

Here are a few very cool sites I found while doing research for my novel (6,364 words and counting), in no particular order except that's how they're listed in my bookmarks:

Mysterious Britain -- "a guide to the legends, folklore, myths and mysterious places of Britain"

Myth and Legend of Britain -- "Witches and warriors, ghosts and giants, dragons, demons and kings have shaped the landscape and captured the imaginations of people throughout history."

Mysterious Britain (another one) -- "Looking for something different? Want a fright? Want to hunt for sea monsters? Maybe Chostbusting?"

Historic UK -- "THE history and heritage accommodation guide to England, Scotland and Wales"

First Foot -- "the website dedicated to exposing the myth, the magic, the beliefs and the baloney, the history, mystery and blistery feet that make up every walk of Scottish life"

Caledonian Castles -- "The Web's largest collection of Scotland's castles, tower houses and fortified houses"

If only my cat got along with other members of her species, I'd have a lovely blue-eyed white kitten with six toes on her front feet. Alas, Bast hates other cats. Here's a fascinating page on polydactyl cats. (Link via Neil Gaiman.)

Hee hee: "The End of the Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe's cat.