I finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Red Queen last night and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it although I wish the book didn't stop where it did. I should like to have continued reading about the exploits of Margaret after her son became King in the early years of his reign and I would like to have seen more about her relationship with her new daughter in law the future Queen of England. I think that both of these subjects may be addressed in future novels by Philippa as I understand from her biography that she is working on two further novels, one about the future Queen Elizabeth and one about Jacquetta her grandmother, and so I am certainly looking forward to reading those also.
On another positive note I discovered today that Alison Weir will be making an appearance at the Cheltenham literature festival in October 2011 to publicise her new nonfiction book on Mary Boleyn sister of the tragic second wife of Henry VIII Anne Boleyn and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing her and cant wait to book a ticket to see her once they go on sale in August.
As for me I'm starting to relax on my first day off and have taken up cycling again. since moving to my new flat I have had little chance to explore the local area and so after using my bike for the first time in two years to cycle to my parents house (on flat tyres I might add), I decided to get the bike out again today and go for a ride around. I found a lovely little park where I could imagine sitting down for a picnic and it would be a nice place to write too.
I'm going to sit and write now, Houdini (my cat's nickname due to her escape plights- I swear I will have to write them down one day) seems to sense this so has decided to plant herself directly across my laptop keyboard pinning my arms down as usual and paws me from time to time to remind me that she is still there. I'll update tomorrow on how I'm getting on.
Showing posts with label cheltenham literature festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheltenham literature festival. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Sunday, 17 October 2010
On Smallpox, Colds and Libraries
If you have seen my twitter feed today you will know that I am feeling a bit under the weather and suffering from a virus. I'll live but this feeling ill has cost me today. (more on this later and please forgive the constant sneezing)
As you may have noticed it's been a couple of days since my last post for which i apologise, but sometimes 24hrs isn't enough hours for one day. Since my last post i attended a further two lectures at the Cheltenham literature festival, one on Jane Austen and one on fairytales, and both of these were excellently delivered and very enjoyable. I had hoped to go to a further talk on saturday on (Atchoo!) Catherine of Aragon, however when i went to purchase a ticket on thursday it had unfortunately sold out. I was very disappointed at this but what can you do...
On the bright side, Stephen Fry was the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday and whilst I could not justify spending the money to see him talk, i did see him signing books in the waterstones bookcase after the talk, so yay!
On Friday and Saturday I did not write anything further on the novel, however on saturday I managed to borrow a very important book for the research for my novel. My MC and her family are going to get smallpox and for some of them it will be... Gasp!...Fatal!!!! Anyway I obviously needed to readup on Smallpox in 18th Century, i knew quite a bit about the discovery of the vaccination as the guy who discovered it (named Edward Jenner) lived in Berkeley, Gloucestershire not far from where I live and have grown up from, and all kids from gloucestershire automatically get the smallpox lessons at some point (usually primary school). Whilst I knew all about Edward Jenner and how the cure was discovered I knew little about the illness itself other than it was often fatal especially in kids, and Queen Elizabeth I suffered from it. I wanted to find out a bit more what it was like to live with it but really struggled to find anything on this, other than passing references to someone with it, the stats or the aftermath or a lecture on Edward Jenner - YES I KNOW WHO HE IS FOR THE TENTH TIME!!! Sorry you have to forgive me I'm ill don't you know...
I found this book in the gloucestershire library catalogue called princes and peasants smallpox in history, but couldn't work out which of the libraries in Glos actually had it. I also tried to reserve it but with no luck. So i popped down to my local smaller library which is 5mins walk from here and has novels but not much else and i asked them about it. They told me its at Gloucester, they ring up Gloucester Library and are told its in 'the basement' do i really want it. Well duh? why else would i ask for it? They promise to check they definitely have it i give them my phone number and make my way home via the co-op for groceries and half an hour later they ring me, so i told them i would pick it up in an hour. As i was making a special journey to the main library I thought i would check their catalogue for some other books i wanted, and then turned up with a list but could not find a single one. I can find 3 books on Georgian History thats it for well over 100 years of history yet the victorians get two shelves not fair! I give the list to the library woman- not a nice lady and a bit rude who tells me these are in the basement do i want them? (I got fed up of people saying this to me) Yes i do. She asks me if i want other similar books if she finds them, and i'm like yea ok. 15mins later she comes back with one book off the list one on 18th century art a couple of others which aren't really relevant but are on the georgians and one on the French revolution! (These people are supposed to be experts with books!)
I gave up picked up a book on samuel peyps, the smallpox one and one or two others and make my way home by bus and it tips it down with rain.
