New Worlds = New Bookshelf

My poor students are in the throes of midterm exams. I try not to tell them how wonderful it is when they’re done–that you can keep on learning without any threats hanging over you.  You can learn solely because you want to.

Which brings me to my current announcement.

It has come to my attention that I will be buying a new bookshelf.  I will admit I had an inkling this would happen, what with how I currently have a pile of books on one chair, a pile on the floor next to my Da Vinci sketch, and a pile on my little Egyptian table.  But it’s now “for realsies,” as my st00ds would say.

My second manuscript requires research into a new time period.  I blame William Somerset Maugham.  Because if it wasn’t for Ted Morgan’s BRILLIANT biography of Maugham, I’d not have known how PERFECT said period would be for my book.

Research = books.  Books = Delight Bookshelves

Egad!

(and I see in the photo below I need to get rid of a lot of price tags. but what can you do–some of them if you rip them off, they leave icky sticky residue… Alas! Alack! The trials and tribulations continue! ;-p)

Books and their Guardian

Notes of Some Dweeb Off the Street

I recently moved one of my key settings to a specific place in New York.  The result was more positive than I’d expected.  The characters were working better, the plot was knitting itself together well.  Only a few more mere details needed smoothing out.  I decided to make a quick site visit to refresh my memory.  It would be a cinch.

Ah, beware those words.  If there is any aspect of writing that can be described as mere, only, quick, just, or a cinch, I have not yet made its acquaintance.

You see, my site visit proved to me that at least one of my details is rather vast.  An impregnable stone wall, actually. 

I mean that literally.  I found a giant stone wall which my heroes could certainly not have overlooked, leave alone climbed over.

Egad!  *headslap*

There was nothing for it but to case out the joint.  Get the real lay of the land.  Both public and private.  And as a bonus, gain access to a room that I suspected lay inside and hopefully the basement, too.

You might be sensing some of my minor issues here.  But add these two to the mix.

1. I cannot dissemble.  Any emotion I feel, including discomfort with a lie, is instantly broadcast on my face in all known frequencies. 
2. I cannot fathom myself asking for this information because “I’m writing a book.”  But how else can I gain the information I want?

So, robbed of both honesty and subterfuge, I spent about three hours trying to not look like I was scouting out the wall, trying to figure out how on earth my heroes could climb it.  And I tried not to look like I was counting the doorways at the entrance, peeking into alcoves or memorizing the layout.  This last is harder than it sounds; my sense of direction is apparently something I have devolved from.

One guard saw me so often, each time looking stunned to be entering the doorway I had appeared in, that we ended up chatting.  I considered this super until I realized that when I come back to case the joint again, he’ll recognize me.  I feel like a very sketchy sort.

Finally I found someone and asked straight out how to access that certain room, which was not only locked but also impossible to find.

“Do I have to be uber important or scholarly to get in there?” I asked.

The woman looked at me.  “No,” she answered, finally. “Sometimes they let other people in too.”

Yes!  I am an other person!

I have two numbers now to follow up on, but I’ve been dragging my feet.  Inevitably, they’ll ask me why I want to know these things, and what I’m looking for in that room. 

The truth is a lot easier to say when you’re not writing your first-ever book.  It’s much easier when you’re published and you can just be an author doing research.  (I imagine.)  But when you’re just some dweeb off the street….

Chasing Down My Setting

I have reached that point where I accept that I have somehow taken the exit ramp from the highway of hip, from the tracks of technological savviness.  Nowadays if I can’t do something, I no longer assume that it can’t be done.  I assume someone born after the Berlin Wall fell will be able to do it.

So I called one of these young people into the office.

“Are you intelligent?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

I studied her.  “Hold on a second. I’m going to want confirmation.” 

But the person I was calling wasn’t in.  Meanwhile the young woman in question has thrown herself on one of my chairs and is laughing her ass off at me.

“If you’re sure you’re gifted, I’m going to need your help.” 

