Kickstarting the Muse

Kick Starting the Muse

I would be a rich woman if I received a pound each time someone tells me, “I could write a novel.” I usually ask why don’t you write it. More often than not the reply is, “I don’t have time.”

Time is the factor which separates writers from would be writers. There is always something which beckons a writer whether it is a mundane task such as doing the laundry, which I should make a start on right now, or accepting an invitation.

I would be even richer if I received a pound each time someone asks, “Where do you get your ideas from?” When the writing is not going well I’m tempted to smile and reply, “From the supermarket.” Actually, that’s not quite as far fetched as it seems. I’ve often overheard partial conversations that trigger an idea or seen a face which seems to step out of a historical era, a Roman soldier, a Norman Knight, a Mediaeval lady, a Franciscan monk, a Cavalier etc.

Potential material to kick start the muse is all around me and in non fiction, biographies and autobiographies. I am a historical novelist so my muse responds to something I read about times past, which must then translate itself onto the computer.

Stephen King wrote. “Don’t wait for the muse. This isn’t an Ouija board or spirit world we are talking about here, but just another job – like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks.”

So, how have I trained my muse? I have always understood the importance of having a place to write in which my muse and I can settle down. Once it was at a desk in the corner of the living room, today it is the smallest bedroom in the house which I have converted into an office.

After long hard battles my sometimes reluctant muse now understands that I have a regular writing routine. I rise early in the morning, deal with some e-mails, edit the last few pages of the previous day’s work in progress and then write until 10 or 11 a.m. Later in the day I work from 4 or 5 p.m. to 8 or 9 p.m., and sometimes my muse prompts me at night with an idea.

Anyone can establish a writing routine. The important thing is to write for set periods whether they are long or short. For example, if we write half a page a day we will have finished a novel by the end of the year. A bonus is that the muse will respect this and, as the saying goes, knuckle down to work.

My muse stays with me most of the time. When I’m doing housework, gardening or shopping Muse helps me to plot and plan. Recently, while at the health suite enjoying my time in the Jacuzzi, my muse and I have been considering the sequel to my novel, Sunday’s Child. We have been tossing ideas backwards and forwards, rejecting some and building on others. By the time we settle at the computer or the laptop we will have a plot and theme.

Regardless of whether we are published or unpublished, if we are determined, with the help of our muses, we will find the time and space to write.

Rosemary Morris
Historical Novelist

Publisher MuseItUp
Tangled Love January, 2012
Sunday’s Child June 2012
False Pretences October 2012

http://www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

The Challenge of Writing Historical Fiction

All the good advice given in books on how to write fiction is applicable to writing historical fiction.

Writers must enjoy writing even when they encounter obstacles. This is particularly true of writing historical fiction. Historical novelists require a profound interest in all things historical.

The historical novels that I read more than once sweep me into the activities and ‘mind sets’ in a way which I enjoy.

When writing historical novels I enjoy recreating times past and presenting plots and themes unique to the country and era that I present to my readers.

Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881 wrote: “No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” (Today, he might have written: Great men and women.) To add veracity to my fictional characters I either mention or allow historical characters to play a part. In my forthcoming release Tangled Love Queen Anne, the Duke of Marlborough and his wife, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough have their place. All too often, there is not as much information about less important people as a novelist would like. However, imagination is any novelist’s best friend, and a historical novelist can people novels with colourful but imaginary characters.

History, or Herstory, interests me and provides more ideas than I have time to develop; but what is history? One of the definitions in Collins English Dictionary is: “A record or account, often chronological in approach of past events, developments etc.” Thomas Carlyle wrote: “What is all knowledge too but recorded experience and a product of history; of which, therefore, reasoning and belief, no less than action and passion, are essential materials?” Yes, indeed, these are the heady ingredients which historical novelists can incorporate in novels.

