Bedlam & Baths

Ah, the neverending adventure of the historical writer. I dived down the rabbit hole recently during my research, and a dark one it was too. Mental illness is a theme that features strongly in my current WIP, and it's fair to say that treatment for mental illness for much of human history has been horrifying. Because my WIP takes place in the 1870s, I had to dive into the practices of the day.

There's a reason why "Bedlam" has become a universal term in the English language. Chains, starvation, and squalor are just the highlights. In the current draft I'm slogging through, one of my characters experiences the "water cure." Maybe it's just me and my aversion to water (yeah, sure), but how such a practice was supposed to "shake lunatics out of their insanity" is beyond me.

A sketch of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, or Bedlam

On a lighter note, a contest at LegendFire got me writing a bit of flash fiction, and a major plot point brought those little wooden nesting dolls to mind. The perfect metaphor! But what the heck are those things called? "Russian nesting dolls" is okay, but I wanted the actual name. Turns out they're Matryoshka. I love feel smarter than I was yesterday.

Summit In Sight

Image from Unsplash

So I haven't detailed much progress on Blackbird in a long time, mainly because writing this draft has felt like climbing an interminable mountain. Is it ever going to end???

Even my husband and my mother, who are my biggest supporters, have been asking, "Are you ever going to finish it?" To which I invariably give them a look that is the non-finger version of flipping them the bird. If I were a snarkier sort, I might invite them to kindly sit in my chair for a few days and finish the damn thing themselves. But I'm not. So I wrote on.

On a good day, I don't really love writing a rough draft. And as far as Blackbird goes, the writing has been slow and difficult. Probably because the historical genre is so new to me and demands a certain level of accuracy and knowledge that can't be invented as with fantasy. It has been ... uncomfortable ... like squeezing into a spandex suit.

And my greatest fear for this story is that it will bulge in all the wrong places.

BUT! After slogging on step by step, scene by scene, the end of the climb is within sight. I hope to conclude Draft 1 by the end of June. Then I can begin the part of the process that excites me. Cutting the fat, bulging up the scrawny bits, and otherwise administering the necessary plastic surgery that turns this ugly child into a supermodel.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Is the Nile REALLY 1000 Miles Long?

 I have no idea. But Amelia Edwards claimed it was nearly that in her travelogue A Thousand Miles Up the Nile. Published in the 1870s, this firsthand account of traveling the Nile by dahabiyah tops the list of irreplaceable research material that I'm devouring while writing my historical novel. 

I finally thought to add it to my Goodreads bookshelf. The review I posted there is as follows: 

A Thousand Miles Up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Along with Lady Duff-Gordon's published letters, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile has my go-to source for setting details (and shocking imperialist attitudes) when researching for my historical novel, which takes place two years before this book was published. My copy is dogeared, marked up, highlighted, and tagged with stickies. And when I traveled the Nile myself in 2021, Edwards' descriptions kept whirling through my head: in the rural parts of Egypt, much remains the same, and it was a trip back in time. To see the same things she described in the 1870s was breathtaking. I can't imagine what I would have done without this priceless firsthand account.

Even if I hadn't needed the book for research, Edwards' prose is magnetic, her insights both timeless and marked by her era, a fascinating read.

View all my reviews

NaNo Final Tally: Success, Sorta

Final tally of my unofficial NaNo attempt:

13,543/20,000

So I did not reach my word count goal. BUT! I wrote more than I expected and made serious progress on my WIP. Better, I like what I wrote. I may have met the 20k mark, but during the last two weeks of the month my attention was diverted by holiday/family stuff and writing entries for a micro fiction contest.

Because the contest entries were all-new material, I counted those words in the final tally as well. 

Altogether, I had a LOT of fun during this first attempt at NaNo. By this time next year, I really really really hope Blackbird is finished and I've moved on to the query phase.

NaNoWriMo: Flash Research

NaNoWriMo is going more slowly than I had hoped, but it's going. I've decided that writing an historical novel for my NaNo project was a mistake. Details keep cropping up that I feel an urgent need to doublecheck or learn on the fly before I can continue writing with confidence.

I'm calling it 'flash research.' Where I research "in a flash," not "how to flash." Bad joke. Whatever.

