I am way under my word count for the past 2-3 weeks. Ever since work re-started, really.
Finished the scenes I added/moved. Story has passed the turn-around; the "dreary struggle against poverty" stuff is over and the "crazy stunting" part has begun.
Have been playing with timelines and outline again as I work up the details of what the next chapters do. It is always a bit of a postman's problem; A could be boating when he meets B, that's natural, but if A and C are together when B first appears there's some great stuff C could say. But C hates boats. So you juggle, and you mourn the roads you can't take.
And I considered strongly two re-writes. One is probably a better book; the first chapter takes place out of London. Makes it more focused on London as the core setting, cuts the cast list down a bit, doesn't lay false trails about history that isn't The Blitz. And it makes logistical sense.
Starting in London also means I have to work to insert the cut material into other chapters. That makes one or two of the scenes stronger but there's stuff I really can't do and that just gets dumped.
And it means the First Look is London, probably Trafalgar Square. But at the same time; starting in the Midlands meant I could make some generic points about England before focusing in. I am on the fence but it is possible for that alone -- for the first moments in a new country -- my original instincts were right.
All in all, it probably is the right choice. I'm less sure about shifting around events later, particularly, moving the discovery of the Diary earlier so Penny can be reading about Linnet being unhappy in a hole underground just as she is herself being unhappy in a hole underground. My main objection there is it is a bit too on-the-nose.
***
I've had this conversation with myself before. It is always a question; will I learn more efficiently from re-writing the novel I have, or completing the novel I have and writing a new one?
And once again I'm coming down on the side of finishing. The smaller plus; the more words you write, the better you get. The bigger plus; what I really need to do is write more. I need to find out ways to write more, that is, faster. Rewrites are very much not faster.
***
In the middle of making coffee yesterday I had another of those unfortunate realizations.
For this book, the Big Bad is Guy. He's not a bad person, he just is what sets events in motion. Well, and he tries to kill my protagonist, but that's understandable.
Guy is a particular type. He's the one who wants to belong. But he doesn't want to fit in. He wants to be at the center table. He wants recognition and acclaim. And he's found a flawed method to attempt this. He's a quick learner but not a deep one. He gets those easy talking points, those cool facts that everyone should know, the advanced technique; some thing that he can use to show off with.
And it really only annoys the center table, because they have the depth of understanding he'll never have. He's too lazy for that. He's the sort that jumps into gun discussions with that one test that proved 9mm was superior to 45ACP. Or that shows up in Archaeology circles with the possibly pre-Clovis points found near a Mammoth. For people outside of whatever sport or activity or field, he looks like a flashy expert. For people inside the field, though...
Okay, the teal deer in the room is the way I've currently outlined, he gets only one chapter in which he can be seen doing his thing. There's more to his story and he is the central mover of my story and, dammit, he should have been in the primary cast list!
So now I'm going back and thinking about whether and where I can introduce him, and what exactly are the secrets Penny still needs to learn to get to the climax of the story, and what triggers those moments of discovery and/or realization, and where they need to fall amid the rest of the timeline........
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Sad Trombone
I am surprised and disappointed by how long it is taking to pick up trombone. Of course I got a too-cheap one; scratchy slide, no tuning slide.
The embouchure is just different enough I'm having to relearn my slotting. Well, this week I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I think it is because it is an octave lower than trumpet, you have to adjust the embouchure a lot more than you would on trumpet when valving/sliding down. Basically, you have to move your lip more; the notes are physically further apart.
My current exercise is to play a long note and slide slowly all the way out to seventh and back up to first. I keep getting a horrid blatty sound on the second partial but it is finally clearing up. And today I blew the top C. Which is loud.
***
On the novel, I am pretty much decided I'm going to throw out the entire first chapter. And move the essential material (there's introductions to a bunch of concepts; dialects particularly Geordie, the difference between England and Britain, Panto, the Home Guard, metal detectors, archaeological survey) to following chapters.
It will make it more focused; all in London instead of starting in the Midlands, more about W.W.II -- dropping the Seven Day's Queen stuff. A weaker opening scene, unfortunately.
And that's 3,700 words of work going by-by, plus re-writes of every single scene in Part I.
I'm also contemplating an even more ambitious re-shuffle to shift the mid-point break earlier, bring in the diary earlier, and be able to have Linnet's experiences of the ghastly Kennington Park shelter happening as Penny is being both broke and suffering from an arrow wound. But that's a lot of shuffling.
The embouchure is just different enough I'm having to relearn my slotting. Well, this week I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I think it is because it is an octave lower than trumpet, you have to adjust the embouchure a lot more than you would on trumpet when valving/sliding down. Basically, you have to move your lip more; the notes are physically further apart.
My current exercise is to play a long note and slide slowly all the way out to seventh and back up to first. I keep getting a horrid blatty sound on the second partial but it is finally clearing up. And today I blew the top C. Which is loud.
***
On the novel, I am pretty much decided I'm going to throw out the entire first chapter. And move the essential material (there's introductions to a bunch of concepts; dialects particularly Geordie, the difference between England and Britain, Panto, the Home Guard, metal detectors, archaeological survey) to following chapters.
It will make it more focused; all in London instead of starting in the Midlands, more about W.W.II -- dropping the Seven Day's Queen stuff. A weaker opening scene, unfortunately.
And that's 3,700 words of work going by-by, plus re-writes of every single scene in Part I.
I'm also contemplating an even more ambitious re-shuffle to shift the mid-point break earlier, bring in the diary earlier, and be able to have Linnet's experiences of the ghastly Kennington Park shelter happening as Penny is being both broke and suffering from an arrow wound. But that's a lot of shuffling.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Cabman's Shelter
So this is the new normal.
I'm back at work. It is a little strange; we have a skeleton crew of about a dozen rattling around a campus that normally holds 200-300. In some of our buildings there is only one person coming in (we have dozens more working from home).
For me, it really hasn't changed much. We are on a common schedule because we don't want to play with the biometric palm scanners on the time clocks (yeah, I realized a while back that was a problem just waiting to hit). I'm on full time at the moment, too. Since I'm alone in my little shop, I'm not even masked most of the day.
Basically, it is lonelier days and longer ones. And then I can't go out in the evenings. But I've been tired enough I haven't missed that.
(It's not that I need the work. That is, I don't need it now. I'd be happy enough staying safe, and even without unemployment I could keep the sabbatical going for a while longer. In the future, though, I'd like to have a job to come back to, and saying, "Yes, sir, how high do you want me to jump?" is a way to see to it that I get asked back when, as we hope, we open for business again.)
***
Got no writing done. Well, did get one thing done; I realized in my push to blow through text I was choosing weaker scenes because they were easier to write. Well, sitting back, I do need to show some of the things I skipped over.
So I'm mostly picking up some background stuff. This is the London Flat scenes, and the revised version made this a good place to pick up on the Black Cab as well. So I've been reading up on the TX4 and the new electrics replacing them and various other things.
And once again; sure, all I'm doing now is reading up via Google and Wikipedia and why couldn't my reader do that and cut out the middleman? Thing is -- I already knew about Black Cabs, and The Knowledge, and I chatted with a guy who was studying up for his exam when I was briefly in London myself.
See, that's the first step of knowledge. I just answered a question on Quora about whether the CMBR was ever visible. I did a quick bit of reading up on Wikipedia. But, you see, I already knew the general nature of the answer and what to type in for the search terms. What I wanted was the age and temperature at Recombination -- the moment when the young universe became transparent.
(About 300,000 years from the Big Bang and 3,000 K, if you are wondering.)
My best guess is actually the stuff in the outline is enough to bring me to about the right page count and general balance. But I am wanting to add the Black Cab Chase I thought about a while back, and a visit to Angel (a slightly-faked name for a well-known council estate aka "Project") that just recently took my imagination.
The latest Rivers of London on my reading table (okay, on my Kindle) is doing something with a particularly bizarre Council Estate as well. Nice when things work out. Although I have a feeling Penny won't get further than the Elephant and Castle tube station on this particular adventure.
I'm back at work. It is a little strange; we have a skeleton crew of about a dozen rattling around a campus that normally holds 200-300. In some of our buildings there is only one person coming in (we have dozens more working from home).
For me, it really hasn't changed much. We are on a common schedule because we don't want to play with the biometric palm scanners on the time clocks (yeah, I realized a while back that was a problem just waiting to hit). I'm on full time at the moment, too. Since I'm alone in my little shop, I'm not even masked most of the day.
Basically, it is lonelier days and longer ones. And then I can't go out in the evenings. But I've been tired enough I haven't missed that.
