Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Some Tuesday morning musings...
First, Màili's link slut post has generated a couple of thoughts.

a) Writers of historical romance would do well to check out this BBC4 History site (reached via Màili's link to reviews of historical films) - it's related to Tony Robinson's new series The Worst Jobs in History. The site gives summaries of a number of less than savoury but essential jobs from each major period - fodder for secondary characters.

b) At the same site, you can take a Quiz to find out for which yucky jobs you best qualify.

One of the other links Màili included was about Eastern Europe and WWII. The article is part of the Polish Culture site at Bella Online. For those who are of Polish ancestry or just interested in Polish history, the site's editor, Jagoda Urban-Klaehn has done a wonderful job. And there's a lot more at there, with in-depth articles on Education, Customs, Costume, Food etc. From the History section, I found a website about Stalin's Ethnic Cleansing - something my father and his family experienced first hand. I already knew about A Forgotten Odyssey, but wasn't aware of the other.

Ok - as for my manuscript, I did get some more work done on my timeline/daysheet last night. I spent some time entering more info into my timeline (I build it using a lovely programme called Timeline Maker), then transferred that info to two 1793 calendars (generated using a combo of MS Publisher and Legacy Family Tree) so I can visually get a sense of the flow of the story (and make sure I don't have people reaching certain places too quickly for realistic travel in that period). From all this I'll build the day sheet. Yep, it's a lot of work, but this way I can be certain when I'm polishing that all the time continuity errors have been eliminated and that the pacing of events isn't off. I've been working on this the last two evenings and have at times had to pause while cat George sits on the binder in my lap *g*.

Well, that's about it for this morning! Have an appointment to get my hair permed and should get going soon.

Teresa

2 comments:

Rene said...

Holy cow, you are an organized writer. I write. I don't plan or anything, I just write. I do some research before hand, but mostly I research as I go along. I've tried to do charts and sheets and outlines but to no avail.

lost said...

A gentle correction: It's Channel 4, not BBC4.

It's good to know that the Polish site is worth visiting. With your nod of approval for the site, I'll check out it more thoroughly. Thanks. :)