I love learning things, so research is a risky business during NaNo month. One thing leads to another, and suddenly an hour of writing time is gone.

So what sorts of things are distracting me from writing? 

Today, I looked up the deathstalker. What is this thing with a kick-ass name? Be prepared to shudder in terror when you behold it.

Deathstalker Scorpion, image by מינוזיג

Let's retrofit some stuff I looked up during earlier NaNo research pitstops:

1870s fashion, not because I needed to, but because I wanted to gawk at loveliness

 

Mahalabiya, or milk pudding

The range and habits of the Egyptian cobra

Where shall the story take me next? If a djinn would come along and grant me a wish, I'd want the story to take me back to Egypt, in a literal sense. I'd go back in a heartbeat. I expect my love of the place and my fascination with its people and its history come across in the story, perhaps too strongly. Can't be helped, and I'm not sorry. :D

First Time #NaNoWriMo Participant

In an unofficial capacity, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time ever. I'm hoping the collective goal of 50k in one month will light a fire and provide excuses to focus and say no to distractions -- so that I can make major headway on my WIP.

I've crossed the halfway mark on Blackbird (no longer the title, but for consistency's sake), so I'm looking at the finish line at last. Problem is, it's taken me two years to reach this halfway point. The last half MUST NOT take another two. It's time to kick things into high gear. Now of all times. During the holiday season, which is the WORST time for me to write. Always has been. But if I can tell family, "Sorry, there's a writing competition going," maybe I'll get this thing done by spring.

I haven't joined the official NaNo site/forum. I'll be doing all my updates on LegendFire. And here. I hope.

Ugh. And by rambling on my blog, I'm proving my dread to begin. Stop procrastinating! Get writing!

Floating the Nile

Everything is research. But what better research than to actually visit the location where your story takes place? Every mile we sailed up the Nile, every minaret, every jewel of rural life, every interaction with the wait staff and passengers, every time we ducked through thick crowds of vendors, provided more research than seeing all the ruins Egypt has to offer.

Here are a few of those jewels that I could never glean from books. And do please excuse the quality of the photos. Some were shot from a moving bus.

Typical farm and canal. The unfinished pillars atop the roof are supports for housing for the next generation.

The modern and the timeless continually crashing into each other.

A market in Cairo, just for selling birds. Parakeets, cockatoos, you name it, they got it.

Friday prayer spilling out onto the sidewalk, Luxor. If I could play the call to prayer, I would. It is haunting and powerful.

Transporting fodder or cane across the Nile.

Spice Vendor at Philae, featuring some of my fellow passengers.

Ash-brewed coffee at a Nubian village. The coffee was brewed with ginger root and other spices for ... ahem ... virility.

Courtyard at a Nubian house, featuring a sand floor and reed thatch. Domed ceilings regulate temperatures to keep the interior cool. I want a house like this.

Lush farmland stretching to the desert. West bank, Luxor/Thebes. The ruin at the edge of the green is the Ramesseum, which features largely in my story.

Sunset, Luxor, from the sundeck of the Medea. At times there are in fact gorgeous sunsets featuring molten clouds. These clouds happened to herald a storm that struck Aswan a couple of days after we left. The resulting flood caused scorpions to flee the ground and invade peoples' homes and businesses. 500 people ended up in the hospital.

Egypt Trip is Go!

 All summer, I fought the urge to blog about a hope and a dream I had in the planning, terrified that if I made the plan public, it would fall through, like so many others have. Call me superstitious. So I wrote nothing about it.

That is no longer necessary.

The hope and the dream became reality. On October 31 (yep, Halloween), my husband and I flew to Egypt for a two week tour and cruise up the Nile. We flew home on November 13 (yep, the thirteenth). If I was really that superstitious, I wouldn't have laughed about those dates.

So now I get to post highlights of the trip.

Though this photo was taken in 2021, it could've happened 100 yrs ago.

The traffic and pollution in Cairo were a shock.

The original color on the columns of Karnak struck me breathless.

Seeing Luxor Temple after dark is the way to go. Cool and beautiful.

Typical street market, this one in Luxor.

Selfie from the sundeck of our cruise boat, MS Medea. El-Qurn, the pyramidal mountain beneath which you'll find the Valley of the Kings, is over my left shoulder.

