There I was, clipping along, the book almost done, when I hit the motherlode.

Yes, I’m writing a book that features a wonderfully sarcastic and witty Irish character. He happens to be a modern-day ghost of an ancient bard, so he’s got a lot of stories to tell. Being Irish, he tells them with great flair – of course.

And the inspiration for this book came out of a trip I took to Dublin, which I prepped and planned for by reading every travel site I could find, and subscribing to several Irish subreddits on Reddit. If you’re new to the internet or just not as addicted to it as I am, Reddit is a site aggregator, a large collection of interesting links, pictures, videos and conversational posts grouped by subject, or “subreddit.”

This particular Irish subreddit gave me a huge amount of material for my snarky bard. The topic was “favorite Irish insult.”

Hooo! It was awesome! So much snark! So much fun! I was roaring with laughter at some of them. My personal favorites?

He’s the “God bless them” child in the family

He’s got a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle

I’d rather eat the warts off of a nuns back than kiss the likes of her

You’d better believe I’m using most of these. Sometimes you find source material in the least expected places, but that’s the stuff that makes it all come together.