How to write: get obsessed

I wrote in my last post about finding something you love to write about and going with it, but now I’m going to suggest that you get obsessed.

When I started researching Celtic Wales, I unearthed the most fascinating stuff in cobwebby old books that hadn’t been opened for decades. I devoured all the information in them and had to discipline myself not to spew it all back in a big mess when it came to writing I, Rhiannon Books One and Two.

A wall in Snowdonia, Wales

Learning about the ancient Celtic festivals of Samhain and Beltane helped me structure the novels and fired my imagination so that I felt as if I was there, sitting by the fire, with the tribespeople. According to Wikipedia, Samhain  is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. It is celebrated from sunset on 31 October to sunset on 1 November, which is nearly halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Along with Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh it makes up the four Gaelic seasonal festivals. It was observed in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Kindred festivals were held at the same time of year in other Celtic lands; for example the Brythonic Calan Gaeaf (in Wales), Kalan Gwav (in Cornwall) and Kalan Goañv (in Brittany). 

Magnificent Snowdonia

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of Book Two:
She brought the snow early, coming unseen on her milk-white mare, wrapped in a cloak of silver fox over a gown that sparkled with thousands of tiny mirrors. Gwyn, who should have been concentrating on answering the Samhain chants uttered by Edern the Erudite, couldn’t take his eyes off her when she appeared among them. He imagined some poor, eye-sore needlewoman bending over the fine linen, her mirrors making a pattern of dewy spiderwebs, her tired fingers rejoicing in their pain, glad to suffer for such a beauty as this creature was.
     She was Rebekka, he was sure of it, although her hair seemed to absorb the light from the greedy fire and shone red like the skins of the apples the Geveni were roasting in the flames of fern, gorse, straw and thornbush. Her skin was the colour of her white woollen tunic and her eyes the same vivid emerald as the evergreens that decorated all the roundhouses and the Great Hall.     
     As her delicate palfrey picked its way on fine legs across the new snow to where the tribespeople sat, close to the warmth, the flames spluttered and died. The Geveni, who hadn’t yet noticed her for they were engrossed in listening to the Druids’ commemorations of the dead, fell silent, terrified the spirits who’d returned from Summerland for this one night, the end of the old year, were displeased with something they might have done or failed to do. They all looked about, expecting to see ghosts or fairy folk. Them Who Be were as real to them as the living and never more so than on this hallowed night. That very evening as they made their way to the meeting-place, the children had seen some ellyllon on the river, paddling their egg-shell boats. Even little Nina had been sure of spying the bwbach near Mair’s hearth. This miniature, tubby, domestic creature, Mair told her, was nothing to fear. “He will protect our new roundhouse,” she promised.
     At first, the people couldn’t see what caused their big fire to die. No twlwyth tegs were trooping past in a colourful parade, their one hundred year-old children leaping, skipping and dancing ahead. And it was too late for the pillywiggins, who, mounted on bees and brandishing tiny brushes and mops, tidied the spring flowers. The warriors superstitiously rubbed the Roman skulls that dangled from their hips, Spinner held his harp more tightly against his heart. Eurolwyn, Daughter of Gwydolwyn the Dwarf wished she hadn’t been so short with the Apprentices that morning during the rehearsal of the Samhain rites and promised herself she’d try to be nicer to them in future. Dafydd clutched Mair, expecting to see their hero son, Griff Stiff Beard, brandishing his fabled dragon-bladed sword where the flames had leapt.
     Gwyn’s sharp eyes spied her first, sitting astride her bare-backed horse on the edge of the forest. He gasped and Rhiannon, sitting close, turned to where he was looking and screamed her slave’s name, believing she was dead and returned to haunt them. Augustus, at his wife’s side, holding the sleeping Nina in his arms, uttered “Rebekka” with what sounded to Rhiannon like longing.