Writing research thoughts
May. 17th, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vcmwHere, clearly, is the difference between being someone with an undergrad degree in politics and a grad degree in library science who just likes to mess around with reading history books (that I mostly find at thrift stores and on the deep sale table at new book stores), and a person with a grad degree actually related to a specific period of historic literature:
The lovely author Delia Sherman is talking about the books she is getting rid of in re: 18th c. France and Elizabethan Theater. And I've never even heard of most of them.
This despite the fact that, in my admittedly rare free time, I've been reading about both subjects on and off for the last three years. I was feeling all cool last month when I was reading a general book on Restoration theater and I went "hey, I know who Kynaston is, neat."
I guess to be fair to myself, I should note that mostly I've just been reading social history, and there isn't time to squeeze a whole lot of research reading in between working full time, going to grad school half time, and job hunting. If I manage one smart-person type book a month, I feel all cool. I felt terribly cool when I found a copy of this book on smells in France in the 1700s (The Foul and the Fragrant), and then I found out from a friend that they teach it in undergrad cultural studies classes. At that rate I'll never ever catch up with someone with a grad degree in the stuff. Plus I never keep focus like a proper researcher should - I'm all "well, this is 150 years later than the period I should be researching, but it's neat - maybe I can just steal this guy and stick him into my story".
And she notes that Elizabethan theater novels are way overdone, which makes me sad, but I shall carry on with my odd little, not-a-historical novel, not quite a Restoration-theater novel, fantasy mish-mash anyway, because at the very least, the poor thing has worked hard enough that it should be finished before I decide if it needs to go live under my bed in a plastic box, never to see the light of day. Perhaps the fever is making me maudlin. Wait, I cried buckets over a silly series Regency romance novel this afternoon - I know the fever is making me maudlin. Ah well, time to work.
The lovely author Delia Sherman is talking about the books she is getting rid of in re: 18th c. France and Elizabethan Theater. And I've never even heard of most of them.
This despite the fact that, in my admittedly rare free time, I've been reading about both subjects on and off for the last three years. I was feeling all cool last month when I was reading a general book on Restoration theater and I went "hey, I know who Kynaston is, neat."
I guess to be fair to myself, I should note that mostly I've just been reading social history, and there isn't time to squeeze a whole lot of research reading in between working full time, going to grad school half time, and job hunting. If I manage one smart-person type book a month, I feel all cool. I felt terribly cool when I found a copy of this book on smells in France in the 1700s (The Foul and the Fragrant), and then I found out from a friend that they teach it in undergrad cultural studies classes. At that rate I'll never ever catch up with someone with a grad degree in the stuff. Plus I never keep focus like a proper researcher should - I'm all "well, this is 150 years later than the period I should be researching, but it's neat - maybe I can just steal this guy and stick him into my story".
Also, deep in my sick heart, Buster Keaton is the male star of my novel, though I have given him an appropriate fantasy-novel look makeover, all brooding (ok, that comes naturally to the Buster Keaton persona) and pretty-boy. I may cast Tallulah Bankhead somewhere in there, if I ever read/see more of her than a movie promo still and one radio interview - what a face, what a voice! I think she should be the secretly extremely tough and conniving head of a guild. And sometimes my bad guy is played by William Powell, because I think he's so lovely and plummy, and I love him in romantic lead roles but I bet he could have been a wonderful bad guy. If I can find a part for Mae West, I would be delighted to do so (though when I cast a real someone they end up so unimaginably warped by my imagination that their own mother would never recognize them. this disturbs friends of mine when I mistakenly mention that I borrowed some bit of them for a story - and they ended up a giant-sized hook-handed lady assassin with a horribly scarred face and a penchant for rescuing street urchins - as opposed to a petite social worker and party friendly lady). What I did to the Chevalier d'Eon eventually got so extreme that I had to stop telling anyone that there was any relation to the real historical person (and eventually that character got written out of his own novel, poor man - I think he was really only happy in the Russian court scenes, and when I tried to drag it all back to France he got irritable and wishy-washy). Speaking of which, I am desperate to read it now that I discovered there is a Chevalier d'Eon manga.
And she notes that Elizabethan theater novels are way overdone, which makes me sad, but I shall carry on with my odd little, not-a-historical novel, not quite a Restoration-theater novel, fantasy mish-mash anyway, because at the very least, the poor thing has worked hard enough that it should be finished before I decide if it needs to go live under my bed in a plastic box, never to see the light of day. Perhaps the fever is making me maudlin. Wait, I cried buckets over a silly series Regency romance novel this afternoon - I know the fever is making me maudlin. Ah well, time to work.
