Celebrating 100 years of screaming girls

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but when I'm not writing, dancing, sleeping, working or eating, I am a guide leader with girlguiding UK, in fact my username on here 'Thistle', is the name my girls chose and now call me by (like brown owl in brownies).

2009/10 has been the 100th Anniversary since the girl guides were set up in the UK, and there have been one year of celebrations which are due to end this month.
This evening I went to a party to celebrate the end of the centenary at cheltenham racecourse, and my girls aged between 9-11 came too. It was a brilliant night with singing and we all got to remake our promise at 20.10 on the 20/10 2010. At the end there was the most amazing firework display lasting approx 10 minutes and these fireworks were played against a soundtrack of Take That's Greatest Day, another track which i didn't know but which sounded classical and was very firework like, and for the finale don't stop believing (the glee version -btw did i mention i'm a fan...)


I've heard don't stop believing many times in the last year, but today I heard it differently as all the girls spontaneously started singing it all 4,500 of them, and those that had glowsticks/bracelets waved them and the girls with flashing music all swayed to the music with them on their heads. It reminded me of another girlguiding event called the big gig - a music concert with acts from x-factor contestants to sugababes and the hoosiers usually held at places like wembley or birmingham and with guides from across the uk- I don't think I ever saw so many bunny ears in all my life as I saw the night I went to the big gig in 2008! Tonight, though smaller was just as amazing and I must admit I felt a bit emotional and I was so proud to be a member of such an amazing organisation, I thought I might break down.

Now as I sit here typing with the memory of the screams of 4500 gloucestershire rainbows, brownies, guides, senior section and even those of leaders and the trefoil guild, still resonating in my ears, I feel so happy and found it so rewarding for it is days like today which remind me why I volunteer.

All in all a very productive day!

I've actually had quite a good day today, as i have done not just one chapter but done a third of the next one too. I would have finished the second chapter, but im too tired to type anything further, and when i'm tired I find it difficult to write as i run out of ideas.

So what have i written? Well I sorted out chapters 8 and 9 which dealt with my MC's wedding and wedding night respectively - that was fun i can tell you- I've never written an 'x rated' scene before and as i wrote it i couldn't help but think that if it ever got published my mum, and both of my grandmother's would read it and i found that a bit cringeworthy, although i tried not to tone it down too much. One hint i've come across from somewhere was 'not to mention fluids' (if i find the link where i read that i'll post it) and so i didn't.

Chapter 10 was really nice to write as my MC and her new husband moved to there new home, and i wrote this really sweet bit about how she was so exhausted on arrival that he carried her to her bedroom, and would not allow the servants to do it, and then didn't attempt to seduce her and instead let her sleep. There was further x rated stuff the next day and a puppy and then by the end of chapter 10 she was 'up the duff' (unsurprisingly)



Chapter 11 is the birth of the child, and i was greatly inspired for the writing of this passage by the novel 'Innocent Traitor' by Alison Weir (who i am a bit of a fan of). She writes Tudor fiction and non fiction and I have two of her novels 'IT' and the Lady Elizabeth, but I also have her non-fiction book 'The lady in the tower' which is based on her research under Anne Boleyn. I absolutely love Tudor History and fiction - I studied the Tudors at degree level and loved every minute of it - however I am not writing Tudor fiction because the market is saturated with it due to leading Authors such as Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory who I also enjoy (despite the accuracies, outlandish theories and assumptions made in both- they are 'fiction' after all). I know there are plenty more out there but for me I love the Georgians particularly the clothing and the gowns like the Mantua (see above)and other wider court gowns (like that shown at the very top of this page).

I hope to finish chapter 11 tomorrow, and then i get to start work on the really dark and nitty gritty stuff (enter stage right: Grim Reaper), which is where my research on smallpox comes in. I can't wait!

I'm going to end with something funny today. I had a bit of a scare as i wrote this as i realised i had LOST 3000 words and chapter 11 had been saved as chapter 10 (I save under individual chapter names), I panicked, the real chapter 10 was nowhere to be found- all those hours of research and work wasted!!!! I went into recent documents and i saw that there were 2 chapter 10s and luckily I found the missing 3000 words saved in the wrong folder, but not before almost giving myself a heart attack. And if you thought that was funny see what you make of the picture below showing an 18th century lady in wide court dress over huge panniers so big she has to enter through a door sideways!

From Gobbledegook to prose: turning that crap into something wonderful

I was ill yesterday as you probably saw from my post, and i managed to write 3000 words of complete and total rubbish. I'm not sure how I did it, reading back i can see all the key things i wanted to be in the scene are all missing. The events are right but the ideas, thoughts and feelings i wanted to convey in the scene are not there. So i decided that rather than continue with the next chapter and edit at the end of the novel I would rip the chapter apart now and fix it. I could have waited but i just didn't feel right continuing until everything was put the way it should have been. I also thought i would be more difficult to continue with the following chapter until the previous one was corrected.

In my editing some of the chapter just went completely but on the other hand i also added a great deal. As it stands i am halfway through the chapter's editing and the word count has jumped up to 4000 words. Increasing the word count and knowing that i will be increasing it even further in the second half of the chapter has made me think about splitting my one chapter into two, however, I don't know whether it will be worth doing until i have finished tidying the second half of the chapter.

One of my favourite mistakes known as nanoism in the NANO world was my opening line for the chapter - we were married 6 months later in the spring. I then spent the next 2000 words describing how she was about to get married and the ceremony and the clothes and wedding night. What was the point in saying they were married and then going back and telling the story of the wedding. It didn't work and defeated the object of the first line. so i got rid of it and got a slightly better line which im much happier with.

I've still got a lot to do on this chapter and can hopefully fix the rest tonight but i have learnt a valuable lesson. Im glad i wrote yesterday because I proved I can write when im ill, unfortunately i cannot write anything coherent but I can work on that, and by spending time on the chapter when i was ill i still managed to churn the words out and create something that i could work with. I also learnt that i shouldn't be afraid to do major editing at the end of a chapter if something doesn't work it doesn't work and isn't it better to fix it when your in the mindset then come back and do some major changes when your not? Thats up for deliberation but if anyone wants to comment then please speak now or forever hold your peace...

(nb im sorry i've just written a whole chapter on marriage including the words of the ceremony itself and i couldn't resist.)

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

What a carry on!

So i've spent today doing research for the next chapter if my novel. My MC is getting married so i've been reading up on marriage customs to find out what would happen at the wedding but I've also been reading up on the wedding night.

I've never written a 'consummation' scene before so to get some ideas i turned to my phillipa gregory and alison weir historical fiction to get inspiration on how to write these type of scenes. What this has meant was going through the previously mentioned novels with a pile of post it notes and marking the relevant pages.Now that I have done that I am ready to write my chapter, either this evening or tomorrow.

I have also spent today following the chile miner rescue which has been given 24hr coverage on bbc news,and I have to say it is the greatest feeling knowing that they will all be rescued by tomorrow and hopefully by the end of the day.

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!

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.