She walks toward the Computer of Doom.  She too cannot figure out how to resolve the problem.  I realize it cannot be fixed by an Earthly Soul, and I move on with my life.

But first she asks me, “Why do you need to print that?”

I look at the article title.  Scapegoats in Greek and Roman Ritual.  “Why not?” I ask her.

She picks at a fraying thread and frowns at me, but says nothing.  Then she shakes her head and informs me that she has a life, and she skips out to enjoy it.

Ah, youth.

But I could hardly say the truth, could I?  She already knows that I love reading history and learning funky things in general (of a non-technological nature).  But the truth of this particular matter–that since starting to write my book I have begun scavenging through history to find places where my magical premise can be woven in seamlessly, well…

This week I have exciting plans.  I shall be heading to my secret location right here in the city where my novel currently features its “inciting incident”–that event which launches the book’s action into being.  Very exciting.  I shall try to look like a tourist, although I expect I shall come off as wholly suspicious.  Most people come to this place to enjoy the architecture and whatnot, gazing about themselves in pleasure and tranquility, and meanwhile I shall most decidedly be looking for “the right spot,” constantly checking “would they be seen from here,” “where could X be found?” and “would security see them here?”  Not the least suspicious questions to be testing…

Yes, perhaps it is no coincidence, the subject of my last blog.

Should I be removed bodily from yet another location this week, I may just blog about it.  On the other hand, I may dust myself off and try get someone to help me explore by revealing that I’m writing a book and require the ability to investigate the area.  That said, that may just be the ticket to complete denial. 

No, no… They shall be happy to have me ask these odd questions.  I am quite resolved that I shall go there and seek out what Anne Shirley (of Anne of Green Gables) would call a bosom soul, and I shall tell this bosom soul what my purpose is, honestly, and he or she shall help me, much in the manner of, um, a fairy godmother.  Oh dear.  There are no fairy godmothers.

I may not need a ticket to denial.  I may be there already.    But I shall try!

Anyone got any story research tales to share?    Or things they haven’t done but wished they had?

Historic Home near Tbilisi's Turtle Lake (if memory serves)

What does fiction owe reality, or what ought it adhere to, if anything?

A friend was asking me how many pages of my book my seemingly endless research will take up.  It won’t take up too much.  Maybe ten to fifteen pages total.  But I need them to be accurate.  I have a bone with BS in books.  I get we’re working with fiction here, but there’s no reason to insult reality or the reader while we’re at it.

I just read a fun book set in medieval England.  The author clearly knew the period rather well.  My quibbles with details were less about the facts, than about the choices. 

A)  The author chose to paint the Church with a wide, unforgiving brush.  No room was given at all to honest clerics–to their very possibility.  None.

B)  The author chose to depict a Jew burnt at the stake in punishment for bringing about the plague–a terrible and terrifying reality for entire communities of Jews in medieval Europe, despite their innocence–but then made the oddest decision about how to depict the victim.  The Jew was depicted as–get this–a Christian.

WTF?  This Jew was basically a Jew for Jesus, without the title.  Why?  I can’t think why.  Or rather, I can’t think that it’s accurate to the Jews of this period.  So the author made another choice.  Who knows what the reason was. 

Does the author doubt the reader will sympathize with a Jew, an “other”?  Did the author simply struggle for a way to include a subplot featuring a Jew as well as a subplot allowing her to reveal that reading (Christian) scripture was forbidden to layfolk during this period, and so she meshed both stories into one?  If the former, it’s an insult to readership and diminishes the value of the historical accuracy the book otherwise edges toward.  If the latter, uh, that’s just wrong.  It’s two separate issues affecting different peoples.

Add to this bundle the fact that the heroine is also an accomplished markswoman, rider and swimmer, and the story veers just off the set, stumbling off stage as I reel, making up my mind whether the pages are turning fast enough for me to stick with the ride.  That’s not what one wants:  disrupting internal credibility such that the reader breaks to make a conscious choice–not to believe, but to enjoy despite not believing at all.  To enjoy while seeing tricks played before their eyes.

