| Blog | For Readers | For Writers | Languages | Geekdom | About Me |
I decided to adopt the carrot approach this week - catch up four days' worth and I can take time out to see "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" today. It seems to have worked, as the total below proves (goals listed will be number of days elapsed x 1667 words):
Goal: 6667
Done: 6814
As for the movie...
Last night we went to see "The Merchant of Venice" at the Globe (a regular annual trip arranged by the campus sports and social club). The production was very good indeed - great acting and lots of music and spectacle. Unusually, they had added some bits of scenery to suggest the cityscape of Venice: at one corner of the stage were some rustic wooden poles, perhaps ten or twelve feet long, for tying up gondolas, and the normal short run of steps up to the stage had been replaced by a wooden bridge. The costumes were mostly Elizabethan but with a few tweaks to add the flavour of a busy modern metropolis (the programme made comparisons between Venice and New York), such as trilby-like hats for the men and one of the merchants in dark pinstripes!
Yesterday's trip to London was exhausting but definitely worth it - almost as good as a trip back in time (and without the smells!)
Another CWIL meeting, another Jacobethan shopfest :) This time it was music and movies: a CD of Dowland songs and DVDs of "Shakespeare in Love", "Stage Beauty" and Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V", courtesy of a '3 for £20' offer :D
By happy coincidence, someone at work is selling 2 tickets for a trip to the Globe Theatre on the 24th, which I had previously failed to sign up for in time. It's to see a production of "The Winter's Tale" in Elizabethan costume (tho' not one of their all-male productions, sadly). Of course I snapped them both up, so Richard and I can go.
Before tonight's CWIL meeting I combed the shelves of Borders for non-fiction books for my research. In the end I bought 4 paperbacks: "English Society 1580-1680" by Keith Wrightson, "The Age of Shakespeare" by Frank Kermode, and "The Tudor Housewife" and "Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England", both by Alison Sim. That should keep me busy for a while!
Yesterday's expedition was very productive of research material. I took lots of photos of the Tudor portions of the buildings and of the farm animals (Tamworth pigs, Norfolk Horn sheep, etc). The guide book turned out to be rather basic, but between it and my memory I think I can piece together a good enough floor plan for use in writing.
Since the "30 Days" technique makes world-building on the usual fantasy scale pretty much impossible, I have decided instead to select in advance a period that interests me and research it intensively during the pre-writing period. That way, my subconscious will have plenty of material to draw on when it comes to the actual writing. The period I have chosen is roughly 1550-1650, mainly because one of my favourite bits of previous writing was about a group of strolling players. It's a familiar setting for fantasy fans, but just different enough from the standard medieval world to be interesting, especially if I include gunpowder (which often gets omitted from fantasy worlds regardless of their "historical" period).
As it happens, we were planning a trip into Suffolk this weekend, so I have arranged to include a trip to Kentwell, a Tudor manorhouse with lots of reconstructed interiors and farm buildings of the period. This will give me at least one potential location; if I exploit the "crucible" concept fully, it might even be my only location!