To Be Continued...

Isolation and Research

Well, it's clear that I took another hiatus from journaling, blogging, and all social media. How zen and de-stressed life has been because of it. Now to take up a little word-crafting again. (In fact, I haven't written in so long that it feels awkward to do so.)

SO! What's been going on since last September?

* I completed my first paid editing job. A lovely client and a wonderful learning experience.
* Pottery has flourished. Sold nearly all my stock, plus a few commissions.
* Got a cold and bronchitis at Christmas, which lasted for nearly a month.
* Learned to ski. Proof:

Yep, that's me, trying not to be terrified of ski class.

* Caught some weird fever/cough when we got home from ski trip.
* Watched the world go mad.
* Freaked out at the grocery store when shelves were empty.
* Meanwhile, researching for novel continues.

Given that my husband and myself work from home on a daily basis, being on lockdown amid the pandemic hasn't shaken us too much. It just feels like doubling down on routine. Plus, I'm such a successfully functioning introvert that being ordered to stay away from humans sounds too good to be true. My mom told me that whenever I got into trouble as a kiddo, it didn't do any good to "send me to my room" because I loved being alone in my room. It's beyond my comprehension that extroverts are having trouble staying at home in the stillness and quiet, alone. Alone, alone.

Still, even for introverts like myself, I've appreciated the little contact I've had. A walk around the park with a friend. Chatting and gaming with friends online. So the isolation diminishes.

Rehearsals for the apocalypse aside, what am I researching? I mentioned (somewhere?) that I'm moving the setting of a novel (still languishing in rough draft form) from a conventional English countryside to the Nile and the ruins of Egypt. This massive change in setting has induced major changes in the core characters as well, and certainly in the side plots surrounding the main plot.

Here's a few tantalizing clues of my research topics in the form of pics:

Hypostyle Hall, Karnak

Dahabiyah

(sketch by Brierly, 1869)

Unknown beauty

The best thing about forced isolation is that I have no excuse not to make massive progress on renovating this novel. I guess we'll see what good comes of it.

Getting On With It

from my Facebook Author page

I've identified a stronghold of envy or jealousy in my life. It's hard to admit, but it was even harder to identify and nail down as existing at all. The attitude of "It's not fair" often comes from this flaw of envy. "They have it, I want it, I've even worked my ass off for it, it's not fair."

They have it, I don't. Very well. Get on with it. Or disintegrate into a weepy pile of self-pitying goo.

GET ON WITH IT!!!

And so I have. I am pleased to announce that I have broken ground on the overhaul of Blackbird. This overhaul is so massive, so hefty, so down-into-the-grain of the story that the title doesn't even work anymore. I have a backup in mind, but will not yet mention it in a public place. So for now, the working title "Blackbird" will suffice.

After three days of writing, I'm about 6000 words in. The stage is now set for a massive setting move and vast character changes. Gabriella, my protagonist, has been the steady rock through all these upheavals, remaining inwardly largely the same. For purposes of cohesion, I did have to give her a fascination with items from antiquity, like these beauties:

Sakhmet Statues, British Museum

Now Gabriella is almost set to go on her life's journey.

And I have gotten on with it.

And, yes, I am much happier having done so.

Old Books

Image from my Author Facebook page

From High School on, I've enjoyed exploring literature, not necessarily because I cared for the antiquated storytelling that made such reads a slog, but for the expertise and care with which words were used, the history of the times the books were authored, the lives of the authors themselves.

Finally, while conducting research for Blackbird, a story that takes place in the late 1800s, whose main character is a lover of fiction, I was forced to read a few of the books I had neglected on my shelf.

Jane Eyre: surely one of my "new" favorites. I've seen every movie version I could get my hands on, so I was surprised the book continued to hold my interest and win my heart.

Wuthering Heights: I tried. I really tried. So many people speak well of this novel and its characters, but I despised each person I read about. They are all deplorable humans. If there is a likable quality about any one of them, I did not find it. So, forgive me, I was unable to finish. Why do people speak of being in love with Heathcliff? He's an abusive bastard who deserves to be thrown in prison for beating dogs and women. (I will not debate this matter.)

