Backwards Clock
I was a busy blogger in October 2014, and some of what I wrote about might be worth a second look.
I reported on research:
- Everything you needed to know about the dances at Regency assemblies and balls.
- The wonderful history and the rules of mob football, with a video link to a modern day survival.
- My pet peeve — regencies with more dukes that the entire peerage of England contained, and every one of them single and handsome (and what the real statistics were).
- The fascinating history of wheelchairs (Did you know that one of the earliest self-propelled was invented shortly after the inventor demonstrated one of the earliest pairs of roller skates?)
- My favourite resource for what was actually in the news in England in any given year.
I also wrote about
And that just brought us to the middle of the month.
There were a few process and excerpt posts in there, too. Take a look around. Enjoy.
I’ll leave you with the contents of my post on having a jackdaw mind.
Elizabeth Boyle writes on synchronicity in the writing process; something I’m experiencing every day as I write Farewell to Kindness, and pieces go ‘click’.
…in writing, it is often a sort of synchronicity of pieces: a treasure exhibit, a line from a biography, and a literature degree that left me with a profound love of myths. None of them are truly connected, but they all came together for this story. I have come to believe that nothing in life is inconsequential. It all has value eventually. Just keep your eyes and imagination open.
At last, my jackdaw mind is finding a use for all those shiny facts and snippets.
I do remember the first book I wanted to write in the early 80’s wasn’t a regency or genre, but a reference on all these kind of period data that even then would drive me up the wall. But without a large library nearby or the internet, the idea went down in flames! 😮
I love having access to the internet! In the 80s, I got a long way through a novel set in gold-mining Otago. I had access to an excellent library in Dunedin (the provincial capital of Otago), where I was living at the time, and various pioneer museums that had original sources, including letters and diaries. And research was still a long, difficult process. Fun, though. In the end, I couldn’t do justice to the research, full-time work, and six children, so the book was never finished.