Welcome to #WIP Wednesday.

Since Keeping House is off to the proofreader, I’m sharing a little of my latest WIP this week. It’s Historical Appalachian Fantasy set in the Revolutionary War era and the years thereafter and, yes, it’s going to be part of the #AppalachianElementals series. It’s out of sequence so it’ll definitely be a side tale, and I don’t yet know when it’ll be finished, but I already love the main character’s voice. You might not know the characters involved, yet, but they’re in Keeping House, including Cent, who’ll be appearing as a secondary character in their 19th-century male form. (Cent has been reincarnated over a hundred times, if you don’t know, so these stories tie together through her/him/them and through Embreeville Mountain, a real place near where I live in Northeast Tennessee.)

I’m striving for historical accuracy inside this story so I’m doing a lot of research on the colonial era, especially what was then the frontier, but there’s not a whole lot of written history concerning the area and this is Fantasy genre so I’m allowing myself to leave holes that require more research. But there are no holes in this #WIPpet.

     “Whatcha doin’ up that tree, Nub?” Conall scratches his head as he looks up at me. I could dot his eye with a half-rotten crab apple if I wished, but I don’t. I drop a handful of leaves in his face instead, and he swats at them like they’re swarming bees, making me laugh.

     “Taking a rest. I finished the lower field, put up the horses, wiped the tack, and did everything else like you told me this morning.” I draw my knees to stand on the branch I’ve been sitting on. It isn’t often I’m taller than Conall, and this feels grand.

     “We’re going to be late for dinner if we don’t hurry.” Conall pulls back his tricorn to smooth his sun-paled hair, which has been slicked back and tied with a blue satin ribbon. He looks foppish, but I don’t dare tell him.

Nub’s already showing his trickster side, isn’t he? I’m trying really hard not to give spoilers here, but when you read Keeping House, look for the nickname Nub, who it applies to, and who exclusively uses it. It’ll be an aha moment, I’m certain. Like my other stories in this series, nothing is what it initially seems, and everything’s subject to change when magic comes into play.

Bucket photo by Jennifer Burk on Unsplash

Mountain photo by Claudia Rancourt on Unsplash