Thursday, April 19, 2018

The deep, dark waters of the lake ...

This is one of my more current books, based on the Arthurian legends. It's one of the Remembered Classics, in which I take some familiar characters and re-imagine them.

I always wondered about Vivian, the Lady of the Lake. The babe who tossed out a sword and decided who would be king. I started thinking about her and wondered, what if a woman had a lake home but she was terrified of deep water?

I started working backwards: why is she terrified of water? Has she always had a lake home? How would she meet the owner of the sword? What kind of business does she have that puts her in the way of a sword?

And then there was him: how did he lose the sword? What's his blind spot? What does he do for a living? How does he find?

Somehow, a book came together, in which Vivian comes into possession of a sword that Able (Arthur Baer LeRoy) is seeking. But is Arthur who he says he is? What does Vivian's ex-husband have to do with it?

Plus, there's that lake and her cabin ... and a cold October day when things get really terrifying.