Finished Orin

I have finished both the entry and the rough draft of the short story for my next country: Orin.  The short story, titled “The Summer Valley” is being read by my kind and generous beta reader, M, whom I hope will not be quite as despairing about it as I have been feeling.  The reason I am being gloomy about it is that the launch party for Orin is set for June and it is going to be a big one.  My mom, my dear friend E, and my sister’s boyfriend are all going to be up from CA to see my sister graduate and will be here for the party.  In addition, when I sent out a “save this date” invitation I had a lot of positive responses, a number from people who will be coming for the first time.  So it’s not that I don’t like “The Summer Valley” but rather that I have been feeling that it should somehow be extra special for an extra big party with VIPs.


Orin is a country which spans a temperate and Mediterranean climate – in the north above the Idessa Mountains it is cooler and wetter, though it rarely snows, while in the south there are vineyards and orange and lemon orchards.  It was limping along a bit until I decided that they needed a legendary king to focus on with both their history and their legends and folk-lore.  I glanced over the Arthurian and Carolingian cycles, not only for inspiration, but also as an example of how such bodies of literature and legend work on a patriotic consciousness.


Here is the current map of Idhua: It is entirely coincidental that I have been working on the purple countries.  Apparently, I colored a number of the countries which were settled earliest (which is my criteria) purple without planning it.

On a quest to the Renaisance Faire

M, N, D and I had an adventure trying to get the Renaissance Faire yesterday.  We started out by checking out a smaller festival that turned out to be a bit of a dud.  Then, since we were all dressed up, we decided to go to the bigger fair that (luckily) was also happening this weekend.  With a lot of getting lost, getting found, calling friends to look up directions and maddeningly slow people on country highways we made it to the Faire – about an hour before it closed.  We still had fun though, wandering around, eating pickles and ice cream. 

I love the feeling of being dressed up in costume and among so many others in costume.  It is also really fun to people (or, perhaps, character) watch at the Faire.  Sometime it would be interesting to go and take four or five pictures of different characters and then write a story based on them.  Here's a picture of our costumes:

Wizard and Warrior - Photo Shoot

Something I enjoy doing is dressing my friends (and sometimes myself) up in costumes, hauling them out to a picturesque location and taking pictures.  It was chilly (intermittent sleeting, to be precise), but they were quite gracious about it, and the winter woods were a wonderful backdrop.

Warrior charging gleefully down the path.

Wizard and mossy tree.

Yes, I am epic.

"I think it went that way."

Maybe some blue lightening striking the sword?

Glowing orb.

Movie Poster: Now we are both epic.