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I’m in the thick of writing. A couple chapters away from finishing section one (ten chapters). Each month, I produce a newsletter. It helps me get all the crazy and sometimes perfectly fantastical connections, research, symbols (really, all the things writers geek out about) down. It also allows Storytimers to see a bit of the “behind the scenes” as I’m writing.

What I’ve really worked hard at during this entire book is I want a conversation beneath the conversation. To do that, I’ve gone way out of my way and spent way too many hours doing way too intense deep dives into etymology. It’s like mining for gold, really. Many times, I start researching the context and linguistic changes of a word and don’t get very far because it means, boringly, very much like its modern meaning. In those cases, I’ve literally stopped writing for a few days to decide: does this word hold enough weight in the story for me to keep digging for a gold-lined synonym or should I just use it and move on?

Clan was a word that stopped me. I knew I needed a word that was true to very old Irish that meant family or unit or something similar; clan was the first that popped into my head. But I also had “kin” on the list and “tribe.” This newsletter is really about why I settled on “clan.” Its history touches on broad themes that Móin & Marrow share.

You can view the newsletter below or, if you’d like to see it in large print, you can download it.

The page, Móin & Marrow , will give you lots more information on what this book is about, more samples, a video…

If you’d like to be a part of Chapter Chats – it’s a Friday email that delves into backstories, histories, characters, themes and a lot more. To be a part of that, simply fill out the below!