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First of all apologies - I couldn't make the system allow me to answer the notes people added to my last entry. Annoying, but apparently it wouldn't generate something that was needed. Bit like my brain.
My fiction-writing up to now has all been about the middle ages, in England. I have absolutely no idea why I am obsessive about medieval times, which for most people were brutish and even less just than our own times. However, it goes back a long way. Maybe it was going round York Minster as a very young child, or crawling over half the castles of North Wales in my boyhood holdays.
I've two novels out there. Within the Fetterlock, which took so long to research and write that it is in effect unrepeatable, is the story of Constance of York, an interesting but obscure princess who lived in the reign of Richard II and Henry IV. In chronological terms it follows on from Anya Seton's _Katherine_ but the style is a bit different...
The Adventures of Alianore Audley is a humorous story about an intelligence agent working in the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III. It's more a parody than a real historical, but people seem to like it. In terms of time, this was a real quicky, written in six months tops.
And now, the work in progress - or rather not in progress. I have made about four false starts on it. One got to eight chapters before I realised I was going to end up with something that would make War and Peace look like a short story. Cocky though I may be at times, I realised that no publisher in their right minds was going to publish a 2000 page epic by a virtually unknown, paunchy and balding English bore...
The pieces are there. It is essentially going to be about the Richard III question. I'd like to say quite a bit about Francis Lovel, beacuse, frankly, all the novels I have ever read have got Francis wrong - in my opinion. I would like to show him in quite a different light. Difficulty with Francis is that he only becomes a serious player quite late in the saga, about 1480.
Then there's the Norfolk connection - Norfolk (the place) is another obsession of mine, and in the late 15th century was packed with a field of fascinating folk, not least Elizabeth Mowbray, the Duchess thereof. I want Elizabeth in the story for various reasons, but I haven't quite got my head around how to bring her into the centre of the stage; albeit she does have in her hand a damn big stick of dynamite that may well have prompted the crisis that swept Richard to the throne in 1483.
I know what a professional author should do; a professional author should spend time planning the novel and ruthlessly cutting out persons and plot lines that do not fit.
But here is my weakness - I am lousy at planning. It is probably not going too far to say that I don't know how to plan. I like to let my characters take charge as I go along. Sometimes they take advantage and do things I don't expect, but, hey, that's part of the fun.
I think the answer is to start writing, and see what happens.
I'll think about that tomorrow, as someone said.
Brian
My fiction-writing up to now has all been about the middle ages, in England. I have absolutely no idea why I am obsessive about medieval times, which for most people were brutish and even less just than our own times. However, it goes back a long way. Maybe it was going round York Minster as a very young child, or crawling over half the castles of North Wales in my boyhood holdays.
I've two novels out there. Within the Fetterlock, which took so long to research and write that it is in effect unrepeatable, is the story of Constance of York, an interesting but obscure princess who lived in the reign of Richard II and Henry IV. In chronological terms it follows on from Anya Seton's _Katherine_ but the style is a bit different...
The Adventures of Alianore Audley is a humorous story about an intelligence agent working in the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III. It's more a parody than a real historical, but people seem to like it. In terms of time, this was a real quicky, written in six months tops.
And now, the work in progress - or rather not in progress. I have made about four false starts on it. One got to eight chapters before I realised I was going to end up with something that would make War and Peace look like a short story. Cocky though I may be at times, I realised that no publisher in their right minds was going to publish a 2000 page epic by a virtually unknown, paunchy and balding English bore...
The pieces are there. It is essentially going to be about the Richard III question. I'd like to say quite a bit about Francis Lovel, beacuse, frankly, all the novels I have ever read have got Francis wrong - in my opinion. I would like to show him in quite a different light. Difficulty with Francis is that he only becomes a serious player quite late in the saga, about 1480.
Then there's the Norfolk connection - Norfolk (the place) is another obsession of mine, and in the late 15th century was packed with a field of fascinating folk, not least Elizabeth Mowbray, the Duchess thereof. I want Elizabeth in the story for various reasons, but I haven't quite got my head around how to bring her into the centre of the stage; albeit she does have in her hand a damn big stick of dynamite that may well have prompted the crisis that swept Richard to the throne in 1483.
I know what a professional author should do; a professional author should spend time planning the novel and ruthlessly cutting out persons and plot lines that do not fit.
But here is my weakness - I am lousy at planning. It is probably not going too far to say that I don't know how to plan. I like to let my characters take charge as I go along. Sometimes they take advantage and do things I don't expect, but, hey, that's part of the fun.
I think the answer is to start writing, and see what happens.
I'll think about that tomorrow, as someone said.
Brian