November's work.

Irish castles, far-future Mars, and The Bacchae.

Hello from a wee café in Killibegs, County Donegal. It's a port town--the marina down the street is packed with fishing trawlers, and men in all-weather gear are tromping in for their coffee and caramel shortbreads. (Speaking of which...I might need to get one. They look so good in the display case. I bet they're slightly cold too.)

Here's what I did with your generous support in the last month:

1. I fleshed out Cayer, the fantasy world. I envision it to be Mars in the far distant future, the same way Middle-Earth was meant to be England in the far distant past. Tolkien built his "legendarium" for The Lord of the Rings over many years, and I'm doing the same, just adding bits of clay until the world gets more real. I have a big research list now. I also have a central conflict around which to build a story. (This, as it happens, is what I asked for at Delphi.)

To give you a visual taste, here's a map I sketched last month of the Bud, the most sacred site in Cayer. Most of these structures come from my recurring dreams: