Buffy, Boudicca, Joan, and Mally

Tomorrow’s elections across our nation are important, so I hope you have already voted or will vote tomorrow. I early voted, and for the first time ever, I made a small donation to a Congressional candidate, one who is running for a House seat that does not even represent the town where I live. All to say this cycle of national elections does indeed matter. So vote, please. And in all cases, may the candidates prevail who keep to the high road of speaking to the issues with ideas and optimism, and not the candidates who build their campaigns on bashing their opponents and preaching fear instead of hope.

Now, onward into the past: Dragons. I’ve learned while websurfing in search of early Druid dragon images that dragons have been a universal element in our myths and literature through the ages and around the globe. The Chinese have been big on dragons for thousands of years. Then there’s Saint George of England famously slaying the dragon. There are Middle-Eastern dragons and Indian dragons. African dragons and South American dragons. 

And now, there is a native Texas dragon--Leine, the only flying, acid-blood spurting, giant horny toad that I’ve discovered. Leine is the dragon half of a girl-meets-dragon duet. 

Since my new novel—A Different Dragon Entirely—is not an inter-species romance, Leine’s gender is female. On the outside, she is covered in amber scales, has a wide, oval-shaped body, short legs, a stubby neck behind a ring of tall horns on her forehead, and sports batwings. Yet, behind her fearsome visage, on the inside, she is very much a human woman.

Mally, the girl half of the pair, is not modeled after Buffy the Vampire Slayer of TV fame, but she just came to mind. Young, lovable, smart, pretty, and full of grit when needed. Buffy and hopefully both Leine and Mally are all a bit campy, with wit and snark at times.

Mally is student of Latin, which happens to be Leine’s language, and she reads the classics. She admires the Celtic warrior-queen Boudicca and the French saint Joan of Arc. Both young women led armies of male warriors and have proved to be statue-worthy in the homelands. I think they are good role models for a pioneer girl who rides on the back of a horny toad dragon and confronts outlaws and Comanches. At least as good as Buffy whose fictional fame came from killing unkillable vampires.

The first proof of the paperback A Different Dragon Entirely is under review right now, and hopefully the paperback and the e-book will be available on Amazon by Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

And did I already say: VOTE !