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dragonlady7I swear I wrote something here yesterday. Did I? Crap! That's terrible: I'm now reduced to blogging in my head.
But no, now that I think about it I don't think I did write anything. Hm. I can't even blame LJ for eating a post: I didn't write one.
I feel very oddly separated from life, like I spend most of my time at work and then the rest is a strange sort of floating detachment. It's odd. I think I've been sleeping a lot, though I haven't been keeping track. I've been attempting to get to the post office to buy stamps for four days now but have either lacked the time or the conveyance or the realization that I had both. (There have been lots of "shit, I should've gone just then but it's too late now" moments.)
So, everyone to whom I've promised postcards and odd packages, fear not. I have indeed procured some oddments to package. I simply have to now procure things to put them into, and a means by which they may be sent. I am, you see, away with the fairies a good deal of the time, and while the fairies have all sorts of interesting ideas and knowledge, they don't know a damn thing about packaging or the US Postal Service. They also don't know jack shit about money or buying things.
And this, folks, is my problem. By having the fairies comprise most of my social life, I am severely hampering my ability to do anything in the real world. Which is a pain.
Hence my excitement about spending this weekend with my sisters, neither of whom is in fact one or of these (possibly metaphorical) fairies. Both of whom can help me in fulfilling various real-world tasks.
But Fiona doesn't have Saturday off. So I may simply be spending the weekend with Ann. Which I suppose wouldn't be bad at all. As I have seen less of her over the past year than Fiona. But that's not saying much; I think I've seen Fiona four times in the last twelve months, and Ann two.
Pepys' diary, I must confess, remains fascinating, but I should admit the real reason I'm so interested: one of my several abandoned WIP Real Live Novels That Someone Might Done Publish was set in that era.
The plot was stolen from a genealogy book. My 11-greats grandfather was a Notable Pain In The Ass in the early Connecticut/Massachusetts colonies (in his middling years he led the secession of a town from Connecticut to Massachusetts; Charles II restored the town to Connecticut and it was a very long time before CT forgave him). He was a large and colorful character, and one legend in particular concerning his youth struck me as particularly suited to novelization: He married young, and had two or three children, and then his wife died. Stricken with grief, he fled the churchyard, rode overnight to reach Boston (without stopping at home, we are told by the family history, for "so much as a handkerchief"-- which is oddly reminiscent of Bilbo), and took the first ship back to England, where he enlisted in Cromwell's cavalry and fought in both of the major decisive battles featuring cavalry of the English Civil War. The family history book puts them in the wrong order, and embroiders that he was captured at one and injured at the other, but I rather suspect its veracity if it didn't even realize that Marston Moor happened first and Naseby happened second. After the one in which he was injured, he fled to Ireland to recuperate with his cousin (second cousin?) who was an official in Cork. While there he was housed by a leather merchant, and the merchant's lovely young daughter was his nurse. Of course they fell in love, and he brought her with him when he returned to the colonies. (The family history neglects to mention that the lovely young daughter of the leather merchant was in her thirties, and I don't know whether she had been married previously. The history also doesn't mention what the community there thought of him abandoning his young children to his mother-in-law. I rather suppose his role in overthrowing the corrupt and worldly monarchy may have eased them, but really I've no idea. It isn't mentioned, and only in other histories of the area have I discovered that it was indeed his mother-in-law who took custody of the children and apparently returned them to him when he came back.)
This one I started for NaNoWriMo las-- no, two-- wait, three years ago? I think two. Hm.
Anyway. It was a historical romance. I discovered the hard way that writing quickly on a topic which one needs to do a great deal of research on in order to speak with any modicum of sense was a poor idea. The attempt trailed off into a bodice-ripper. Which was just entirely inappropriate and indeed I didn't even have fun writing it, really. The characters weren't who I wanted at all.
But I do want to write the novel, and I tried again during the summer I lived at Z's mom's house. I got all kinds of books out of the library, and wrote with a head full of knowledge-- but I still didn't know how people should talk, or what they really would do all day. What would a woman cook? How many people would be in a household? Even the "Daily Life Of Colonial New Englanders" style books didn't have the sorts of pithy details I actually wanted.
And so, I stalled. I knew all about the politics behind the English Civil War, but I couldn't get a clear picture in my head of what an Ironside [cromwell's cavalry] would do on his day off.
But Pepys would have been a child during these events, and indeed he at one point (whilst joyfully celebrating the king's restoration) somewhat guiltily notes what a great Roundhead he'd been as a child and how gleeful he'd been at the previous king's decapitation. And he talks about what he does all day, and what his wife does, and how many servants they have-- and he's just about the right social caste.
It's a hell of a lot more useful than the history books have been thusfar. And I had a really good idea for a format in which to write the novel, whilst I was in the shower. But then... will I have time?