For various reasons many people’s knowledge of history is scant. For example, Charles II, the merry monarch, is fairly well known but his niece Queen Anne is not. Yet most people are interested in the past even if history did not interest them at school and they chose to study – for example – computer studies, catering or modern languages. Programmes such as Downton Abbey, the first two parts of which have been shown on television in the U.K., has attracted a vast audience. No doubt they will generate further interest in the era prior to and during the 1st World War. Undoubtedly, this interest will increase the sales of fiction and non fiction relevant to the period.

Last week, in my blog about Writing Historical Fiction, I referred to my dislike of novels in which history is ‘despoiled.’ Fiction must entertain, but it is also the author’s responsibility to reveal past times and interpret history as accurately as possible. There should be much more than dressing characters in costume and allowing them to act as though they are twenty-first century people. For example, when writing about countries in which Christianity predominated, religious conflict can provide a powerful theme but faith and attendance at church is often ignored.

Rosemary Morris
Forthcoming releases from MuseItUp Publishing
Tangled Love 27.01.2012
Sunday’s Child 06.2012

The Little Madeleine by Mrs Robert Henrey

As a historical novelist I enjoy reading about eras which have gone with the wind. I have just re-read The Little Madeleine by Mrs Robert Henrey, which relates the joys and sorrows of Madeleine, a French girl, loved by her mother, who earned a living as a talented seamstress, and her father, ‘a picturesque figure from the Midi.’

“Mrs Henrey’s autobiography is the story of her girlhood in Montmartre and the wasteland near the Paris fortifications, or city walls, where the apache wielded his knife.

Her mother not only sewed for her customers, she also made ‘adorable’ clothes for Madeleine.

The autobiography brings to life the people and scenes of Madeleine’s childhood along with its few joys and many difficulties. The author never indulges in self pity when revealing her impoverished childhood with touching honesty whether she is writing about a street musician murdered by apaches, her experiences in the 1st world war, her intermittent ill-health probably due to being under-nourished, and her determination to excel at school

How I Write Historical Fiction

How I Write Historical Fiction

Although there are books on the subject of How To Write Historical Fiction, which are useful, I am sure that novelists develop their own techniques.

I read history books and sooner or later something triggers my imagination. For example, I read that most of the English nobility disliked James II, his politics and his religion. After James fled to France, first his older daughter, Mary, and her husband and then her younger daughter Anne succeeded to the throne. Some peers refused to swear oaths of allegiance to James’s successors during his lifetime. Their refusal provided the historical trigger for my novel Tangled Love, first published as Tangled Hearts, which will be released on the 27th January, 2012.

After I decide on the period for a novel, I compile a chronological timeline with a narrow column on the left with the heading Date and two wide columns on the right with the headings National and International events.

Two of my dislikes when reading historical fiction about real or imaginary characters are historical inaccuracy, and characters who do not act in accordance with their time. Recently, I began a reader’s report on a historical romance. The first two chapters were so full of flaws that I returned it to the author with the comment that, although the plot is interesting, she needs to concentrate on research before rewriting it. I really don’t enjoy novels by authors who despoil history.

While I am working on a novel, I begin my research for the next one. I read about the economics, politics, social history, religion, clothes and everyday objects as well as reading fiction and poetry pertinent to the era. By the time I have finished a novel I have completed the groundwork for the next one in which I will use only a fraction of the information I have garnered. The advantage of such thorough preparation is showing the reader life as it was through my characters in an interesting way.

The more I research the more I realise how different modern day attitudes are to those of the past. However, even if attitudes and surroundings are different, we share the same emotions, love, ambitions, hope, hatred, envy, grief, hopelessness and misery.

As well as a difference in attitudes, there is also a difference in language which is a trap for the unwary author who should avoid sprinkling a novel with ‘la’, ‘methinks’ and ‘gazooks’ etc. In my novel, Sunday’s child, set in the Regency era, my well-born characters speak formally without contractions. In Tangled Love I use a few words such as oddsbodikins that give the flavour of speech in Queen Anne’s reign, and I avoid anachronisms.

