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Posts Tagged ‘with fate conspire’

My birthday comes early this year . . . or late

Early because the news comes a couple of months before my birthday, late because it won’t actually become a reality until a couple of months after: the historical thesaurus to the OED will be going online in December.

It feels kind of like a sign from On High, that this won’t be available until after I finish drafting and revisions on the Victorian book (though copy-edits will likely still be ahead of me, and page proofs definitely will). i.e. the universe is saving me from what might otherwise happen, which is that my progress would slow to a crawl as my obsessiveness in checking my word choice shot through the roof.

Anyway. Yes. I’m an enormous geek. Not that this comes as a surprise to anybody who’s been reading this journal. But some of you are enormous geeks, too, so I thought I should share.

doing the math

The good news is, I don’t think I’ll have to completely replace every Dead Rick scene from Part One.

Just a bit more than half of them.

Seriously, I feel like a book or two ago, somebody sneaked in and replaced my writing process with another author’s. I used to write relatively clean first drafts; now I flounder through writing wrong scenes left and right, inventing Spanish nymphs that may not even show up in the final draft, and generally failing to figure out what one of the villains is doing. Some concerted effort on my part has at least begun to sort that last bit out, which is why my pessimistic guess of “all Dead Rick scenes” has been revised downward to “five of the nine, with revision on the rest,” but it’s still disheartening. (Oh yeah, and I’ll probably need to write at least one entirely new scene, aside from replacing half of those already there.)

I’m glad I noticed the growing pattern from Ashes and Star, and gave myself extra time for this book. Otherwise I’d be screeeeeeeeewed.

I’m also very glad that I figured out most of Eliza’s PII while in London, as it gives me something to do while I figure out where I went wrong on the Dead Rick end. If I can manage to do his scene replacements while moving forward on her part, I’ll be in good shape. But first I need to finish sorting out him and Nadrett — and figure out if La Madura’s staying in the book or not — so I know what to replace those scenes with.

miscellaneous bits of news

Proof I have gotten way too pale: I managed to pick up a bit of a tan in freaking London.

Anyway, onto actual news, of the writing-related sort. Various bits and pieces accumulated while I was gone, so in no particular order . . .

1) I’ve sold an audio reprint of “Kingspeaker” to Podcastle.

2) Go here for another chance to win an ARC of A Star Shall Fall (scroll down for details). Author Stephanie Burgis is, with permission, re-gifting the copy I sent her.

3) Clockwork Phoenix 3 has gotten a starred review from Publishers Weekly, with this to say about my own contribution: “Marie Brennan sets the bar high with ‘The Gospel of Nachash,’ a fine reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve legend from a fresh perspective.” Also, finalized cover art.

4) An interesting post about “Remembering Light” and Driftwood more generally. I remain faintly boggled by how strongly people react to the setting — boggled, and flattered. I really do need to get more Driftwood stories written.

5) My remaining bit of news will get its own post in a bit, so instead I’ll use this spot to mention that I’m still seeking a title for the Victorian book. For those not aware or in need of a refresher, my requirements are here and here; you can leave suggestions on one of those posts, in the comments to this post, or send them to my e-mail (marie dot brennan at gmail dot com).

back in the saddle

I didn’t write while in London, nor did I revise. The first was expected, but the second wasn’t; unfortunately, the cold drained me of too much energy to be useful on that front.

So I haven’t technically written since May 27th, which is a remarkably long break for me while noveling. I think it was a good idea, though. The latest iteration of my much-revised timetable for this book focuses not on words per day, but on larger units than that: the book is in three parts, I have six months to write it, therefore I need to write one part every two months. I can technically take off as many days as I like, so long as I complete Part Two by the end of July. Since it’s supposed to be about forty-five thousand words, and there are sixty-one days in June and July, that’s eminently doable, even with a long break.

Mind you, I also need to revise. And Part One, as mentioned in my last status update, needs a lot of work, especially on the Dead Rick side. The good news is that one of my semi-sleepless nights in London brought with it an outline for something like 75% of Eliza’s PII scenes, so I can cruise along writing those while I figure out where I went wrong with Dead Rick, and where I’m going next. It might be a little <sarcasm>fun-tastic</sarcasm> from here to the end of June, while I pull double-duty on revision and writing, but I think I’ll survive.