(It's not that I need the work. That is, I don't need it now. I'd be happy enough staying safe, and even without unemployment I could keep the sabbatical going for a while longer. In the future, though, I'd like to have a job to come back to, and saying, "Yes, sir, how high do you want me to jump?" is a way to see to it that I get asked back when, as we hope, we open for business again.)
***
Got no writing done. Well, did get one thing done; I realized in my push to blow through text I was choosing weaker scenes because they were easier to write. Well, sitting back, I do need to show some of the things I skipped over.
So I'm mostly picking up some background stuff. This is the London Flat scenes, and the revised version made this a good place to pick up on the Black Cab as well. So I've been reading up on the TX4 and the new electrics replacing them and various other things.
And once again; sure, all I'm doing now is reading up via Google and Wikipedia and why couldn't my reader do that and cut out the middleman? Thing is -- I already knew about Black Cabs, and The Knowledge, and I chatted with a guy who was studying up for his exam when I was briefly in London myself.
See, that's the first step of knowledge. I just answered a question on Quora about whether the CMBR was ever visible. I did a quick bit of reading up on Wikipedia. But, you see, I already knew the general nature of the answer and what to type in for the search terms. What I wanted was the age and temperature at Recombination -- the moment when the young universe became transparent.
(About 300,000 years from the Big Bang and 3,000 K, if you are wondering.)
My best guess is actually the stuff in the outline is enough to bring me to about the right page count and general balance. But I am wanting to add the Black Cab Chase I thought about a while back, and a visit to Angel (a slightly-faked name for a well-known council estate aka "Project") that just recently took my imagination.
The latest Rivers of London on my reading table (okay, on my Kindle) is doing something with a particularly bizarre Council Estate as well. Nice when things work out. Although I have a feeling Penny won't get further than the Elephant and Castle tube station on this particular adventure.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Where the banshees live and they do live well
My neighbor is apparently doing a rain dance. Well, that I wouldn't mind. He just keeps stopping and starting, and never singing on pitch, and it goes on and on and on. Very distracting, and it is a muddy baritone that cuts through headphones as easily as it cuts through walls.
But, actually, the title is on account of finally getting across the street to get take-out breakfast from my favorite cafe.
I've been looking at pictures of a different monument all morning; not Stonehenge, but the Acropolis. And I've discovered 80% of the stock photographs are taken from the same angle. I am driven to distraction trying to find something that shows the Parthenon but doesn't look like it was taken from a helicopter, but instead from ground level.
Yes, I've been revisiting my cover.
I call it an artifact cover; it has an artifact, and it is an artifact. Of my original intent to have the name of an artifact as the title of each book. I never did come up with anything clever for foxes. In any case, the idea of a Roman coin is not really going to work for the next one.
Well, I could go with Roman coins and an archaeologist's trowel with a bit of the tile of Leslie Green platform of the London Underground in the background.
Thing is, I am more convinced that artifact-on-cover = thriller. Quirky image on cover = mystery cozy. And this is very much a solo-female-protagonist-has-adventure series, so stock photo girl and thing in background = what this series should have.
***
I finally did the first Diary scene in London Fox. The diary entries go on the list for special attention during the rewrites, to try and put them closer to appropriate period text.
Amusingly, Linnet is using the 19th century stylization of redacting names; "Mr. C__ told me this morning..." But that's because she's been hanging out with a spook and she's censoring her own diary.
It also saves me from adding MORE names to the damn thing.
Figuring out what goes into each "reading of the diary" scene meant I had to do a breakdown of the last week and figure out just how many entries I had and where they fell. So I have a nearly complete timeline now:
3 Nov arrived London (eve)
4 Nov Bradgate Park (Guy Fawkes)
5 Nov Imperial War Museum (monday)
6 Nov Tues begin at Kennington Green, Pig’s Ear, YouTube
7 Nov clash with Tony, Vans — could be Wed or Thurs (also New Moon)
8 Nov
9 Nov better, announcement
10 Nov Colwyn, Parrot (Lord Mayor Peter Estlin)
11 Nov Nurse, Check (Armistice)
12 Nov Nine Elms grounds, black and tan (monday)
13 Nov selected, Pimlico, Fleet/rally
14 Nov Dalek Dig, James Bond, degrees, Brixton (Wed)
15 Nov door discovered, Kennington Loop
16 Nov Nyovani, Diary
17 Nov Ack-Ack Girl, Steve, Limehouse Hostel
18 Nov Highgate, Kennington Park breakthrough (was 19th 2017)
19 Nov House-Hunting in Kennington, Weekender?
20 Nov Photographs, The Doctor, Diary: intro, trench shelter, Morlocks
21 Nov Black Cab, 410?, Diary: Kennington Park
22 Nov Panto, Playing Archaeologist, Battersea (eve), Diary: Captain
23 Nov Fox revealed, Last Day Dig, Diary: Wingate, (full moon)
24 Nov The Globe
25 Nov ATS, cockney, into the Underground, Diary: final
26 Nov
27 Nov (Diana real world)
28 Nov
29 Nov (London Bridge stabbing — was 2019)
30 Nov
1 Dec Romans
Standing at 40K, not sure if what I have will go closer to 20 or 30.
And I'm scribbling more and more notes for a book on writing. Those that can't do...teach.
But, actually, the title is on account of finally getting across the street to get take-out breakfast from my favorite cafe.
I've been looking at pictures of a different monument all morning; not Stonehenge, but the Acropolis. And I've discovered 80% of the stock photographs are taken from the same angle. I am driven to distraction trying to find something that shows the Parthenon but doesn't look like it was taken from a helicopter, but instead from ground level.
Yes, I've been revisiting my cover.
I call it an artifact cover; it has an artifact, and it is an artifact. Of my original intent to have the name of an artifact as the title of each book. I never did come up with anything clever for foxes. In any case, the idea of a Roman coin is not really going to work for the next one.
Well, I could go with Roman coins and an archaeologist's trowel with a bit of the tile of Leslie Green platform of the London Underground in the background.
Thing is, I am more convinced that artifact-on-cover = thriller. Quirky image on cover = mystery cozy. And this is very much a solo-female-protagonist-has-adventure series, so stock photo girl and thing in background = what this series should have.
***
I finally did the first Diary scene in London Fox. The diary entries go on the list for special attention during the rewrites, to try and put them closer to appropriate period text.
Amusingly, Linnet is using the 19th century stylization of redacting names; "Mr. C__ told me this morning..." But that's because she's been hanging out with a spook and she's censoring her own diary.
It also saves me from adding MORE names to the damn thing.
Figuring out what goes into each "reading of the diary" scene meant I had to do a breakdown of the last week and figure out just how many entries I had and where they fell. So I have a nearly complete timeline now:
3 Nov arrived London (eve)
4 Nov Bradgate Park (Guy Fawkes)
5 Nov Imperial War Museum (monday)
6 Nov Tues begin at Kennington Green, Pig’s Ear, YouTube
7 Nov clash with Tony, Vans — could be Wed or Thurs (also New Moon)
8 Nov
9 Nov better, announcement
10 Nov Colwyn, Parrot (Lord Mayor Peter Estlin)
11 Nov Nurse, Check (Armistice)
12 Nov Nine Elms grounds, black and tan (monday)
13 Nov selected, Pimlico, Fleet/rally
14 Nov Dalek Dig, James Bond, degrees, Brixton (Wed)
15 Nov door discovered, Kennington Loop
16 Nov Nyovani, Diary
17 Nov Ack-Ack Girl, Steve, Limehouse Hostel
18 Nov Highgate, Kennington Park breakthrough (was 19th 2017)
19 Nov House-Hunting in Kennington, Weekender?
20 Nov Photographs, The Doctor, Diary: intro, trench shelter, Morlocks
21 Nov Black Cab, 410?, Diary: Kennington Park
22 Nov Panto, Playing Archaeologist, Battersea (eve), Diary: Captain
23 Nov Fox revealed, Last Day Dig, Diary: Wingate, (full moon)
24 Nov The Globe
25 Nov ATS, cockney, into the Underground, Diary: final
26 Nov
27 Nov (Diana real world)
28 Nov
29 Nov (London Bridge stabbing — was 2019)
30 Nov
1 Dec Romans
Standing at 40K, not sure if what I have will go closer to 20 or 30.
And I'm scribbling more and more notes for a book on writing. Those that can't do...teach.
Friday, May 8, 2020
Fiction in the Time of Cholera
The nice thing about writing contemporary fiction is you can just go to the website.
