I’m 1200 words away from reaching my 10K-word goal for this month. I was a little worried that this novel, unlike Wish and Ship of Souls, didn’t have any connection to African American history. The Deep feels much more contemporary—it picks up a few months after Ship of Souls ended (in March 2011) and so I’m writing about the tsunami that devastated Japan and the mass shooting in Norway. Yesterday I worked on a scene that takes place at the Central Library here in Brooklyn; Nyla has been chosen to join The League but she resists her guide’s efforts to lead her underground. I was somewhat obsessed with ancient Egypt as a child so I don’t know why it took me so long to make the connection between the deep and the underworld. I’ve decided to name the guide Cyrus/Siris/Osiris, Egyptian god of the afterlife. Far better than Alistair, which is the name of the annoying, yappy dog in my building. My theory of Afro-urban magic requires me to incorporate African spiritual practices into contemporary urban fantasy. There isn’t much room for that in The Deep but maybe I can tweak the plot. That’s the good thing about having a third of the novel still to write—there’s plenty of room for improvement…
Osiris
January 13, 2013 by elliottzetta
“My theory of Afro-urban magic requires me to incorporate African spiritual practices into contemporary urban fantasy.”
Don’t know what you mean by this but I’m deeply intrigued. Wouldn’t Egyptian spiritual practices qualify? Either way I’ll have to look out for this one.
Ancient Egyptian spiritual practices would qualify, but they aren’t really relevant to this particular story. My theory is explained here:
http://70.42.48.98/magazine/articles/2010/mar10_elliott.asp