What choice do I have?

...days run into weeks and when you have three children in the house trying to get time to do anything would require a Tardis.

As I said in my last blog, I was given the choice to shrink or expand my story. I couldn't shrink it so I knew I had only one option; I had to write a novel. I had all the ideas in my head, I had a map drawn out and now all I needed was a new Cobs. Declan Carville had told me there were too many kid's books with bears in them and I needed something new. That is when you are glad you are friends with a very talented and imaginative artist. We chatted about a replacement who could become the new hero of the piece. Now Jack, the eleven year-old boy was firmly entrenched in my mythology, but a new Cobs that was a big ask.

I sat with John and talked about characters from Ireland and the subject of a Leprechaun came up but I thought, and he did too, that the idea was twee and overused. But a few nights later John presented my with a few sketches of a Leprechaun. They were a tad twee but then he gave me the picture you see posted here. The Leprechaun had become, in John's eyes, an almost post-apocolyptic character: a 21st Century Leprechaun. Then it struck me Cobs is a Clurichaun, a lesser known entity. From there the character grew, or should I say exploded.
I gave him a family of seven brothers and one sister, all named after the plants and trees that grew in the Mournes. Then the bug hit me...

... my degree (all those years ago and more recently) involved a lot of research, but the subject matter in the medical world can be a tad dry, so letting your creative juices to flow, or again, should I say, gush out over new subject matter delighted me greatly. I spent countless hours researching an area I had explored all my life ( that is, I walked over every mountain), but in an entirely new way. Paths in the Mourne Mountains became walkways for all kinds of creatures and place names leapt of the Ordinance Survey map. One place in particular, Springwell Port, just sounded perfect for Jack Turner's home.

I grew each character in my head and jotted down everything in my wee red notebook. I noted what clothes they would wear and what manerisms they might have. The research lead me to read more about the history of the Mournes and the geography. I knew the information was begging for a new interpretation.
Then I noticed something in my research to my shame I did not already know. That was an omen...