The Good Wight

The Good Wight.

It has a nice ring to it, I think. It combines the idea of a wight -- the old English word for a creature brought back from the dead but in thrall to a sorcerer -- with goodness, implying, I hope at the end, a being brought back to life but in full control of its faculties, its will, and its freedom.

It could be a good name for "Yershi the Mild," the book I'm working on.

Or the follow-up book.

I'm excited about this one. Oh, I was excited about "Considering How to Run" as well -- that one still has possibilities -- but The Good Wight might be something that I can pull off satisfactorily.

Yeah, the further away I get from "Considering," the more I realize it's turning into one of those proverbial first novels that have to be written to get the gunk out of the system. And that's okay. Something may still come of it. But it's right now too much a jumble of ideas without a good central thread to it. I can see The Good Wight bridging that gap.

Also, this is more YA literature, meaning I'll have a tighter story, a shorter one. And that's okay. A shorter tale will give me the concentration and oomph to make it good. With "Considering," I felt like I was in the shipyards of Deimos as described by Arthur C. Clarke in "Imperial Earth," where they make ships by the meter and cut them off to the length the customer desires. Instead of doing that with "The Good Wight" (I have to keep trying the title out to see if I like it) I'm going to set a limit of no more than 45,000 or 50,000 words. And make each one of them count.