Historical fiction is incredibly demanding to write. There are rules, there are undeniable facts and there is respect for antecedents. There are also different styles of writing the genre. In a recent post on English History Authors Blogspot the difference in those styles was examined. In fact it seems there are what one might call sub-genres: ‘history light’, ‘history interwoven’, ‘history imagined’ and ‘history based on a true story’.
Saturday was Australia Day and we were meant to spend it on the water. That was the plan. But it showered and blew and so it was cancelled. But today…
The north corner of Chinamens Beach, Maria Island…
Wake up and get straight into swimsuit. Sky is pale blue, maybe smoke haze from Victoria.
Down to the beach to favourite pozzie in front of pine trees. Smells resinous in the warmth.
In water by 10AM. Glorious. Walk through waist deep shallows in boat channel, moving out of way of incomers and outgoers. Then just dive in and swim a few lengths between the marker poles. Float on back like a star. Hair drifting out, rocking with the odd tiny wave, can hear the odd tic-tic-tic sound of ‘under the sea’.
I’ve been pinning for 12 months-ish. I had thought that it might just be a fad for me, perhaps even a fad for the world at large.
But not so.
The participation levels are huge, my own involvement at least every second or third evening when I’m busy, every evening if I’m not.
*This is a reprise of an article I was invited to post on English Historical Fiction Authors*
Convict carved milestone.
If, like me, the generations of one’s family in Tasmania can be traced back to Settlement, then it is a fair enough assumption to believe there exists a convict somewhere in the family tree. My great great grandfather was such a man.
Whilst away last weekend, I read an interesting article on solitude in The Australian Weekender magazine, by writer Nikki Gemmell. She says: ‘aloneness can have a vast restorative power … it’s a space for your mind to uncurl … in the lovely, glittery alone, a door opens to a possibility and it’s when novel ideas sneak in, titles roar with their rightness and surprising character arcs veer me back to excitement over a project that hasn’t been singing.’
Why the fascination with the Middle Ages?
It’s a question I was asked today and it’s something I’ve wondered about as well.
I think it began in secondary school. I fell in love with historical fiction the minute I had my own library card. At the same time, the beginning of the 60’s, TV had just begun in Australia and so I was beguiled by the black and white historical cinema of the time. I’ve just found a copious list of 300 movies online www.erasofelegance.com/entertainment/medievalmovies.html and went through to find the ones I remembered from my youth:
Carol Davis Luce offered up some succint and profound words when she sent her Indie Chicks piece to Mesmered – facts that seem overlooked so often by the mainstream publishing trade.
This is what she says: ‘Agents and editors think they know what readers want. They don’t always know. Readers know what readers want, and they’re expressing their wants by buying books written by indie authors. Give yourself a hardy pat on the back if you’ve completed a manuscript, but the big applause goes to our devoted fans and readers. Without them, we would be nothing.’
Being published is tremendous, talking with one’s readers even more so. I count myself fortunate to have been able to correspond with so many readers since 2008 owing to this amazing technological world we inhabit. But one of the most exciting developments in my writing life has been establishing the informal partnership with Pat Sweet.
