Celtic Immersion

I will admit it: my name is Kate and I still have yet to character sketch. However, I've been making much progress on my novel research. Currently, I'm reading Mysterious Celtic Mythology in American Folklore by Bob Curran (as well as Barbara Kingsolver's new one, Flight Behavior, though it's not for novel research purposes). There's a very interesting chapter on how a bastard Welsh prince may have discovered America in the 1100s and left behind most of his crew to mate with the natives, whose offspring would become the Mandans. I'm not sure how factually likely it is that this actually occurred, but the book does posit some evidence for its possible truth. Either way, I find it fascinating. I was aware of viking ventures to the Americas well before Columbus but not of the fact that apparently fervent Celtic monks did likewise in an effort to expand knowledge of the word of God. While I don't plan on making the house in the novel the ancestral home of Madoc the Welsh Prince, I'm quite enjoying the book, even if none of what's in it has real impact on my book (though I'm hoping it does).

The house sketches have taken a slightly different turn as well. We have been looking at another house. It could be aptly described as a Victorian era manor. It doesn't have the exterior filagree of a Victorian, but it definitely is a very subtle (some might say plain) version of that style and time-period. I would call it a Victorial era farm house except that it is twice the size of most farm houses. I've been happily sketching rough blueprints of the house, which needs some work, including being transitioned from a two family back to a one.

(Here's a sketch. It's not the clearest of photos, but it gives an idea of the setup: 

basement on the bottom, main floor in the middle, and second story on the top.)

While sketching, it occured to me that it would be far more intuitive to use the blueprint of a house already in existence for the novel, rather than a house completely created in my head. I believe it will become the bones over which I create the house for my novel. I want to base my supernatural elements on actual folklore, so using the floor-plan of an actual house should help keep the story grounded in some foundational way.