No.
So forget it.
But no, now that I think about it I don't think I did write anything. Hm. I can't even blame LJ for eating a post: I didn't write one.
I feel very oddly separated from life, like I spend most of my time at work and then the rest is a strange sort of floating detachment. It's odd. I think I've been sleeping a lot, though I haven't been keeping track. I've been attempting to get to the post office to buy stamps for four days now but have either lacked the time or the conveyance or the realization that I had both. (There have been lots of "shit, I should've gone just then but it's too late now" moments.)
So, everyone to whom I've promised postcards and odd packages, fear not. I have indeed procured some oddments to package. I simply have to now procure things to put them into, and a means by which they may be sent. I am, you see, away with the fairies a good deal of the time, and while the fairies have all sorts of interesting ideas and knowledge, they don't know a damn thing about packaging or the US Postal Service. They also don't know jack shit about money or buying things.
And this, folks, is my problem. By having the fairies comprise most of my social life, I am severely hampering my ability to do anything in the real world. Which is a pain.
Hence my excitement about spending this weekend with my sisters, neither of whom is in fact one or of these (possibly metaphorical) fairies. Both of whom can help me in fulfilling various real-world tasks.
But Fiona doesn't have Saturday off. So I may simply be spending the weekend with Ann. Which I suppose wouldn't be bad at all. As I have seen less of her over the past year than Fiona. But that's not saying much; I think I've seen Fiona four times in the last twelve months, and Ann two.
Pepys' diary, I must confess, remains fascinating, but I should admit the real reason I'm so interested: one of my several abandoned WIP Real Live Novels That Someone Might Done Publish was set in that era.
The plot was stolen from a genealogy book. My 11-greats grandfather was a Notable Pain In The Ass in the early Connecticut/Massachusetts colonies (in his middling years he led the secession of a town from Connecticut to Massachusetts; Charles II restored the town to Connecticut and it was a very long time before CT forgave him). He was a large and colorful character, and one legend in particular concerning his youth struck me as particularly suited to novelization: He married young, and had two or three children, and then his wife died. Stricken with grief, he fled the churchyard, rode overnight to reach Boston (without stopping at home, we are told by the family history, for "so much as a handkerchief"-- which is oddly reminiscent of Bilbo), and took the first ship back to England, where he enlisted in Cromwell's cavalry and fought in both of the major decisive battles featuring cavalry of the English Civil War. The family history book puts them in the wrong order, and embroiders that he was captured at one and injured at the other, but I rather suspect its veracity if it didn't even realize that Marston Moor happened first and Naseby happened second. After the one in which he was injured, he fled to Ireland to recuperate with his cousin (second cousin?) who was an official in Cork. While there he was housed by a leather merchant, and the merchant's lovely young daughter was his nurse. Of course they fell in love, and he brought her with him when he returned to the colonies. (The family history neglects to mention that the lovely young daughter of the leather merchant was in her thirties, and I don't know whether she had been married previously. The history also doesn't mention what the community there thought of him abandoning his young children to his mother-in-law. I rather suppose his role in overthrowing the corrupt and worldly monarchy may have eased them, but really I've no idea. It isn't mentioned, and only in other histories of the area have I discovered that it was indeed his mother-in-law who took custody of the children and apparently returned them to him when he came back.)
This one I started for NaNoWriMo las-- no, two-- wait, three years ago? I think two. Hm.
Anyway. It was a historical romance. I discovered the hard way that writing quickly on a topic which one needs to do a great deal of research on in order to speak with any modicum of sense was a poor idea. The attempt trailed off into a bodice-ripper. Which was just entirely inappropriate and indeed I didn't even have fun writing it, really. The characters weren't who I wanted at all.
But I do want to write the novel, and I tried again during the summer I lived at Z's mom's house. I got all kinds of books out of the library, and wrote with a head full of knowledge-- but I still didn't know how people should talk, or what they really would do all day. What would a woman cook? How many people would be in a household? Even the "Daily Life Of Colonial New Englanders" style books didn't have the sorts of pithy details I actually wanted.
And so, I stalled. I knew all about the politics behind the English Civil War, but I couldn't get a clear picture in my head of what an Ironside [cromwell's cavalry] would do on his day off.
But Pepys would have been a child during these events, and indeed he at one point (whilst joyfully celebrating the king's restoration) somewhat guiltily notes what a great Roundhead he'd been as a child and how gleeful he'd been at the previous king's decapitation. And he talks about what he does all day, and what his wife does, and how many servants they have-- and he's just about the right social caste.
It's a hell of a lot more useful than the history books have been thusfar. And I had a really good idea for a format in which to write the novel, whilst I was in the shower. But then... will I have time?
No.
So forget it.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 02:40 pm (UTC)