No brand new words tonight; instead, I’ve been taking down notes about the Oscar story and trying to get some idea of the other involved characters, and what the plot might be.
After my chat in email with my editor 
serasempre
I have only the beginning picture of the Warder in question, but I’m pretty sure she’s somewhat older than Oscar. Old enough that she is established in her power, but young enough to be still in her prime. Old enough though that she might look askance at Oscar as a potential romantic figure–and that’s okay anyway because if there’s any romance in this story, I actually want to downplay it hard. Touch more on the hint of potential rather than state anything outright, and focus instead on these two characters reaching out to one another because of their common love of music; hey, if it works for Aubrey and Maturin, it should work for Oscar and this Warder. 😉
The setting is rural and coastal, although I haven’t nailed down where yet to my satisfaction. Nor am I a hundred percent sure that it’s set in “current day”; still thinking about that. (Since the trio of stories I have proposed to Deena will have one period piece and one current day, this one could I think be either.)
The plot that’s starting to take shape is that a migration of Big Creatures–some form of sea-based dragon–is violently interrupted when one or more of them are hunted and killed. My Warder woman is all about putting a stop to that, but it’ll turn out that it has to be Oscar who’ll be challenged to the musical duel, with the stakes being the lives of the remaining dragons. And my antagonist, not being an idiot, will be clever enough to yoink Oscar out of a Warder’s territory first. Muahaha.
More than that I don’t think I’ll get into, because then I’ll start getting spoilery. Suffice to say that the story is beginning to take shape.