I went to bed last night with a sore throat and having done no chapters, my throat got worse last night affecting my sleep and today i have gradually worsened with the temp and drippy nose that comes with a cold. Having spent the day in bed I started word on the chapter mentioned in previous post, but reading it back its pretty terrible and desparately needs a re-write asap. I copied the marriage ceremony text out of a book from "dearly beloved" to "I now pronounce you man and wife" just to get the word count, and then i wrote the consummation of the marriage which isn't too bad i suppose but isn't too great.
In conclusion, today was a waste of time, i should have stayed in bed - i'll rephrase that I should have stayed in bed and not written my chapter.
I'm going to sneeze so I will leave you all in peace now and stop babbling on about nothing, which i am prone to do when ill. Hopefully will be better tomorrow, to sort out that chapter, (Too late Achoo! Achoo!) and am going to spend the rest of the night on the Nanoforums.
Nighty Night x
As you may have noticed it's been a couple of days since my last post for which i apologise, but sometimes 24hrs isn't enough hours for one day. Since my last post i attended a further two lectures at the Cheltenham literature festival, one on Jane Austen and one on fairytales, and both of these were excellently delivered and very enjoyable. I had hoped to go to a further talk on saturday on (Atchoo!) Catherine of Aragon, however when i went to purchase a ticket on thursday it had unfortunately sold out. I was very disappointed at this but what can you do...
On the bright side, Stephen Fry was the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday and whilst I could not justify spending the money to see him talk, i did see him signing books in the waterstones bookcase after the talk, so yay!
On Friday and Saturday I did not write anything further on the novel, however on saturday I managed to borrow a very important book for the research for my novel. My MC and her family are going to get smallpox and for some of them it will be... Gasp!...Fatal!!!! Anyway I obviously needed to readup on Smallpox in 18th Century, i knew quite a bit about the discovery of the vaccination as the guy who discovered it (named Edward Jenner) lived in Berkeley, Gloucestershire not far from where I live and have grown up from, and all kids from gloucestershire automatically get the smallpox lessons at some point (usually primary school). Whilst I knew all about Edward Jenner and how the cure was discovered I knew little about the illness itself other than it was often fatal especially in kids, and Queen Elizabeth I suffered from it. I wanted to find out a bit more what it was like to live with it but really struggled to find anything on this, other than passing references to someone with it, the stats or the aftermath or a lecture on Edward Jenner - YES I KNOW WHO HE IS FOR THE TENTH TIME!!! Sorry you have to forgive me I'm ill don't you know...
I found this book in the gloucestershire library catalogue called princes and peasants smallpox in history, but couldn't work out which of the libraries in Glos actually had it. I also tried to reserve it but with no luck. So i popped down to my local smaller library which is 5mins walk from here and has novels but not much else and i asked them about it. They told me its at Gloucester, they ring up Gloucester Library and are told its in 'the basement' do i really want it. Well duh? why else would i ask for it? They promise to check they definitely have it i give them my phone number and make my way home via the co-op for groceries and half an hour later they ring me, so i told them i would pick it up in an hour. As i was making a special journey to the main library I thought i would check their catalogue for some other books i wanted, and then turned up with a list but could not find a single one. I can find 3 books on Georgian History thats it for well over 100 years of history yet the victorians get two shelves not fair! I give the list to the library woman- not a nice lady and a bit rude who tells me these are in the basement do i want them? (I got fed up of people saying this to me) Yes i do. She asks me if i want other similar books if she finds them, and i'm like yea ok. 15mins later she comes back with one book off the list one on 18th century art a couple of others which aren't really relevant but are on the georgians and one on the French revolution! (These people are supposed to be experts with books!)
I gave up picked up a book on samuel peyps, the smallpox one and one or two others and make my way home by bus and it tips it down with rain.
I went to bed last night with a sore throat and having done no chapters, my throat got worse last night affecting my sleep and today i have gradually worsened with the temp and drippy nose that comes with a cold. Having spent the day in bed I started word on the chapter mentioned in previous post, but reading it back its pretty terrible and desparately needs a re-write asap. I copied the marriage ceremony text out of a book from "dearly beloved" to "I now pronounce you man and wife" just to get the word count, and then i wrote the consummation of the marriage which isn't too bad i suppose but isn't too great.
In conclusion, today was a waste of time, i should have stayed in bed - i'll rephrase that I should have stayed in bed and not written my chapter.
I'm going to sneeze so I will leave you all in peace now and stop babbling on about nothing, which i am prone to do when ill. Hopefully will be better tomorrow, to sort out that chapter, (Too late Achoo! Achoo!) and am going to spend the rest of the night on the Nanoforums.
Nighty Night x
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Another chapter done
Well it's been a good day today. I wrote chapter seven so thats all finished and I am very much looking forward to chapter 8 because i've never written anything like what is about to happen in chapter eight.