Anyway, 1393 words today, because I wanted to clear the 40K mark I should have hit back in May. I’d revise a bit, too, but Jet Lag Brain utterly scotched my attempts to think about Dead Rick earlier, so I think I’ll take what I’ve got and get to bed. Time enough for the rest of it tomorrow.

Word count: 40, 026
LBR quota: Blood; Mrs. Kittering’s on the warpath.
Authorial sadism: Sorry, Ann. I have to make good on the claim that servants in that house get treated like shit.

Day Eight (belated): In which I do not go to York

When I was scheduling appointments for this trip, I deliberately left today open, because previous experience told me the preceding week would give me ideas for other things I needed to do — things not already on the schedule. Unfortunately, the major item on that list just isn’t feasible: I can’t get to York, make productive use of the Railway Museum archives, and get back in time for my flight tomorrow morning. But I’ve got plenty of smaller odds and ends with which to fill my day, and those will just have to be enough.

(more…)

Day Seven: In which I feel like I’m in an episode of The Sandbaggers

All right, so what I did today wasn’t nearly so exciting as a Sandbaggers episode, and for this I am duly grateful. But I spent my morning in an office that called to mind Willie and Denson’s exchange when Diane walked into their hutch — “Sorry, ladies’ loo is down the hall;” “Somewhat larger and better appointed” — sorting through folders of paper not unlike the ones stacked up on Burnside’s desk, listening to guys with English accents discuss topics include the Home and Foreign Offices. Is it any wonder I make the comparison?

Those of you with no idea what I’m talking about may be more interested in (and jealous of) this: I got to page through Inspector Abberline’s personal scrapbook. Yes, the Inspector Abberline who worked on the Whitechapel murders. Sadly, the scrapbook actually makes no mention of Jack the Ripper; in fact; it leapfrogs over that period, going from 1887 to 1891. Maybe he had another scrapbook for those years, kept somewhere more interesting than a bottom drawer in an obscure office in West Brompton. But it was full of carefully-glued newspaper clippings and notes in Abberline’s own handwriting, which affected me as it always does: he immediately stopped being a Historical Figure and became a real person, which never stops being cool.

More sitting on my butt in libraries ensues.

Day Five: In which I am diverted, entertainingly

It’s hard to make myself take it easy. Despite my best efforts, I fail to sleep in; once I wake up, that’s it, there’s no going back. But my appointment isn’t until 11:15, so I sit around the hotel being glad I have Steam’s King’s Quest package on my laptop, because that gives me something to do that isn’t wandering around. If my respiratory system and ankle were in full working order, I’d probably saddle up and walk to Kensington again, but given the circumstances, that would be dumb. (If I could brain at that hour of the morning, I would write — but I can’t, so.)

What I Did With My Day, by Swan Tower, Age 29

Day Four: In which I do not re-tear a ligament

So apparently, coming down with a cold isn’t enough back luck for one trip. This morning, I did the one thing I must not do:

I twisted my ankle.

Yes, THAT ankle. On my way to the Tower Gateway for the DLR, I stepped on the edge of one of the shallow gutters along the footpath and overturned my foot, in exactly the direction it needs to not go. While it’s probably fair to say I did more damage to my nerves than to my foot, that isn’t to say it escaped completely unscathed; it is a bit twingy. Still, “a bit twingy” is much less than I feared, in that first instant of blind unreasoning horror. As soon as I could think, I dropped my bag and downed some Advil, and put my foot up on on the seat on the ride out to the West India Quay, and fortunately, the Museum in Docklands is abundantly supplied with portable folding stools. (Also, while I’m sure it’s possible to walk out there — heck, I’m not surprised to see Google tell me it’s closer than Chelsea, less than four miles — no way on God’s paved earth was I going to do that, even before the ankle incident.)

So I’m largely okay, more rattled than hurt. But definitely rattled, I must admit.

Not that I let that stop me.

Science-y query (another non-trip post)

If you’re a math-and-science type person, please read this and give me your thoughts.

***

Tonight I thought up a question that really shouldn’t wait until after my trip is done, because depending on the answer, I may end up working it into the revision I’m trying to do while I’m here.