Except not today. I was just looking up stuff on the New Covent Market Garden and it took longer than it should have to confirm that it is wholesale only. In any case there's a five pound entrance fee.
All of my usual map sources and route sources are full of red flags and closure signs. And none of these applied in November of 2018, when the story is set. I used to be able to look up hotel prices, even. Well, that's not a good guide now!
Maybe I need to become more clever at using the Wayback Machine. Of course, things like Expedia are all php-everything so you still wouldn't get the old data...
***
One of the many things I'm trying to do in Fox and Hounds is play upon the stress between London the stereotypes and London the real city. Right in the first paragraph, I have Penny thinking that she knows better, and it isn't going to be all fish & chips and double-decker buses. And is promptly undercut by the passing of a double-decker bus.
After all, this is a town that built a reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Of course, it also built a really big ferris wheel. Like everywhere, they have to live with those stresses; history and tradition and tourist draw versus, well, the rest of life in a changing world.
So I'm sending her to Trafalgar Square, the Tower of London, the Globe, Highgate Cemetery, and Battersea Power Station. And at least one chip shop.
I'm trying hard not to do the all-star cast of what's familiar to American audiences. But there's a problem; a lot of those same properties are popular there, too. So, yes, Harry Potter is getting name-checked. As is Doctor Who. And at this point in the manuscript I've also managed to name check and/or quote from J.R.R., Douglas Adams, Downton Abbey, Dad's Army (okay, that one's not so well known out here)...
And I've forgotten what else. I'm still struggling with the first diary scene. Partly because I'm also trying to organize the last half of the book and there's a lot of plot lines that didn't get picked up properly in the first half and will likely be re-written. And a lot of thoughts that I need to have some things that are a bit more exciting happen.
Not just for the excitement per se, but to develop some underlying themes. The most out-there idea is meeting with some 410's in Brixton. A more plausible idea is a "race" with a Black Cab against a deadline.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
Hi ho, hi ho
Well, I guess I'm not finishing the novel on this sabbatical. I just got the call; Monday I go back to work. Bit of a shock. I thought there were three more weeks there. They're easing back but my entire department is called in and full-time and there's already orders coming in.
***
Today has been mostly going back over the existing chapters to see if I can open them up a little more and ease the reader in. I've tried three different approaches at saying "This is Sunday and I'm at Trafalgar Square" and I haven't liked any of them yet. I was getting a little too clever with the scene-setting.
Now I pretty much know the story of Linnet-who-worked on Paternoster Row, Captain Wentworth lately of Wingate's SNS in Palestine, and the Nine Elms Station improvised air-raid shelter. But I haven't figured out how I'm approaching Linnet's diary. I hit the first scene when it was discussed and realized I wanted to take a look back across the existing half and the outlines for the second half and see if I can't make it feel a little more organized.
I am still convinced the best thing for my writing -- and any sales I might make -- is to prioritize getting it done and out there as opposed to getting it perfect.
***
Today has been mostly going back over the existing chapters to see if I can open them up a little more and ease the reader in. I've tried three different approaches at saying "This is Sunday and I'm at Trafalgar Square" and I haven't liked any of them yet. I was getting a little too clever with the scene-setting.
Now I pretty much know the story of Linnet-who-worked on Paternoster Row, Captain Wentworth lately of Wingate's SNS in Palestine, and the Nine Elms Station improvised air-raid shelter. But I haven't figured out how I'm approaching Linnet's diary. I hit the first scene when it was discussed and realized I wanted to take a look back across the existing half and the outlines for the second half and see if I can't make it feel a little more organized.
I am still convinced the best thing for my writing -- and any sales I might make -- is to prioritize getting it done and out there as opposed to getting it perfect.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Mary-Sue, meet Lamas-Su
Ah, the joys of local knowledge! The first London scene in Fox and Hounds takes place in Trafalgar Square. (In Penny's words, if you told a friend you were going to London they were going to mention London Bridge, "Big Ben," and Trafalgar Square. So she felt obligated to go.)
It was a weak scene. The only plinth I had to describe was some random Duke of Wellington on a Horse equestrian statue. And, see, I already knew the Fourth Plinth was used for public art. What I hadn't realized was what was on it in late 2018:
Yes, that's an Assyrian Lamassu. But it is more. It is an art project inspired by the ISIS destruction and it is fabricated from thousands of empty cans of imported date syrup.