Great Expectations: Who isn't fascinated with Miss Havisham? Again, I had seen as many movie versions as I could find (Helena Bonham-Carter was born to play Miss Havisham, just saying), and given my past experience with Dickens' novels (David Copperfield, ugh), I fully expected to make it halfway through and finally throw in the towel. Not so. I made it to the finish line and enjoyed each leg of the journey.

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope: made it through two pages, decided the opening was a character-build that the author should've kept in his private notes and ditched the thing. Blech.

So, as I dive back into revisions of Blackbird, I must yet again inundate my brain with Victorian verbage. Books on my to-read list:

* Elizabeth Gaskill's work
* George Eliot's novels
* Hard Times by Dickens (read in college, need to read again)

And I guess there's no harm in going back a bit further and (re)reading some Jane Austen. She is my favorite, after all.

Reclaiming Courage

Image from my Author Facebook page

Getting back on my feet. Had a hard blow last summer. It stopped cold my capacity to work on Blackbird, a novel that deals with heavy themes. Recharging at last and trying to decide if now is the time to resume.

With resuming comes big questions:

* Do I move the setting to 1800s Egypt? Some other locale?
* Do I continue with the antique voice or revise to something more myself?
* How much of the original vision to I keep? How much must go?
* Have I learned to balance family and God time with writing? Or will I revert to obsessive behavior, excluding everything and everyone else?

I'm clearly gun-shy, on many levels, for many reasons. But I can't sit on my hands forever. I gotta jump back into the arena.

Adventures in Writing: Faith and Good Endings

For Writers:

As I may have alluded to in an earlier post, I hadn't even completed the first draft of Blackbird before I realized the ending, as I had first envisioned it, wouldn't work. After a bit of agonizing and brainstorming, a potential correction presented itself:  an entirely new character.

Now, here I am, revising that very rough draft and inserting the "correction" in among the old content. But, my brain worries, is it actually a correction? Will this "fix," in fact, break the story worse? Provide unnecessary complication? Swell the word count needlessly?

All an unknown. Writing, I have discovered, is an act of faith. It's embarking upon a voyage with a map drawn in crayon and no sight of a shore before the prow. The new oar I have devised to employ may crack midway through the trip and leave the story stranded for a while. Or it may see the tale safely across the uncertain waters.

When you write, how do you feel about taking risk?

For Readers:

What ending, book or film, do you wish had been done differently? Why?

* * *

Current Project: Blackbird
Genre: Victorian Drama
Theme: the wound

Celebration: Completing Drafts

Pop the cork off that champagne! I am celebrating tonight. The first ugly draft of Blackbird is finished. A natural high. A feeling of complete, deep satisfaction in this first leg of a new journey.

I have not posted yet about Blackbird. Mainly because I was off writing the darn thing. The novel takes place in 1870s England, both in London and the West Country. (No, it is not another Fantasy novel, sorry Fantasy fans, maybe next time.) The research stage has been phenomenal. I get to return to my first love and explore history, houses, mannerisms, early medical developments, music, art, and literature of the time, etc. and I still have much research to do and apply.

Yes, yes, setting and all that, but what's the story about? It's about a young man with Savant Syndrome (it wasn't called that at the time, so I must avoid all reference to such labels), and the young woman who draws him out of a deep childhood trauma (before the science of psychiatry was prevalent), and the father who is desperate to protect his son from being condemned to an asylum.

The story touches on deep, lingering wounds, and the difficult subject matters of abuse and mental illness.

I typed the opening chapter the first week in November. Four months and 120k words later, Blackbird is a newborn baby duckling that is ready to transform into a swan. Yep, lots of bird references there.

I was just beginning writing the final chapter (things hadn't sat well with me for at least four chapters) when I realized what was wrong and how I might attempt to fix it. Despite that, I pressed on, finished writing the draft according to the original vision, though I didn't bother trying to nail down details that, later, I will discard anyway.

So excited to start putting these restructuring ideas into play next week. Though I may be too excited to wait. Revisions may well begin tomorrow.

I may record the rewriting progress here in my blog, just as I did for much of the Falcons Saga, along with strange research tidbits I come across. *crossing fingers I stick to that plan*

Onward! The next phase awaits...