Before the question, though, the background: Charles Babbage designed two devices, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The former is essentially a calculator, doing polynomial functions; the latter (had it been built) would have been an early computer, capable of being programmed to do several different mathematical jobs.

So imagine you’re reading a book set in 1884, and it tells you that faeries got hold of those ideas and built them, But Better — for values of “better” that involve extrapolating this design in a magical direction. My question to you all is twofold. First, what extrapolations would you consider reasonable, given the parameters? Second, what extrapolations would make you say “Oh please” and put the book down? Example: “It would be cool if it could do calculations using imaginary numbers, but dumb if it could run World of Warcraft.” Or whatever. In essence, I want this to be interesting, but I don’t want it to be interesting in a way that’s totally divorced from the original purpose of the design.

I’m soliticing feedback because this is, among other things, a matter of the boundary between “suspension of disbelief” and “excruciating torture of disbelief.” Which varies from person to person, though math-and-science type people are likely to have a much firmer boundary than those who don’t know Babbage from Byron. Also, thanks in part to a declining series of math teachers in my education, I no longer have much love for the subject; ergo, if I ask my brain to think about “math magic,” it pulls up images of workbooks designed to make third-graders believe math is fun. So I am ill-suited to judging what I can get away with designing. Would it bother you if the faeries’ Analytical Engine performed non-numerical calculations of some kind? What if its function was predictive, analyzing a situation to make semi-divinatory, pseudo-statistical descriptions of the future? Would something like that bother you? What wouldn’t bother you, that also isn’t so mundane that it wouldn’t add much to the story? (The other ideas I’ve come up with so far all fall into that latter camp.)

Feel free to respond however you like — brainstorm, talk amongst yourselves, go off onto wild digressions about nineteenth-century math. I know some of you have thought about math + magic, so I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Day Two: In which battle plans do not survive contact with the enemy

I dawdle a little this morning because I have to wait for the Bank of England to open at 9:30, so I can go exchange some old pound notes I brought with me. On the way back from that, I detour on impulse to the Guildhall library, where I waste half an hour waiting for a book that turns out to have gone missing. But the visit itself is not a waste, as the helpful librarian (I’ve yet to meet a non-helpful librarian at the Guildhall, or indeed at most libraries) tells me the king of thing I’m looking for — a survey map of London’s Victorian sewers — has been moved to the London Metropolitan Archives. Particularly alert readers will recognize that name from my Ashes-trip adventures in secretary hand. The archives, of course, are in Clerkenwell, and it turns out that on Thursdays they’re open until 7:30. I may also be able to get the info I want at Abbey Mills, but it’s worth trying this first, because it’s closer, and I have a catalogue reference that looks promising. So much for the quiet evening I had planned, eh?

Actually, my whole plan for today is a bit borked. Which turns out to be a bit of a theme.

Day One: In which the gimpy feet are put to the test

The verdict so far: they’re holding up pretty well.

But before I get to that — happy 90 days (or so) to the publication of A Star Shall Fall! I’m going to semi-cheat and say your pre-pub goodie is the commencement of another round of trip-blogging (since this is something I know several of you enjoy), but since research notes about another book entirely don’t quite qualify on their own, you can also have just a teensy bit more of excerpt. (Or start at the beginning, if you missed the prologue before.)

Anyway. London. Victorian period.

You know the opening drill.

We’ll call that “finit.”

Well, that was unexpected.

Approximately two minutes before I started typing on tonight’s work, I decided the scene in question was going to be about a disturbance in the Onyx Hall. (Prior to that, I had no freaking clue what I was going to write.) Now I have 2,071 new words, and I’m going to say Part One is done.

It isn’t really done. For starters, Dead Rick needs another scene before the one I just wrote — only I’m not sure what it is, which is how I ended up writing this one instead — and even once I take care of that, Part One will still be running a few thousand words short of what I intended. But the reason we’re in this position is that I’m pretty sure I need to replace a few of Eliza’s scenes (AGAIN), and I’m hoping that will help me figure out just where I’ve gone wrong with Dead Rick’s plotline, and (more importantly) what I need to do to fix it.