Okay, sure, I'd love to stay more focused on the Blitz, even if I did open with the Nine Day's Queen. But this is just too good not to have in the book.
It was a weak scene. The only plinth I had to describe was some random Duke of Wellington on a Horse equestrian statue. And, see, I already knew the Fourth Plinth was used for public art. What I hadn't realized was what was on it in late 2018:
Yes, that's an Assyrian Lamassu. But it is more. It is an art project inspired by the ISIS destruction and it is fabricated from thousands of empty cans of imported date syrup.
Okay, sure, I'd love to stay more focused on the Blitz, even if I did open with the Nine Day's Queen. But this is just too good not to have in the book.
Mixed Batteries
I just finished reading another of the Rivers of London series of extremely-urban fantasy. This one had a lot more in South London and in various underground locations and it was neat being able to figure out more-or-less where the characters were. (Having been reading a lot about those locations).
They are good popcorn reads and if they weren't ten bucks each on Kindle plus the time to read them I'd be shoveling them in. This one in particular I was conscious of reading it in three minds.
One was just enjoying the story. Another was taking notes. And the third was watching the craft.
On the notes; happily for me, they visit the New Covent Garden Market, and he describes the (early days of) construction in the Battersea area. (Among the small notes I took is that Aaronovitch chooses "Portacabin" over "Portakabin" -- the latter being the original trademark, the former a slightly more common usage as a generic for those construction site office trailers).
I didn't learn anything I'm going to use out of his various descriptions of the Underground, including one of the Deep Shelters, but it was nice to see the name-drops of everything from Bazalgette to the Ghost Train. And, yes, there were places where I could tell he'd re-arranged things for dramatic purposes.
Now, I don't know if Ben was writing for a general audience or if he simply wrote for the UK audience and trusted that those across the pond who wanted to try would make the effort. There is a lot of UK slang in here, and London geography is presented constantly in a form that would make a Black Cab driver take notice. Bits like commenting "Nobody takes the Vauxhall Bridge in the morning unless they are working at MI6."
And it isn't strictly a style choice; police slang, he explains. So he is trusting his audience to either know or to make the effort to figure out the rest.
My big accomplishment yesterday was to go through a whole bunch of scattered references and try to stick highlights into a relative chronology:
22 July 1940 LDV renamed the Home Guard
Aug 1940 the “Invasion List” circulated
the London Blitz 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941.
It is described that heavy raids were on 7 and 8 September with heavy crowding. The 7th struck the East End hard.
8th September East Enders forced their way into the Liverpool station.
By the end of September 79 underground stations were in use.
The Occupy Savoy took place in 14 September 1940
14 Oct 1940 Balham station flooding 20:02
Evening of Oct 15, 1940 was Kennington Park disaster.
Mid-late October “it was decided” to build the deep-level shelters.
Construction began 27 Nov 1940. No new stations were begun after mid 1941, and everything but Oval (and two others) were finished by 1942
By the end of 1940 the situation in the tube was settled and comfortable with stoves, sanitary facilities, food services.
14 November Coventry bombing
In Nov 1940 Brandt was publishing his pictures, and there was extensive journalism into the shelters.
So turns out the mobilization is lagging well behind the bombing and the shelters, meaning my Blitz Diary will run through '41, quite possibly into early '42. Which means I don't get to do the Blevin's Boys, or V1/V2s. Well, not in the diary, at any rate.
And, yes, those are just bookmarks to the research. I remember enough of the Kennington Park collapse that I can put a mention in, then flesh it out from my collected research and resources (I have an entire pdf on just that one).
Sigh. Podcasts, I can do while working or walking. Videos, I can do while eating. Finding time to read is tough. I have so many books I would feel better if I had read.
But then, I'm not writing history, exactly. The diary is going to take up no more than 5K out of the target 70-75K page count. Which according to my current outline and estimates I will probably hit even without it. I would love to keep reading those books and write the entire story of "Linnet," from Battersea bookshop to overseas with the SOE. But that's a different story. And quite possibly a different me.
Instead I'm aiming at finishing this one as quickly as I can. I don't have much hope of finishing this month, though. These are the second-hardest chapters (the opening being the hardest). This is where I try to build the arcs and weave the themes. This is where it stops being "London is weird" and turns into living there. And this is where Penny's story becomes once again an Athena Fox story.
