(no subject)
Feb. 15th, 2007 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesPlot Schmot
Oh Bah bah and thrice bah!
Why do I have try to be accurate? Why can’t I just write the blithering thing and not worry about whether words like Jingoism were in circulation in 1816? (it wasn’t). Why do I care whether Sandhurst existed or not? (It didn’t) Why do I care what the weather was like??? grrrrr.
Research holds things UP.
*stabs self* I want to be the sort of writer who DOESN’T GIVE A STUFF.
*stabs characters*
This Is all gehayi’s fault anyway. *stabs her* She made it expand into a novel. We brainstormed last night and now I’ve got character traits for one of my gay young men, and a strong woman character (which makes a first for me)
I don’t actually have any PLOT so the characters will have to work that out as they go along, as usual. *pokes them*
And I’ve just contacted a web designer regarding a new website…. *excited *
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 04:42 pm (UTC)I can share a scene from GF written in Dan Brown style. Am I allowed to torture you when I get home from work? >:D
Thaw
Date: 2007-02-15 05:42 pm (UTC)"a strong woman character"
Date: 2007-02-15 05:56 pm (UTC)It took me forever to research a wedding bouquet. ["Was that flower cultivated in the Regency? No one cares, why do I??"
Re: Thaw
Date: 2007-02-15 06:10 pm (UTC)Re: Thaw
Date: 2007-02-15 06:15 pm (UTC)I was thinking, "Damn, that quick?" X-D
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Date: 2007-02-15 06:37 pm (UTC)However, I was writing contemporary fiction, so it's a little easier. I have an idea for something set in the 1940s, and I figure it will take me about five years of study to be ready for it.
My new one is also a book with characters and no plot whatsoever. MOST annoying. I sit there and look at the characters, and say "Well? DO something!"
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Date: 2007-02-15 07:13 pm (UTC)I'm like you too - I get pictures. For Standish I had pictures of Fleury's stiletto dagger, the type of Gondala that Rafe had, pictures of all the locations they visited - it really helped.
The one i SHOULD be writing (and not this regency procrastination) is a 1960;s piece and that IS hard, because when you look up fashion in the 60's you get a ton of stuff about what the trendy people were wearing, but not the everyday teenager whose clothes are bought by their mum....
:)
Re: "a strong woman character"
Date: 2007-02-15 07:14 pm (UTC)Argh!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 07:15 pm (UTC)I'M HOME NOW!!! *waits impatiently*
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 07:59 pm (UTC)As for the clothing, well, could you find someone who was alive then and simply ask them, or get pictures of them as kids. I mean, not that I remember what I was wearing in the Sixties. If I was. ::shifty eyes::
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Date: 2007-02-15 08:31 pm (UTC)Thanks!!
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Date: 2007-02-15 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 09:13 pm (UTC)Mind you, I came off pretty well compared with one girl at junior school, whose mother used to send her to school in KNITTED skirts. Or trousers. Ewwwwww....
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Date: 2007-02-15 11:35 pm (UTC)As for kids in the 60's ... it depends a little on where they lived and family income. But 'designer jeans' weren't around -- unless you count Levis or Lee Rider jeans. Depends on how old the kids were, too. And what part of the decade, too; it went from post-WW2 to wild&crazy hippie stuff. And there was a period where pseudo-Edwardian, "Carnaby Street" clothes were in - huge lapels, ties you could use for signal flags .... interesting decade, though I was in parochial-school uniforms for much of it.
You wouldn't like being a writer who doesn't care. Can you imagine anything worse than despising one's own writing?
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Date: 2007-02-16 12:14 am (UTC)Not that I haven't thought the exact same thing when I'm digging through accounts of 12th century pilgrimages and worrying if something described in 1160 was there in 1138 or not.
(That being said, I'm having a very good time on vacation playing with my space opera where if I want a particular character in a particular place, I don't have to worry if that place existed yet.)
Ooo! New website!! *bounces*
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Date: 2007-02-16 07:46 am (UTC)Alas alack, I put in overtime today, and I'm bushed. I'll have to make you suffer a little longer while I sleep in and then run errands through the first half of Friday.
Besides, I need to find the file. I have it saved in Andy's computer, not my laptop, like the dork that I am.
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Date: 2007-02-16 08:15 am (UTC)I do take a lot of satisfaction in getting it as right as I can, but BAH! I get frustrated with it at the time. LJ was saved my rantings about Standish because I hadn't discovered it at the time.
About the sixties, yes, that's the trouble, this boy is very ordinary, living in a normal suburb in a town in England and his mother buys his clothes, so he just wears ordinary jeans and tee shirts and jumpers and he has ordinary trousers for "best" but I think i will do that photo call that was suggested. Even if people are too young, they might have pictures of their parents in the early 60s in England.
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Date: 2007-02-16 08:20 am (UTC)The webdesigner is too busy to do anything until June and you know me and patience, so she's going to see if she can recommend someone else.
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Date: 2007-02-16 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-16 09:48 pm (UTC)as for Thaw - mail rwday - I'm quite sure that she'll order one for you and accept paypal from you. She's in SF until Sunday tho.
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Date: 2007-02-16 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 02:57 am (UTC)