So why say Part One is finished? Because the goal was to be done with it before I left for London, and then to poke at revising it while I’m away, so that I come back (theoretically) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to start Part Two. And this weekend is going to be moderately busy on several fronts. So making this declaration allows me to say, okay; for the next three days I should do what revision I can, but I don’t have to make progress toward the end of Part One, because I’m already there. If I spend tomorrow afternoon replacing an Eliza scene, that does not in any way set me back from my goal. And if I need to spend more time chewing on Dead Rick’s problems before I find their solution, that’s okay, because that’s “revision work” — even if I’m adding an entirely new scene to the story.

In other words, it’s semantics. But it gets the job done.

Word count: 38,372
LBR quota: Dead Rick stepped on somebody who was trampled by a crowd, so it’s definitely blood.
Authorial sadism: This is what you get for being the one decent guy in the Goblin Market, hon.

adding to the list of reasons the FBI is watching me

Tonight, for writing purposes, I have been googling information on what happens when you smoke opium.

This goes onto a list including items like “once looked up how to transport firearms to Hungary” and “published a story in an anthology called Glorifying Terrorism” that I’m pretty sure have me on an FBI watch list somewhere. Writers: we’re suspicious types, always curious about how to commit crimes.

Victorian Book Report: The Rise of Scotland Yard, by Douglas G. Browne

This book is a bit dated, having been written in the early 1950s, but it’s one of only two I could conveniently get that addressed the early years of policing in London. As far as readability goes, it’s on the dull side of the middle of the road; not too much of a slog, but not a shining example of nonfiction entertainment, either. (Which is a pity, because I expect this history would bear a much livelier retelling.)

Its virtue, though, is that it begins by summarizing the systems that preceded the Metropolitan Police — and not just the Bow Street Runners. Chapter 1 covers 1050 to 1600, talking about sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, watchmen, constables, etc. Then there’s a chapter about corruption among magistrates, that led to the Fieldings and Bow Street, then some very useful information about the Runners if (like me) you’re thinking about writing a short story in that period; then it dives into the politics of founding and developing a police force in London.

It still isn’t what I really need, which is a book that will give me details about how the Special Irish Branch went about dealing with Fenian conspirators in the 1880s. But I’ve e-mailed the Metropolitan Police Archives to see if I can get help there, and in the meantime, this at least gives me some background to work from.

30K!

Got today’s writing done early, largely by dint of putting back in a half-finished scene I’d cut at the beginning of the month. Had to redo various bits of it, of course, but at least half of today’s wordage only required polishing, not invention from scratch. And this means I can run game tonight with a clear conscience, and not have to drag my brain to London after the session is done.

Word count: 30,006
LBR quota: We’re back to the Fenians, so it’s definitely rhetoric, with a forecast of blood.
Authorial sadism: No, Eliza, you still don’t get to talk to Miss Kittering.

translation question

I don’t suppose anyone reading this journal speaks Castilian Spanish? (i.e. the Spanish of Spain, not Latin America.) I could use some help with incidental words of a casual variety, like endearments and insults, that probably vary from culture to culture (and therefore shouldn’t just be pulled from a dictionary).

Victorian Book Report: The Victorian House Explained, by Trevor Yorke

I never wrote up a report on the first book I read out of this series, Georgian and Regency Houses Explained, but this can stand for both; they’re pretty similar works. Skinny little books with a lot of pictures, seemingly intended for a market consisting of people who occupy or otherwise have an interest in the houses of different periods: there’s a timeline at the back, showing when different features came into and went out of fashion, so you can try to ID your house (or renovations thereof) by time period.

But in the course of serving this need, Yorke does two very useful things: first, he gives an overview of how styles changed over time (between the Georgian and Regency periods, or throughout the loooooong Victorian period), and second, he breaks the houses down by class of room, giving sample floorplans, and talking about how those rooms would be decorated. He’s much more interested in fixtures than furniture — with this book in hand, I could probably date a coal grate to within about twenty years — but where the actual structure is concerned, his books are a minor goldmine. (The Victorian book of this series lacks the stultifyingly boring section showing different kinds of drainpipes and door styles that the G&R book had; I tried to pay attention to that bit last time, but really, unless you’re trying to date the house you live in by the depth of the window-box, its use is limited.)

He’s done a whole series of these things — “England’s Living History” — not just for houses but also bridges, churches, even narrowboats. They’re all fairly small, but based on the data sample I have so far, clear and useful for the topics they cover.