This past week, I made it to page 45 of my manuscript, during which I made the tough decision to remove Xia from the book. I decided to replace her with a different prophetess because, at this point, there are already many foreigners in the region of Yangvaad that Sandra is spying in and I want some natives to provide more "local flavor" to Part I of the novel. Additionally, I realized that I need to get a firmer grasp of the leadership in the area of the country that Sandra is in, to make sure the nefarious plot of the villain retains some sense of logic. I borrowed a book on famous gardens from the library, since one of Sandra's friends is a gardener and I want to have some realistic knowledge of the subject before I put a speculative twist on it. I went with this approach due to the success I had after researching Assyrian and Viking culture to flesh-out Yangvaad, and cannot wait to see what ideas I'll come up with after reading about the most famous gardens in the world.
In my Peace Corps memoir, I'm still in basic training on Pohnpei. Things were still rather quiet and pleasant at this point, so while it's fun to relive some of the memories, it's not nearly as exciting as Kosrae was when everything went downhill. If I continue to work steadily at two pages a day, I should reach my time in Kosrae within the next couple of weeks, and describe the surreal experience of being persecuted for going to a Baptist church.
In other news, some close friends of mine had my family and I over tonight and they absolutely loved the card game that I had developed while in Armenia, which features characters from my series. I want to get that game ready to show off to toy companies once I finish "Fionnuala" because everybody who's played it absolutely loves it.
Next post-Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes
