Welcome to Ogham Court: Threads and Theme

                So I was sitting having lunch at the day job, trying to send a message about my current WIP.  The title of the short story that started it was “The Shop on Ogham Court.”  Being from the East coast where we are always in a hurry, I started talking about it in shorthand as just “Ogham Court”.  That triggered a whole word association/stream of consciousness thing.  I thought about Ogham as history, hidden language, cryptic, multiple meanings and foreign.  Court became a string of justice, judging, rules and laws.  Suddenly my WIP began to take on a theme and subtheme.  Parts that I had written took on a new direction.  I think I have found the deeper meaning I need to get the momentum going.

                I had already poked and prodded Nora, the main character, about her past and present circumstances.  She told me a lot about growing up with a moderately successful father and stay-at-home mother.  Living in an affluent town in North Jersey and summering at their beachfront house on Long Beach Island.  She described as moderate, although we would consider it rich.  That’s because her father, she never calls him “Dad” went from moderate success to blockbuster and moved his movie production career and himself to the West Coast and a whole new life.   Mom moved back to the Miami area, where she grew up, and is now a hostess at a South Beach restaurant.

                Nora was “displaced” from her first job out of college and went to help out her elderly Aunt Aine.  Aine owns a little Irish Shop on a fictional street in Tribeca (Ogham Court).  The front of the shop if filled with standard stuff: sweaters, china, crystal and linens.  But as you venture deeper into the store, you find music instruments then ancient statues and the like.  Another part at the rear contains herbs, oils and other medicinals.  All the way in the rear of the shop are rooms, one of which is usually locked.  Aine calls it her tea room.  She goes in there with certain regulars for tea and conversation.

                So Nora has been judged by her employer, she judges her parents.  She has entered Aine’s world  on Ogham Court where the rules and laws are strange and foreign.   It is about to get stranger.

                In the weeks and months to come, I will be sharing some of what develops on Ogham Court and my discoveries about Nora and what the future holds. Perhaps I should pour a cuppa and read her cards?

                Just a side note, Nora, Aine and Devlin (we'll talk about him later) make their first brief appearance in Dark Dealings, my upcoming urban fantasy novel.