{"id":6101,"date":"2009-07-26T15:06:56","date_gmt":"2009-07-26T20:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2009\/07\/26\/keep_your_writing_scraps\/"},"modified":"2009-07-26T15:06:56","modified_gmt":"2009-07-26T20:06:56","slug":"keep_your_writing_scraps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2009\/07\/26\/keep_your_writing_scraps\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Your Writing Scraps"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I had the pleasure<\/strong> of pulling from my “drawer” an old scrap of writing and inserted it into Merlin’s Shadow.<\/p>\n

It was a dear scrap, this one,<\/strong> and contained an interaction with three fisherman named Ynktor, Henkter, and Crothak. They had originally appeared in my prologue of Merlin’s Blade, but the cutting machine left them high and dry without a boat, per se.<\/p>\n

Well, they are back. And not only back, but the writing fits better here in the second book.<\/strong> Part of the discussion that occurs is about the Picts, which I have reconstructed to call the Prythager in the Celtic tongue.<\/p>\n

\"Pictish<\/a><\/div>\n

This dialogue fits much better here<\/strong>, because a Pictish<\/a><\/strong> tribe will play a very important role in Merlin’s Shadow, and so the foreshadowing is much more powerful.<\/p>\n

I’ll be researching the Picts<\/strong> in more detail in the upcoming months, so expect a post or two about these fascinating Scottish tribes.<\/p>\n

Anyway, if you are a writer, always hold onto your scraps.<\/strong> Cut it out, but paste it into another document named “Saved For The Future.doc”, or something like that. You never know when it might come in handy!<\/p>\n

\n

PROGRESS REPORT: <\/p>\n

I am now 15% finished with the first draft of Merlin’s Shadow<\/strong>, and am currently targeting 90,000 words. This gives me some imaginative room near the end.<\/p>\n

Also, I have made the difficult decision <\/strong>to eliminate my original name for Merlin. He was known as Lynaeyus for the first half of Book 1, but this had two problems:<\/p>\n