This morning I went to another of the talks at the Cheltenham Literature festival and this one was on courtiers at kensington palace during the reigns of King George I and II. I found this really useful because the characters in my novel meet King George II and his wife Caroline, and as a result of the talk i attended this morning I realise I made a slight error which i intend to put right.
The talk was an excellent one and was given by Lucy Worsley and i enjoyed it very much as in addition to telling us about the people at the court of both king georges she also told us more about their history, the clothes they wore and also about the places they live and i found it fascinating and most enjoyable.
Its been a long day and so Im keeping this post short and im looking forward to a quieter day tomorrow to. Im also starting Zumba tomorrow night so that should be fun!
This morning I went to another of the talks at the Cheltenham Literature festival and this one was on courtiers at kensington palace during the reigns of King George I and II. I found this really useful because the characters in my novel meet King George II and his wife Caroline, and as a result of the talk i attended this morning I realise I made a slight error which i intend to put right.
The talk was an excellent one and was given by Lucy Worsley and i enjoyed it very much as in addition to telling us about the people at the court of both king georges she also told us more about their history, the clothes they wore and also about the places they live and i found it fascinating and most enjoyable.
Its been a long day and so Im keeping this post short and im looking forward to a quieter day tomorrow to. Im also starting Zumba tomorrow night so that should be fun!
Monday, 11 October 2010
You wait ages for a bus...
Don't you just hate buses? I know I do. I left my house this morning at 9.30 to catch a bus in order to be at cheltenham town hall for 10am. Normally this is a 10-15min journey and a bus turns up every 10mins. Unfortunately I just missed one bus but no fear, I thought, I will catch the next one due in ten minutes and so I waited. One bus went the other way and i thought ooh won't belong he'll be back in a minute (we are right at the end of the route), I waited, and 5mins later another went pass the other side the road and then a few minutes later and a third one went the other way.
Suffice to say I was getting a little worried. the reason I was going to Cheltenham Townhall was for the Cheltenham Literature festival where Amanda Vickery, Author of 'Behind Closed Doors' and 'a Gentlemans Daughter', was doing a talk there which started at... 10am. Finally at 9.50am a bus turned up. I jumped on and off he went, but as we had to stop at virtually EVERY stop and there were 5 or 6 people queuing at each stop and then one of the buses and our bus kept overtaking each other. When I finally got to my stop to walk to the townhall it was 10.05am. I legged it to the box office, "Is it too late to go to the Amanda Vickery Talk?" I asked. The lady radio'd someone- no we can sneak you in. I paid my £7 and finally walked in at 10.10am and fortunately appeared not to have missed too much.
Amanda was brilliant her talk was very relevant to my most recent chapters that I have been writing about relationships and proposals in the 18th Century. She talked about several case studies and of the diaries she had come across in her research at the many archives but the one that I found of most interest was that of a gentleman by the name of Dudley a man of means who proposed a total of 8 times to various women before marrying. I had read of this case study in her book but it was the way Amanda put the case study across that made me enjoy it all the more. I have sat in on many lectures previously but very few were like this, and Amanda's sense of humour made her delivery of her lecture all the more enjoyable.
I was also very interested in the research side of things and at the end of her talk she was asked a question pertaining to how easy it was to find diaries which were relevant to her topic. She said that this wasn't easy at all, for example she had heard that at a particular archive there was a document called the Personal records of x (I forget the name) but upon her visit to the archive she discovered that instead it was a book of lists. Instead she had to be versatile in her methods and instead she moved her focus to that of diaries of bachelors and widows who were more likely to write of relationship matters in diaries due to loneliness.
All in all it was an excellent talk and at the end I had the opportunity of meeting the author when she did a book signing. I complemented her on her talk saying I had enjoyed it immensely and she was kind enough to sign both copies of the books i had brought with me 'behind closed doors' and 'a gentleman's daughter.'
I also understand that there is to be a documentary series to be shown on the BBC based on her books which will air in three weeks time and I cannot wait to see it and if you have access I also recommend you do the same.
I am off to another talk tomorrow this one on Courtiers specifically those at the court of George I and George II by Lucy Worsley Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces. The description of the session advertised in the official brochure of the Cheltenham Literature Festival is as follows:
"During the reigns of King George I and his son King George II, the elegant assembly room at Kensington Palace was a place of Skulduggery, where fans whistled open like flick-knives. Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, unlocks its secret world and brings to life its memorable characters in this eye-opening talk based on her book Courtiers."
I shall update you all with a review of this talk when I attend tomorrow.