I enjoy researching historical fiction through reading and visiting places of historical interest, including gardens, and also enjoy bringing the past and its people to life in my novels.

Memories of Kenya – The Bolter by Frances Osborne

I have mixed memories of my life in Kenya from 1961 to 1982. On the plus side are my happy recollections of the coast with its golden beaches, the grasslands teaming with wild animals, the lush green highlands. On the minus side I was always a stranger in a strange land. I missed my family and friends in England and in spite of a privileged lifestyle wanted to live in England. In fact, one of the happiest days of my life was when I returned to Europe for good.

Although Kenyan life was not one I embraced, I enjoy reading about the country. Karen Von Blixen’s Out of Africa and Elizabeth Huxley’s Flame Trees of Thika are two of my favourite books. I also found The Lunatic Express about the building of the railway interesting, and shuddered at the thought of the man eating lions the workers encountered in – if my memory is correct – Tsavo on the way from Mombasa to Nairobi.

I am now reading The Bolter the biography of Idina Sackville by Frances Osborne, about which Valerie Grove of the Times writes: ‘A corker of a subject, Idina’s behaviour…probably inspired The Bolter in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Osborne’s richly wrought descriptions of glittering Paris nights and lush mountainous landscapes of Kenya’s Happy Valley are fabulous…A breakneck-paced, thoroughly diverting story.’

Apart from the account of Idina Sackville’s life are evocative descriptions of Kenya – the land, its people and settlers.

Idina and her second husband, Charles, won a 3,000 acre farm in a government lottery. When they reached their land: “…ahead of them the Aberdare Hills rolled dark green in the setting sun; from them fell ice-cold brooks, swollen by the recent rains. Below these their virgin farmland glowed with luminescent grassland and thick, red soil.”

Although the land had been developed by the time I lived in Kenya, there were many such views in the Highlands and always the rich red, fertile soil. When Idina settled there “Each bush throbbed with creatures large and small. Elephant, giraffe and antelope rustled through breaking out and swaying across open land. Leopard and monkey hung from trees reverberating with birdsong….at night when Idina and Charles sat outside they were surrounded by lookouts watching for wandering elephant, big cats or buffalo – its long, curved horns the most lethal of all.”

All this I can relate to but if I regret anything it is the golden Mombasa beaches on the undeveloped, idyllic south coast where we rented a house during our children’s school holidays. We played in the surf, swam in the warm sea and searched for shells at peace with the world.

The Little Madeleine by Mrs Robert Henrey

As a historical novelist I enjoy reading about eras which have gone with the wind. I have just re-read The Little Madeleine by Mrs Robert Henrey which relates the joys and sorrows of Madeleine, a French girl loved by her mother, who earned a living as a talented seamstress, and her father, ‘a picturesque figure from the Midi.’

The book begins:I was born on 13th August 1906 in Montmartre in a steep cobbled street of leaning houses,slate-coloured and old, under the shining loftiness of Sacre-Coeur. Matilda, my mother,….stressed the curious characters from the Auvergne and from Brittany who kept modest cafes with zinc bars. Behind these they toiled,storing in dark courtyards or in windowless rooms coal, cahrcoal and firewood dipped in resin which the inhabitants of our street, who never had any money to spare, bought in the smallest quantities such as a pailful at a time.

“Mrs Henrey’s autobiography is the story of her girlhood in Montmartre and the wasteland near the Paris fortifications, or city walls, where the apache wielded his knife. Her father was a picturesque figure from the midi. Her mother toiled as a talented seamstress, who made ‘adorable’ clothes for Madeleine.”

The autobiography brings to life the people and scenes of her childhood along with its few joys and many difficulties. The author never indulges in self pity and reveals impoverished childhood with touching honesty whether writing about a street musician murdered by apaches, her experiences in the 1st world war, her intermittent ill-health probably due to being under-nourished and her determination to excel at school

As a historical novelist I enjoy reading about eras which have gone with the wind. I have just re-read The Little Madeleine by Mrs Robert Henrey which relates the joys and sorrows of Madeleine, a French girl loved by her mother, who earned a living as a talented seamstress, and her father, ‘a picturesque figure from the Midi.’