I did choose to ride on, as it happened.  But the set had crumbled.  Maybe that’s the issue.  The center did not hold.  Things fell apart as the centripetal force crumbled.  Credibility was lost in the malaise.

There’s fiction, and then there’s license.  The twain are not the same.  A book ought not to purport history to be its set when it’s only its gloss.

Used to be, I avoided all historical fiction.  I didn’t want to absorb a sense of a time, how things went down, etc, from a novel, and then in my ignorance, assume it accurate.  Now I try read quality fiction almost regardless of genre, and only read historical fiction when it’s fearlessly self-described as fantasy.  Sometimes I wonder at myself, choosing to write a book which touches on history, when I have that strong bias.

Fiction is one thing, but glaring misdirection or toying with facts–nope.  Toy with mysteries, with the unknown.  Ponder the significance of known and unknown occurences–sure.  Make up stories that could fit, or alternate realities that you call by their honest names–yes.  But to place a novel in a period or in a location and then to violate its truths– that’s just not cool.   It’s a lazy choice, even if the book is still an enjoyable read.

What are your thoughts about the same, in books you’ve read or even are writing?

Ishakpasha Palace, overlooking eastern Turkey

Strange how this poem never made it onto the syllabus…

See, this Lord Byron poem below did NOT, somehow, make it to my reading list.  It was written on the death of Castlereagh, the former foreign secretary. 

Now, although I myself know nothing about Castlereagh, my finely-tuned artistic sensibilities allow me to discern, through the shades and nuances of this fine poetry, Byron’s opinion of the man.

Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave that this.
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler, and piss.

*wipes a tear from her eye*

Ah, Byron.  You did have a way with words.

What Sort of Person Would I Be?

If I kept the most exciting find of the day from you?  That’s right, the worst sort!  The very worst.  And so, enough bombast.  Onwards–

I was on Wikipedia.  I blame Ralfast.  And the fact that I had a quick jot of research to do for a plot point.

Then I fell into what I will now term a “Wiki Hole.”  Namely, one second I was looking up astronomical awareness in the mid 1500s, and the next, BOOM, I was shot at warp speed into other realms of information.  Landing in the vicinity of Cheapside.

Ever wondered about Cheapside, London?  Well, I have.  Why?  Because I’m American.

And more specifically, when Pride and Prejudice heroine Elizabeth Bennet’s relatives are snubbed for their Cheapside address by the rich Miss Bingley, pretender to Mr Darcy’s affections (or affectations), well…the name struck me as odd.  Was this the rich naming streets to “put people in their place,” so to speak, or was Ms Austen being a mite creative and overdoing it?  (Yes, I had that uncharitable and ignorant a thought.  I own it.)

Well, today, world, I have the answer to not just this, but a million other questions I never thought to ask.

Ready?

In Olde English–extra “e” added courtesy of me–céapmann meant “dealer” or “seller.”  Especially the itinerant kind.   Céap meant “deal” or “barter” or “business” or “market.”

Today’s “cheap” comes from this, or as Wiki informs, from the olde phrase “a good cheap,” which meant “a good deal.” Cheapside, by inference, stems from what the neighborhood was known for.  Trade.  John Milton was born there, Chaucer nearby.  Who knew, other than every Brit, probably?  Not me.  :)

And the word “chap” which we still use today?  Just as “goodbye” became “bye,” so did “chapman” become just “chap.”  A buyer or a seller.  Chap.  Someone one might do business with.

If your last name is Chapman, somewhere along the line, one of your ancestors was a trader.  Kauffman is apparently the German equivalent.

I swear, I feel breathless learning this!  :)  Another lovely Wiki Stroll.

Now I must repair to the 16th century again.  A history of astronomy and magic await.  (For yes, universities offered degrees in this subject back then.  Oh, joyousness!)

Drive through the Caucasus