Pictish Stone Art and Ch 1/Sc 3 of RAGING SEA by Kim Headlee #SundaySnippets #amwriting #IARTG

Lion overlay
Copyright by Kim HeadleeI am a visual writer. Prior to putting one jot on the page, I spend a great deal of time envisioning a scene -- not just who is doing what to whom, but what the set might look like if it were a movie shoot.

Readers tell me this leads to extremely vivid settings in my fiction, and I thank you all for that observation and compliment.

Not all of these imagined details make it into my work; I select an appropriate subset based on the story's needs.

And not all of these details leap onto the page fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. I draw heavily upon visual inspiration, a taste of which is shown above.

The background image is a detail from a photograph taken in May 2011 at Cova do Vapor, Portugal. Today's lion overlay is my scaled-vector graphic (SVG) adaptation of a detail from the Pictish stone cataloged in the Meigle Museum of Perth, Scotland as "Meigle 26."

While some Pictish stones feature identifiable battle scenes and crosses, there remains a great deal of conjecture about the meanings of the hundreds of different symbols. Some of the same symbols, with minor variations probably owing to the local artist's skill and style, occur on stones scattered dozens of miles apart. My educated guess is that the most common designs represent deities' icons, and the unique carvings identify clan crests.

The lion on Meigle 26 is one such unique carving, and in The Dragon's Dove Chronicles (starting in Morning's Journey for this particular piece) I associate it with Angusel of Clan Alban of Caledon, since Clan Alban's totem creature is the lion -- a deliberate tie to both the ancient name of Scotland and one of the heraldic supporters of the country's crest.

Each of my viewpoint characters has his or her own glyph in my fiction, and the most important characters, such as Angusel, have two. These glyphs help me to focus upon the character as I forge his or her scenes, and I hope they help you readers navigate all the viewpoint switches!

In Raging Sea, the Meigle 26 lion most often appears at a scene break to introduce Angusel's viewpoint, since its orientation is horizontal.


Previous #SundaySnippets of Raging Sea Chapter 1:Scene 1 | Scene 2 |
Raging Sea Chapter 1, Scene 3©2015 by Kim HeadleeAll rights reserved.
THEY PAUSED at the ward’s outer door, and he looked up. One of the medics was proffering the iron dragon brooch and cloak that had betrayed his identity to Decurion Tavyn. Not that his identity mattered to him anymore; he was one of Arthur’s soldiers, no more and no less. His duty was to go where ordered.

If that meant crawling off somewhere else to die, then so be it.

The other medic helped him don his rent undertunic and battle-tunic and handed him his sheathed sword. He took the cloak from the man’s companion and pinned it in place. His helmet he’d lost in the battle, yanked off by some Sasun who didn’t live long enough to regret the mistake.

As the first medic opened the door, a gust bullied its way inside, unfurling his cloak, guttering the oil lamps, and stirring the rushes. It bore the clean scent of the outdoors, but that only heightened the stench of injury and death lingering within. The cold air braced him for what he had to do.

Across the compound, heading his way, the Argyll-patterned cloak a dark blue billow, strode . . . her.

He exited the Caledonach ward. As he turned to his right, he felt a hand grip his uninjured shoulder.

“The Brytoni ward is this way, Optio,” said the first medic, in Breatanaiche.

He shrugged off the man’s hand. “I have business elsewhere. Dismissed, both of you,” he said to cut off any protest or offer of assistance. He needed no help for what he had in mind.

They exchanged a glance, shrugged, saluted him, and went back into the ward. He headed toward the fort’s gates and away from her as fast as his pain and the ragged remains of his dignity would permit.


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