Oak Tower - front cover idea :-)

My take on a front cover ... I find havnig pix of the characters, places, mportant things, helps with the writing. My visualisations get very real.

The tree is real and from the place where the story is set, about 5 miles up the road from me here. The gold comes from an artist friend's painting of the gold torcs she actually found in a field not too far away when she was fifteen, back in the 60s. They're down in the museum in Cardiff now, 4000 yrs old !!!

And if you've ever watched Buffy you'll recognise the lassie :-). she fits the bill perfectly for my idea of the heroine.

And I love messing about with pictures :-)

Oak Tower

Did another 3K words on it today, very pleased. The brief synopsis for Oak Tower is ...

Twelve year old orphaned Jenni lives with her Aunt Keri in the wilds of the Black Mountains on the borders of Wales. She finds three gold torcs hidden in a cave under an ancient oak tree. Her aunt tells her they are local legend.

An old tramp, Duffy, arrives in the village, gets work with Keri and befriends Jenni. The villagers wonder what to do with the torcs. News gets out and the British Museum sends a Celtic specialist. He says the torcs must go to London for safe keeping and takes them to his house. Jenni and Duffy know this isn’t right.

The cottage the specialist rents burns down but there’s no sign of either him or the torcs. Duffy is suspected of the arson but he has disappeared with Jenni. A hunt begins.

Jenni and Duffy follow the specialist into a magical world that unzips under the everyday one. It looks like everyday but people there have strange powers. Jenni and Duffy must bring the torcs home or their everyday world will become a wasteland.

It's coming together now but the villain has changed A LOT !!! Characters do that though, don't they? All have lives of their own and just wait for one to get on the keyboard so they can express themselves. He's actually far more interesting than I thought he would be.

I'm also having fun - and tearing hair out! - because he's just shifted 1500 years in time and things are not at all like what they were! Dealing with this is interesting as well as a bit nerve-wracking. I don't want to go on at great length about the differences and how he sees things - this isn't a 19th century French novel - but I do need to make the reader aware of it. Doing this in small, short ways is taxing! Probably very good for me too ... arrrggghhh !!!


Having a heroine aged 12 is a whole new departure for me but I think we're getting there. she has to be bright! I cannot cope with a dumb kid! But I'm liking her so that has to be good - for me, anyway. If I don't like or at least feel some empathy/sympathy with the character I don't care. And if I don't care then I write badly.

Do others of you find this too?