Back from the Past

I've been out of the loop for almost three months. I've ignored my novel. I've been in the slums of Southwark, and by the cholera infested Broad Street pump. I've been in Kensington Palace, and to the Great Exhibition. I briefly visited the textile factories of Nottingham, and the coal mines of South Wales. I've marched with the Temperance Society, and marveled at Champagne Charlie's antics on the stage at Wilton's Music Hall. In short, I've been in Victorian Britain.

I've just finished an online course on Victorian history. I love research, and the course was excellent, but oh how much I love going back to my story. I was worried that our mutual absence would mean that my story and I would have grown apart, but that's not the case at all. In fact, the course has both inspired and informed my story and it is growing into a far better, leap-off –the-page thing.

And now I know it's true. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder!

This is the course: University of Oxford, Investigating Victorians

Ten True Things

These are my ten rules – things that I have realised are true to me.

1.        A novel won't write itself.

2.        Dark chocolate is good for you but not if you eat the whole bar in one sitting.

3.        Telling friends and family you can't see them/talk to them because you're writing is wrong if all you end up doing is mucking about on Facebook.

4.        Talking about writing is not the same as actually doing it, however enthusiastic you may be.

5.        Green tea is good for you but it tastes vile.

6.        Leaving difficult tasks until they become irrelevant does work, but the huge amount of guilt you feel just isn't worth it.

7.        There is such a thing as too much research.

8.        Reading running magazines will not make you fitter unless you actually go out and run.

9.        Your teenage daughter rarely wants your advice even though you invariably do Know Better.

10.        It's OK to fail but it's not OK to give up.

What are yours?

Writing, Research, and Random Thoughts

There's nothing wrong with the present day. I like living in it very much. But writing in it? Not for me. I love to write about the past. I love to imagine how things were. I'm only vaguely interested in the stuff we're taught at school - Kings, Queens, politicians, famous people - although I confess to something of a passion for Charles II. What interests me most about the past are the lives of ordinary people. Where they lived. How they lived. To me, the filthy grime of the city slums and the characters within it are infinitely more fascinating than a stately home stuffed full of Lords and Ladies.

I'm lucky enough to live in London where you can still find Fagin-style tenements, Jack the Ripper streets, and airy atmospheric centuries-old markets. A writer can find inspiration anywhere but by walking the streets of a city, you can transport yourself back in time and really imagine what it would have been like way back when. In London there are writing prompts all over the place: The Pleasure Gardens at the Museum of London, a model of old London Bridge at the Docklands Museum, and a wonderful history of medicine at the Science Museum. On a recent hospital stay at St Thomas', I even found a glass case full of old apothecary jars and scales that were identical to the ones I describe in my novel.

The internet is a fantastic place for research, but nothing beats the real thing, real buildings, real objects. The only thing to remember is to always take a camera and a notebook with you!