Ohmigosh… I was just perusing The Medieval Smithy, an absolutely fantastic sight for medieval custom content and I saw these beautiful walls. Named after Mhalwae! I’m so excited that the wonderful Lady Lama would use my story to name some of her amazing custom content. They are really beautiful walls too… I am definitely going to use them somewhere in Mhalwae… the castle is getting overdue for some nice wood panelling isn’t it?
Yay!
A bit behind with the births. Just one for July that you guys already know about. Claire Ulcar was born on the 15th of July to Noah and Gena Ulcar.
I know there haven’t been a lot of updates lately. Here’s the reason why.
We’ve decided to leave Sweden and move back to Australia (my home country) so that I can be closer to my parents (and the sun!). Before that we are travelling for four months in the USA and probably Tonga and New Zealand on the way home.
What this means is that I am absolutely run off my feet at the moment. I am trying to pack up my whole life, organise visas, cancel phone plans and at the same time plan an overseas trip. On top of that I am supposed to submit three journal articles before I go and I will be teaching a structural geology course at the university all of May. Eeek! So there is a lot on my plate.
June is almost over in Mhalwae. Well almost… there are three more chapters, but hey, I’m an impatient person. I thought I might post here updates on the babies born each month. I kind of like that stuff, to see how the population of Mhalwae is growing, even if it is characters we never see. So, without further ado, the June babies.
As we know, on the 6th of June both Morven’s baby Albin and her father Eanraig’s daughter Ulrika were born. Their going to have some fun with birthday parties in the future I imagine.
Last night I was thinking about where the personalities of my characters come from. I was talking to the boy about which of the characters was most like me. I have said before in the comments that I felt it was Eallair (which is really not the most flattering character to be I think). But things have changed now and I don’t feel so much like him any more. And I realised that Eallair is very much a product of my PhD.
I have been spending quite a lot of time recently creating the various Royal families of the different countries. A large part of the fun for me is the world-creation aspect of this story. We have been hearing mention a bit lately of the archipelago of Fjaerland, who are allies of Branwhuld (I really need to get to making that map). I have been working a lot on their family tree so I though it might be fun to share it here. I am actually teaching myself html at the moment so that I can make proper family trees for Mhalwae, but I am going to start with the main characters so you probably won’t see these guys for quite a while. I modelled Queen Inaris on Maria Theresa of Austria who had sixteen children and ruled for 40 years. Inaris actually had seven more children who died at a young age and a whopping fourteen miscarriages. She’s a pretty tough lady and still ruling strong at 49 years of age. The family tree only includes the children who survived to adulthood or are still alive.
So it’s finally happened. I have finished my PhD. I am officially a doctor now. Very strange indeed. What this means (apart from hopefully getting upgrades on flights) is that I have a bit more time now. So I have the time to do something I have been wanting to for a very long time… create a behind the scenes blog for Mhalwae. This will be where I post my mumblings instead of on the main site and I am really excited, even though three blogs may be a little too much to juggle.
This will also be a place you can ask any questions you like about Mhalwae and I will try and answer them.
And before I go here’s a picture of Harndall waving inappropriately which he likes to do ALL the time. For a supposedly miserable character he is way too cheerful and spends all his time grinning and clasping his hands in a dreamy fashion.
