Writing moves aside...

for the afternoon, anyway. In the morning, I got 828 words on *False Perceptions* to finish the chapter I started yesterday. We're at the place in the book where momentum is building and it's too late to take anything back Soon everything will careen out of control. It will be fun. :D

And then Jim phoned and asked if I could take the afternoon off work. I love my bosses. (I think I've mentioned that before.) One of their wives covers for me when I need time off, and she was willing to work the afternoon. Jim and I came home and worked the cows. The bull needed separated out. He now spends three months by himself in the large corral, bored out of his skull. We feed him often to keep him fat and happy! We then moved the cows into a different pasture, and let out the two heifer calves that had been locked up in the smaller corral since October, to prevent them getting pregnant too young. We hauled a bunch of hay, re-arranged some pens, and Jim plowed the snow in front of the calving shed. We still need to give the cows their prenatal shots, hopefully this Saturday. It's a big relief to have the bull moved. He gets kind of antsy, and you never know how smoothly it will go. He was pretty good, all things considered. We are expecting our first calves in about two weeks. It was a nice sunny day to work outside, and only seven below freezing celsius.

When Jim went back out after coffee to do some of the things he didn't need help with, I hauled a stack of volumes of World Book to the kitchen table, looked up countries, and began to play with place names for my new little world. I have not yet chosen language groups to emulate, but I've opened up the possibilities tremendously. And I have a new (much longer!) list of town or place name endings. I know you've been desperately waiting to hear what I would come up with, so here we go(with examples): -ton (Hampton), -ov (Svishtov), -ow (Moscow), opolis (Ermoupolis), -burgh (Edinburgh), -abad (Hyderabad), -pur (Shahdadpur), -ganj (Kishorganj), -grad (Leningrad), -avik (Keflavik), -burg (Hamburg), -holm (Stockholm), -shire (Hampshire), -chester (Winchester). I could keep going on. The suffixes I mentioned had multiple names associated with them, so they seemed particularly apt. Of course, the main thing I learned was that if I chose two or three suffixes from similar language groups for each of the countries to build place names with, and throw in a couple of random names as well, I'll be onto something. I don't have to use suffixes that already exist, but I do want particular *feels*. Too much fantasy has a Celtic naming system. I love the Celtic names myself, and would easily slide into them if I wasn't paying careful attention, but they're overdone. (Do I get to keep *Shann*?!) And I also want to avoid basic English places like Westcastle. So that's why I'm playing with various language groups. I may go with Arabic, Slavic, Scandinavian, and/or Portuguese. I'm getting closer to a decision, now that I have some of my basic homework done. The next thing is to hunt down given names on the internet from those language groups, and see what jumps out to me with a little twist.

When I find the language group I want to use for my *good* country, I'll look for words in it that could help me to portray God. And I had a couple of good ideas for the religion itself after I crawled back in bed at three in the morning, and before I went back to sleep. I actually functioned pretty good today, all things considering (like less than five hours sleep.)