“Mrs Henrey’s autobiography is the story of her girlhood in Montmartre and the wasteland near the Paris fortifications, or city walls, where the apache wielded his knife. Her father was a picturesque figure from the midi. Her mother toiled as a talented seamstress, who made ‘adorable’ clothes for Madeleine.”

The autobiography brings to life the people and scenes of her childhood along with its few joys and many difficulties. The author never indulges in self pity and reveals impoverished childhood with touching honesty whether writing about a street musician murdered by apaches, her experiences in the 1st world war, her intermittent ill-health probably due to being under-nourished and her determination to excel at school.

Rosemary Morris
Historical Novelist
Forthcoming releases
Tangled Love set in England in Queen Anne’s reign 27 01 2012
Sunday’s Child set in England in the Regency era 06.2012

Spinach and Curd Cheese Curry

I am writing a novel set in Queen Anne’s reign in which the hero lived in India for some years. He became a vegetarian and this is one of the recipes he brought back to England. I hope you will enjoy the receipt – as he would have called it – as much as he did.

Spinach and Curd Cheese Curry

¼ kilo paneer – curd cheese
½ kilo baby spinach
¼ kilo fresh or frozen peas
3tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oi
2 tablespoons of finely grated ginger
1 or 2 chillis optional.
Juice of one lemon
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

1. Cut curd cheese into cubes. Deep fry until golden brown and put in a bowl of cold water to keep it soft until needed.
2. Shred and cook the spinach until tender in four tablespoons of water. Add more water if necessary to prevent it burning.
3. Cook the frozen or fresh peas.
4. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the ginger and chillis and stir fry for one minute. Add the spinach and peas with the salt and pepper. Cook for two or three minutes on a high heat stirring all the time. Strain the curd cheese and, add to the other ingredients. If necessary add a little water to keep the ingredients moist, and cook for two minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Serve with lemon wedges, chapattis and or rice with or without a dahl, a spiced soup and green salad tossed in lightly salted yoghurt.

Writing Historical Fiction

Writing Historical Fiction

Historical fiction embraces different periods.

Prehistory, Ancient civilisations such as Egyptian and Indian, Classical (Mainly Greek and Roman History)Biblical, From the 1st century to the 20th century, Multi-period, Timeslip, Historical Fantasy, Alternative History, Children and Young Adult.

Historical Fiction can also be divided into different genres.

Fiction based on the lives of people who lived in the past.
Adventure, Romance, Crime, Thrillers and Whodunits, Mysteries,Military

These can be further divided into subgenres.

Arthurian, Mediaeval, Tudor, Elizabethan, Stuart, Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, 1st World War, 2nd World War, Sagas, Pyschological Thrillers, Gothic (and Horror), Colonial U.S.A., Colonial, Civil War, American and its subgenre Native American Frontier, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pirate and Naval.

More classifications can be found in Sarah Johnson’s Historical Fiction, A Guide to the Genre in which a chapter on sagas she includes authors from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and many others.

Whichever period a historical novelist chooses to write about, research is vital. The reader needs to experience the sights, sounds and smells, visualise costume and places and enjoy the reconstruction of the era the novel is set in.

I don’t think any historical novelist can get every detail about life in the past correct but she or he can research conscientiously and, without drowning the reader in facts, convey past times as accurately as possible. Failure to do this means the reader loses faith in the author. There are examples which caused me to lose faith.

In the first example, the author referred to a tea gown spread over a crinoline in the Victorian era. The Victorians did not wear gowns called tea gowns over crinolines. Tea gowns were worn by Edwardians and were not spread over crinolines.

In the second example, in the days when mediaeval castles and keeps did not have windows, a knight in full armour scaled the castle walls, (how did he find footholds?) to the turret where his lady was imprisoned. After he climbed in through the window, the lady greeted him with smile and asked. ‘Would you like a nice cup of tea and some eggs and bacon?’ Well, she might have been referring to herb tea and I’m daresay they ate eggs with bacon but the reference seemed too modern.

