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Jan. 11th, 2012 11:11 amI'm listing again. What's more, I'm making progress with my list, which is a worry. What happens if I catch up with myself? Does my loungeroom implode, to follow my kitchen (which currently has only referred light from elsewhere).
I'm halfway through the final re-read of the latest swag of stuff I need to send to my long-suffering supervisor. He should get it in about an hour, which gives me time to do three more things before I run my messages (Fiat lux! In the kitchen!).
The stuff that I'm working on finally makes some sort of sense. I have ways of describing the stages that writers go through in dealing with history in their fiction, plus (to me a bonus, but apparently rather key to my work right now) what I do myself. What I do myself turns out to be not quite the same as most of the writers I know. The bottom line is that when one has a specialisation, it comes into play in one's fiction, even if one really doesn't intend it to. Where one does intend it to, it becomes a major force in the narrative.
What this means is that all those people who have expressed excitement at a time travel novel written by a Medievalist ought to be cowering in terror. My big hope right now is that the kind fellow-Medievalist who is currently reading it through for me doesn't find too many stupidities. That's the thing about the historian side of me - even if my characterisation is sublime and my story fabulous (neither of which I can be certain of, being too close to it) I shall always worry about the history.
If ever I do this again (write a wildly historical novel), I shall maintain an alternate version, annotated with sources and discussion to show how I arrived at each and every minor decision. I know that I did the work and the thinking, but I can't see it on the page. It's funny, because I do a great deal of research for all my novels, but it's only in this one that I want to be able to demonstrate it to myself.
ETA: My kitchen has light!
I'm halfway through the final re-read of the latest swag of stuff I need to send to my long-suffering supervisor. He should get it in about an hour, which gives me time to do three more things before I run my messages (Fiat lux! In the kitchen!).
The stuff that I'm working on finally makes some sort of sense. I have ways of describing the stages that writers go through in dealing with history in their fiction, plus (to me a bonus, but apparently rather key to my work right now) what I do myself. What I do myself turns out to be not quite the same as most of the writers I know. The bottom line is that when one has a specialisation, it comes into play in one's fiction, even if one really doesn't intend it to. Where one does intend it to, it becomes a major force in the narrative.
What this means is that all those people who have expressed excitement at a time travel novel written by a Medievalist ought to be cowering in terror. My big hope right now is that the kind fellow-Medievalist who is currently reading it through for me doesn't find too many stupidities. That's the thing about the historian side of me - even if my characterisation is sublime and my story fabulous (neither of which I can be certain of, being too close to it) I shall always worry about the history.
If ever I do this again (write a wildly historical novel), I shall maintain an alternate version, annotated with sources and discussion to show how I arrived at each and every minor decision. I know that I did the work and the thinking, but I can't see it on the page. It's funny, because I do a great deal of research for all my novels, but it's only in this one that I want to be able to demonstrate it to myself.
ETA: My kitchen has light!