Inspiration and a Historic House Revisited by Sheena Wilkinson

I've had Covid recently and though officially 'better' I am distinctly tired physically and mentally, so this will be a short post.  

Last week I was in London -- not the most sensible post-Covid strategy in the world.  I was attending the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual conference (which included some historical novelists of course), and staying in Bow, East London. I blogged some years ago about the fascinating house where I stay, which belongs to a good friend, and as this was over five years ago, I'm suggesting you refresh your memory, as it's very relevant to this post: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-house-with-history-by-sheena-wilkinson.html

This visit, my friend had arranged for her book group, plus a few other interested readers, to come and meet me to talk about my recent novel, Mrs Hart's Marriage Bureau, set in 1934. It was only as I posed outside the house for a photo, that it occurred to me how serendipitous the house was for the meeting. Though set in a marriage bureau, the novel is about the different sorts of fulfilment women sought for themselves.

One character uses her marriage to help her set up a factory based on co-operative principles, allowing people, women especially, to learn new skills and become more independent. It's absolutely in keeping with the initiative of Sylvia Pankhurst in Norman Grove a generation before. I've been visiting this house since the 1990s, always fascinated by its feminist history, and on Monday night, as I sat in the kitchen chatting about Mrs Hart to twenty-first century readers, I wondered if, without being conscious of it, the house, with its toy factory and nursery, had influenced my writing more than I had realised? 

Historical Fiction: Ways to keep your inner muse inspired

 by Deborah Swift

I have been writing for quite a number of years now and in that time the publishing landscape has changed enormously. I am now reliably informed by Google that there are 2,700 books published every single day, and against that tsunami of books, my sitting down at my desk every day to write another  can seem rather pointless. Why would anyone need even one more book?

When I first began writing, I was inspired by the whole craft of writing. I got myself a shelf full of books which told me about plot, structure, research, and other craft skills. Most of these books are now something I rarely look at as they offer the same old advice re-packaged. So where is a seasoned writer to find the inspiration to carry on writing?

Here are some online ideas I find really useful when I am particularly jaded. They are all free, and won't cost you a thing.

First up - there is always research. Research is my life blood and the interesting facts I discover whilst I'm doing it are not only what keeps me engaged, but also enables me to breathe a semblance of life into my books.

Visual Feasts - Go on a live tour.

There are online walking tours to just about everywhere now. How about one I've just enjoyed? It takes about 45 minutes and is an ideal visual orientation and overview of the subject I'm researching. You can tip the tour guide if you want but its not obligatory. Jewish History in Amsterdam

There are offerings on this site from every corner of the world -  London -Way of Death is about the execution sites and the Necropolis of Old London.

For a longer tour you could sample this from a different company, which has a different approach more like a lecture tour, and more in depth information - it lasts an hour and a half .

WWII and the Western Front.

Pin Back Your Ears - Listen to a podcast by another historical novelist

I love to hear other writers offer me their pearls of wisdom, and hearing someone else talk about their own difficulties helps me to feel I'm not alone in tackling my own big project.

Here are some good ones to get you started.

The Write Show - Writing Historical Fiction about a little known figure (Mary Magdalene) and how the writer handled contradictions in her sources.

Art in Fiction - Writers (most are historical novelists) talk about artists, writers and performers that feature in their books and how they brought them to life. 

Historical Fiction and the Perils of Family History - Emma Darwin unpacks how to fail writing about your famous family!

Historical Fiction Unpacked  - a regular selection of historical novelists talk about their process in creating their latest work.

Dig a bit Deeper - Fire up your brain 

The question most historical novelists are tired of answering gets a breath of fresh air in this 

 in-depth article in The Literary Hub by Caitlin Horrocks.

The anxiety of writing historical fiction  or this take on the old debate about accuracy from Hilary Mantel; Facts are not the Truth 

Or this one - Does Historical Fiction Distort the Truth?

Take a Tip from the Experts - You're never too old to learn

However expert you are, a novel is always a new journey. Of course there are many classes and courses that will take your money, but if you're just a bit jaded and need some free pep, then here at the National Centre for Writing, there are free soundbites, classes and courses including ones by Sarah Perry and Nicola Upson.  Want to write a convincing fight scene? Try these tips from the New York Editors Blog.

