| | Just this afternoon, at a wonderful lunch at the Kershners', I got an idea for a book. A setting, really. Michael (he plays Romeo in the "Romeo and Juliet" I'm in this summer) was talking about spending some time in Prague, which he said is DEAD until about 9 and then roars to life.
So I thought: What an AMAZING place to set a fantasy!
It nagged at me all day, and just now I sat down and wrote out a plot summary for what I'm not-so-tentatively calling "Shadow's Princess," about a grubby thief plucked from the catacombs of the city of Shadow by her aristocrat maternal grandmother and used ruthlessly in said grandmother's plan to take control of the city. I'm getting NaNoWriMo-type excited over this thing, and I can hardly wait to start working on it!
Plus I've found some WONDERFUL names for these people. Manx names are freakin' genius - I think my favorite is Ealisaid, for (surprise, surprise) Elizabeth. Is that a great name, or is that a great name? I LOVE it. So Shadow/New Ederin is going to sound rather Manx-ish. I'm tweaking the names a little - my heroine's name is Moiri, from Moirrey, and my villain's is Margiod, from Margaid - but I simply love them, so I'm obviously not tinkering with them too much. Basque names are quite marvelous as well. I'm going to try to use Manx-ish names for native Shadowers, and Basque names for the nobility.
And because she looks pretty damn close to what I was imagining, here's a picture of how Moiri looks to me at the moment, courtesy of the impossibly talented John William Waterhouse:
Moiri
She's Flora, obviously. The one in purple and red. The look on her face is just perfect: she's got that unspeakably beautiful Waterhouse-girl look, but there's a wonderful edge to her expression. She looks independent, curious, unafraid, and far more earthly than I'm used to seeing Waterhouse's women look. She compares in my mind to The Lady Clare, which I love because (again) she's lovely, but very real, and very much a creature of this flawed world.
Plus, this girl just does not look like someone you want to mess around with. Zephyrs notwithstanding.
And because I went looking for her and she was simply perfect, here for your added viewing pleasure is Margiod, Moiri's grandmother and nemesis.
Margiod
In the book, of course, she's a human, not the angel of death. But take a look at that angel. She clearly thinks well of herself, and she's undeniably well born. But she's so cold, so ruthless. She'd stop at nothing to get what she wanted. That's EXACTLY the look I want for Margiod. Intriguing and unnerving at the same time.
GOD, I love Illusions Gallery. |
| | Posted 7/17/2008 12:57 AM - 3 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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