From Highgate Hill,London, England to Kindle

A brief article about my late Victorian Grandparent’s education which instilled a love of reading in them and my speculation about what they would have thought of Kindle and IT.

Writer’s Workshops and Linda Spurr

As well as belonging to three online critique groups, where I can post a chapter of my historical novels in progress and receive constructive critiques in return for critiquing other members’ chapters, I also belong to Watford Writers. Every Monday the society meets in Cassiobury Park, Watford, Hertfordshire, England at Cafe Cha Cha at 7.30 p.m.

From time to time Watford Writers arranges for guest speakers and workshops. Linda Spurr’s workshops are very popular and well-attended.

Linda Spurr is rarely seen without a pen and notepad in hand – although in recent months, this is more likely to be an iPad. Linda is well-qualified to advise writers. She started working on local and regional newspapers before moving to the BBC World Service for a broadcasting career of over twenty years. Since then, she has worked as a freelance journalist and as a teacher of Creative Writing and computer skills. She is currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at Brunel University.

Writing takes up a lot of her “leisure” time, trying to finish what she hopes will be the next block-busting novel. Her work with the BBC meant she frequently travelled overseas; today, she loves exploring Britain – on foot and by car. But always with the iPad at hand for when inspiration strikes!

In addition to her regular classes, Linda runs occasional Creative Writing workshops for local writing groups. She finds these can serve several purposes: “I’m a great believer in trying different genres of writing. Even if you never intend to write a play, an evening of playwriting exercises will help with your dialogue while poetry makes you think carefully about every word you put down on paper! Moreover, experimenting with, for example, historical fiction or fantasy writing might well open up a whole new area that you had never considered writing before.

“I also find that workshops are ideal for reminders – such as remembering to use all the senses. Writers come up with some lovely images when they use the senses but, over time, authors might forget to involve them until they are reminded. Similarly, the occasional reminder to use a setting more creatively can pay dividends.

“Workshops provide a very supportive environment for writers – beginners and experienced ones alike. Trying something out in a small group first is far less daunting than on your own. Also, learning to give and receive constructive feedback is probably one of the most useful ways of improving your own writing.”

At one of Linda’s workshops, I read a non-fiction article I had written called The Scarlet Pimpernel and His muse. Linda pointed out that the article should be split into two. The first titled Baroness Orczy, and the second titled The Scarlet Pimpernel fact and fiction.

I took Linda’s advice and subsequently placed both articles with Vintage Script a small press magazine. Next year I might re-submit both articles, offering second British serial rights or first American serial rights.

After another workshop, Linda was kind enough to read the first three chapters of my novel Sunday’s Child set in the Regency period. She returned it with the comment that I had introduced too many characters too fast. I took this ‘on board’, revised the chapters and submitted the novel to MuseItUp Publishing with the happy result that it will be published in June, 2012.

Recently, Linda gave a workshop on playwriting. I do not intend to write a play so I shilly shallied about whether or not to attend. To my surprise I enjoyed the workshop during one part of which we were asked to form small groups and write snippets from proposed plays on various themes. Each person assumed the role of one character and wrote that character’s lines. Later we read our snippets to the group. One of my parts was that of a mother-in-law who doesn’t like her son-in-law. A line when she speaks to her son-in-law was: “I believe in live and let live, but not where you’re concerned.” That raised a roar of laughter. All in all, the workshop was fun. It has had the happy result of making me more adventurous about attending other workshops focussed on various forms of writing that I have not attempted.

Wherever you live, whether you are a new writer or an experienced, multi-published writer Linda and I are confident that participating in workshops will pay dividends,

All the best,
Rosemary Morris
Historical Novelist

Forthcoming releases from MuseItUpPublishing
Tangled Love 27.01.2012
Sunday’s Child 06.2012

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://rosemarymorris.blogspot.com