Last night I was a little frustrated with myself and it was all my own doing. When I’d been preparing the back matter for The Missing Thread, I wanted to finalize the cover for 6th Sacred Knight. The problem was that even though I’d finished writing the story, it had never told me what it wanted to be called.

It probably sounds silly, but usually about halfway through a manuscript, my creative voice will pop up with a comment like, “The book wants this as a title” or “Let’s call this book ______.” Usually it happens at a spot where I need some motivation to get the book finished.

Strangely enough, neither the 6th Sacred Knight or the 8th Loki Adventure have given me a title.

So I was fidgeting around the house trying to get the title. My son finally says, “Mom, why don’t you just call it Sacred Knight?”

What a great idea. I go back and finalize that on the cover, then I get the format all done and go back to where I have the print all set up and upload it. Meanwhile, I’m setting up the pre-order on all the books. It’s not until I go and setup the pre-order on Amazon that I notice my problem.

I didn’t know what to call the box set of books #1-3 when I put them on Amazon, so I called it Sacred Knight.

Well, dang!

Back to needing a title. Back to the drawing board.

There’s a moment in The Missing Thread where Steigan is angering Cirvel and Steigan thinks he might need to move in front of someone (no spoilers) to protect that person from Cirvel’s wrath. I feel that Steigan often thinks of himself as a sword and shield saving people from the whatever evil he’s facing at the moment. He knows that part of his duty as a dominus to is protect the people and serve the Goddess. So, at the moment, I feel like Sword and Shield is a good title. I’m not promising it’ll be the final title, but so far, it’s looking good.

Here’s a peek at the cover:

I did make a few notes while I was editing The Missing Thread about things that need to be added in the 6th book. So while I’m done with the bulk of Sword and Shield, I still have work to do on it. In some ways, it’s strange to think about being done with this series. It’s been my with me for most of my life now. There’s still more I want to do with it too, like the oracle card deck. Plus, there’s other stories in the world I’m telling, like Palladium, which is becoming great fun. Okay, Cirvel might be becoming too much fun in his pre-villain days. I was even thinking about a story with him before Palladium earlier today. I had to pull the reins on it quickly. I really only want to tell Palladium just to give a backdrop on his character.

Anyway, this really is the beginning of the end of Steigan’s story. The Missing Thread starts to wind things down, but Sword and Shield completes it. *sniff*

Yeah, I loved this journey.