Suffice to say I was getting a little worried. the reason I was going to Cheltenham Townhall was for the Cheltenham Literature festival where Amanda Vickery, Author of 'Behind Closed Doors' and 'a Gentlemans Daughter', was doing a talk there which started at... 10am. Finally at 9.50am a bus turned up. I jumped on and off he went, but as we had to stop at virtually EVERY stop and there were 5 or 6 people queuing at each stop and then one of the buses and our bus kept overtaking each other. When I finally got to my stop to walk to the townhall it was 10.05am. I legged it to the box office, "Is it too late to go to the Amanda Vickery Talk?" I asked. The lady radio'd someone- no we can sneak you in. I paid my £7 and finally walked in at 10.10am and fortunately appeared not to have missed too much.
Amanda was brilliant her talk was very relevant to my most recent chapters that I have been writing about relationships and proposals in the 18th Century. She talked about several case studies and of the diaries she had come across in her research at the many archives but the one that I found of most interest was that of a gentleman by the name of Dudley a man of means who proposed a total of 8 times to various women before marrying. I had read of this case study in her book but it was the way Amanda put the case study across that made me enjoy it all the more. I have sat in on many lectures previously but very few were like this, and Amanda's sense of humour made her delivery of her lecture all the more enjoyable.
I was also very interested in the research side of things and at the end of her talk she was asked a question pertaining to how easy it was to find diaries which were relevant to her topic. She said that this wasn't easy at all, for example she had heard that at a particular archive there was a document called the Personal records of x (I forget the name) but upon her visit to the archive she discovered that instead it was a book of lists. Instead she had to be versatile in her methods and instead she moved her focus to that of diaries of bachelors and widows who were more likely to write of relationship matters in diaries due to loneliness.
All in all it was an excellent talk and at the end I had the opportunity of meeting the author when she did a book signing. I complemented her on her talk saying I had enjoyed it immensely and she was kind enough to sign both copies of the books i had brought with me 'behind closed doors' and 'a gentleman's daughter.'
I also understand that there is to be a documentary series to be shown on the BBC based on her books which will air in three weeks time and I cannot wait to see it and if you have access I also recommend you do the same.
I am off to another talk tomorrow this one on Courtiers specifically those at the court of George I and George II by Lucy Worsley Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces. The description of the session advertised in the official brochure of the Cheltenham Literature Festival is as follows:
"During the reigns of King George I and his son King George II, the elegant assembly room at Kensington Palace was a place of Skulduggery, where fans whistled open like flick-knives. Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, unlocks its secret world and brings to life its memorable characters in this eye-opening talk based on her book Courtiers."
I shall update you all with a review of this talk when I attend tomorrow.
Friday, 8 October 2010
Spotlight on... Research
Researching my novel has been one of the most challenging things i have had to do in order to prepare my novel. I thought i had done quite a bit of research before i started anyway but i also borrowed a few books from the library and have also bought some books most notably 2 books of Amanda Vickerys which look at women in Georgian England.
I keep finding that as i make progress on my novel i am having to do more and more research. I intend to write a love letter in one of my up and coming chapters and in order to do so i wanted to look at some existing love letters from the period. Some of the most notable letters were those of Napoleon Bonaparte. His letters were written approximately 60 years after the period in which my novel is set but he was quite a prolific writer and his letters tell a lot about his relationships with all of his lovers. Some of the letters i found the most relevant to what i intend to write are the letters he wrote to Marie Walewska. His language is so passionate one of my favourite lines is:
"I saw no one but you, I admired no one but you, I want no one but you.
Answer me at once, and assuage the impatient passion of N"
From this and others that i have read i am really looking forward to having a go at writing one myself.
On another note i have just heard some great news. i live in Cheltenham in England and the Cheltenham Literature Festival started today, I had a look at the programme over the next few weeks and you won't believe this but Amanda Vickery is doing a Seminar based on her two books behind closed doors and the gentlemans daughter! I am so pleased and am definitely gonna book myself in to see her and perhaps even get both books signed!!! Even better it's taking place on Monday so only a few days to go.
I keep finding that as i make progress on my novel i am having to do more and more research. I intend to write a love letter in one of my up and coming chapters and in order to do so i wanted to look at some existing love letters from the period. Some of the most notable letters were those of Napoleon Bonaparte. His letters were written approximately 60 years after the period in which my novel is set but he was quite a prolific writer and his letters tell a lot about his relationships with all of his lovers. Some of the letters i found the most relevant to what i intend to write are the letters he wrote to Marie Walewska. His language is so passionate one of my favourite lines is:
"I saw no one but you, I admired no one but you, I want no one but you.
Answer me at once, and assuage the impatient passion of N"
From this and others that i have read i am really looking forward to having a go at writing one myself.
On another note i have just heard some great news. i live in Cheltenham in England and the Cheltenham Literature Festival started today, I had a look at the programme over the next few weeks and you won't believe this but Amanda Vickery is doing a Seminar based on her two books behind closed doors and the gentlemans daughter! I am so pleased and am definitely gonna book myself in to see her and perhaps even get both books signed!!! Even better it's taking place on Monday so only a few days to go.
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