Blogger's slow and so am I

Good morning, sports fans!

In addition to working full-time (after an extended period of uncompensated leisure), I am also trying to continue work on the sequels to the novel I finished at the end of July. It is all part of a substantial series that I began and envisioned while a graduate student at UCLA (in a prior century). We are talking the complex process of imagining a world into existence and, for me, doing it with lots of texture and detail.

So I have been spending hours in linguistic, cartographic, and genealogical invention. Most of the maps have existed since 1973 but I am redrawing them (see above). In an effort to understand linguistic and dialectical differences better I have worked on the evolution of the languages. Then there is the cast of thousands, who they are, where they come from, where they go.

Only snippets of all this show up in the stories but I find it easy to write about something that is very real for me.

And, for all you churchoids, the church in this parallel world remains egalitarian from its founding to the end of the world. The primary missionary and first archbishop of the portion of that world in my stories is a woman. One of the privileges of writing fantasy.

You've gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

Thanks for your patience while I am lost in the inflections of languages that have never been spoken.
--the BB