Mooch round a Museum - without leaving your chair

Tired of your view? How about visiting the Frick Collection in New York? Expect to see Old Masters, decorative arts, and European sculptures in this former residence turned art museum.

Or how about Blenheim Palace - wander three hundred years of history and the sumptuous gilded rooms with only a mouse. My personal favourite is the Rijksmuseum, home of Dutch Masters and a visually stunning website.

The Beauty of the Book - can't beat the real world

Of course one of the obvious and best ways to get inspired (and yes I deliberately left it until last) is to read. I love my local secondhand bookshop. In it I can browse openings of dozens of pre-read novels for a flavour of the writer.  Other writers' voices are not like mine, and I love to see what the differences are and how they construct their stories. There are also old books - the solid language of Victoriana, and the hip lingo of the 1970's.

As most of my life as a writer is conducted online or via the computer, it is great to get back to the real world of books. Weirdly, no matter how obscure my subject matter I can usually find something of interest in a second hand bookshop. It encourages the cross-fertilization of ideas because there are so many random books close to each other - many of which are not the bestsellers touted in every other bookshop. Nearly all my non-fiction research books are actual books rather than ebooks, and often second-hand. It is much easier to find stuff again in a real book, and I often read the book more than once and need to put post-its on them with my notes about why that extract is useful.

Struggling with a title? Your secondhand bookshop will provide lots of ideas. Need to think of a blurb? Again, the second-hand bookshop will give you back-cover ideas culled from the last fifty years at least.

Here's my local bookshop, Carnforth Books. I'm glad to give them a shout out with their thousands of second hand (and new) books,

Hope you found this post useful, and I'd be glad of any other ideas to keep my nose to the grindstone. And no, it's not procrastination, honest.

You can find my latest book, a biographical novel of Renaissance poisoner Giulia Tofana, here, and my website for more exploring here.

Chat with me on Twitter @swiftstory

History in Abundance by Sheena Wilkinson

Greetings from the Clockhouse, Arvon’s writing retreat in the grounds of The Hurst in Shropshire. 

I’m sitting here in front of a view that hasn’t changed substantially in centuries, a landscape that has inspired writers from Housman to Webb to Malcolm Saville. The building I’m in, while recently refurbished, is properly old, with windowsills two foot thick. I’ve spent hours wandering ancient forest pathways. The ground is riddled with hoof-prints and it’s so easy to imagine them belonging not to a modern pleasure horse but to a hack or carthorse of years gone by.

Oh yes --  and I’m here to edit a novel set in Belfast 1921. A story of politics and rioting and tribal loyalties and young women. A story of despair and hope. 

So there’s HISTORY in abundance – in my head, on the manuscript at my elbow as a type, in the built and natural environment in which I have my being for this week. Easy, I thought, when I realised my History Girls post would fall due while I was here: lots of inspiration all around you. No excuse! And yet…

Sometimes, I admit, it’s really hard to think of what to write for this blog. I checked through some recent posts for inspiration. Maybe one of them would spark a response in me. There’s certainly an eclectic mix of topics – from Roman medicine to Thomas Cromwell, women artists to 195os housekeeping. All fascinating, all guaranteed to pull me out of Belfast 1921 and into various other worlds. And let me assure me, almost anywhere is a better place to be than Belfast 1921. Belfast 1921 is the last thing I want to write about just now. And yet, it's here in my head, chasing out almost everything else. 

It never fails to astonish me, how much work people put into their History Girls posts – the careful research, the detailed analysis, the well-chosen and often hard-to-source pictures. I know I often take a History-Lite approach myself – a bit of family history, a few old houses, some Musing. Other times – like next month, I promise, when I will have emerged from Belfast 1921 sufficiently to have something interesting to say about it – I manage a more thoughtful, erudite post. 

But for now, I’m so mired in my own historical fiction, in what I often call The Editing Cave, that I don’t think I have much more to offer. Apart from these pictures of an ancient landscape.