One evening before an All Hallow’s Eve, I found myself driving alone in the dark on a road not that well-traveled that time of night. Because it was the night before what we know as Halloween, the playlist of the radio program focusing on Celtic music was made up solely of dark songs suitable for the holiday.
One song in particular eerily fit the moment. It told the story of women, kidnapped by faeries and held with their babies in a cave. The song was of women singing to their loved ones left behind in the hopes that their families would find them.
As the song played, a line appeared in my thoughts: “You’re part faery, aren’t you?” The line wasn’t found in the song but came somewhere from my imagination. It inspired the premise for the story of young Lyric Doherty and her friends Andrew Devlin and Saoirse O’Suilleabean, The Mists of Na Crainn, a young adult novel still in progress. The three share a common purpose, to find the knowledge denied to them–science, math and other aspects of how the universe works.
This May, I make my first trip to Ireland. Even though I largely completed Mists sometime ago, I knew it would never be complete until I had the opportunity to visit the place that inspired its setting and some of the characters, Ireland and its mythology. The Village Na Crainn, where magic is everyday life, isn’t exactly like the Ireland where we’ll land in a short time but I anticipate visiting there will have an impact on the novel’s final draft.
What also came with preparation for the trip is a new beginning based on some very good feedback from someone who read early drafts. With time and this trip, I hope the novel takes its final leap toward publication for anyone to read. I look forward soon to sharing this world, created by me but still fascinating to me.
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