They are good popcorn reads and if they weren't ten bucks each on Kindle plus the time to read them I'd be shoveling them in. This one in particular I was conscious of reading it in three minds.
One was just enjoying the story. Another was taking notes. And the third was watching the craft.
On the notes; happily for me, they visit the New Covent Garden Market, and he describes the (early days of) construction in the Battersea area. (Among the small notes I took is that Aaronovitch chooses "Portacabin" over "Portakabin" -- the latter being the original trademark, the former a slightly more common usage as a generic for those construction site office trailers).
I didn't learn anything I'm going to use out of his various descriptions of the Underground, including one of the Deep Shelters, but it was nice to see the name-drops of everything from Bazalgette to the Ghost Train. And, yes, there were places where I could tell he'd re-arranged things for dramatic purposes.
Now, I don't know if Ben was writing for a general audience or if he simply wrote for the UK audience and trusted that those across the pond who wanted to try would make the effort. There is a lot of UK slang in here, and London geography is presented constantly in a form that would make a Black Cab driver take notice. Bits like commenting "Nobody takes the Vauxhall Bridge in the morning unless they are working at MI6."
And it isn't strictly a style choice; police slang, he explains. So he is trusting his audience to either know or to make the effort to figure out the rest.
***
My big accomplishment yesterday was to go through a whole bunch of scattered references and try to stick highlights into a relative chronology:
22 July 1940 LDV renamed the Home Guard
Aug 1940 the “Invasion List” circulated
the London Blitz 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941.
It is described that heavy raids were on 7 and 8 September with heavy crowding. The 7th struck the East End hard.
8th September East Enders forced their way into the Liverpool station.
By the end of September 79 underground stations were in use.
The Occupy Savoy took place in 14 September 1940
14 Oct 1940 Balham station flooding 20:02
Evening of Oct 15, 1940 was Kennington Park disaster.
Mid-late October “it was decided” to build the deep-level shelters.
Construction began 27 Nov 1940. No new stations were begun after mid 1941, and everything but Oval (and two others) were finished by 1942
By the end of 1940 the situation in the tube was settled and comfortable with stoves, sanitary facilities, food services.
14 November Coventry bombing
In Nov 1940 Brandt was publishing his pictures, and there was extensive journalism into the shelters.
So turns out the mobilization is lagging well behind the bombing and the shelters, meaning my Blitz Diary will run through '41, quite possibly into early '42. Which means I don't get to do the Blevin's Boys, or V1/V2s. Well, not in the diary, at any rate.
And, yes, those are just bookmarks to the research. I remember enough of the Kennington Park collapse that I can put a mention in, then flesh it out from my collected research and resources (I have an entire pdf on just that one).
Sigh. Podcasts, I can do while working or walking. Videos, I can do while eating. Finding time to read is tough. I have so many books I would feel better if I had read.
But then, I'm not writing history, exactly. The diary is going to take up no more than 5K out of the target 70-75K page count. Which according to my current outline and estimates I will probably hit even without it. I would love to keep reading those books and write the entire story of "Linnet," from Battersea bookshop to overseas with the SOE. But that's a different story. And quite possibly a different me.
Instead I'm aiming at finishing this one as quickly as I can. I don't have much hope of finishing this month, though. These are the second-hardest chapters (the opening being the hardest). This is where I try to build the arcs and weave the themes. This is where it stops being "London is weird" and turns into living there. And this is where Penny's story becomes once again an Athena Fox story.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Gimme Shelter
The image of Londoners sleeping in the subways is one of the emblematic images of the Blitz. That, and the ruins of London (although all of England was hit and the city of Coventry wracked worse), and a picture of firemen struggling against a blazing building that is as likely as not from a film made in the 50's and not a "real" footage.
When you dig deeper --as it were -- you run into references of the Deep Underground Shelters, which are largely still there. More footage has been shot in those shelters for a number of movies than was ever taken in period. Because here is where it starts getting interesting.
The possibility of needing shelters had been discussed between the wars. The government expressed doubts, though. More publicly stated was that they didn't want the people to develop a shelter mentality, to hide instead of doing the necessary work to support their society. Less publicly said but very much there was the fear that people left to congregate underground might start to talk to each other. Might get certain ideas. Might organize.
It is hard to understand at this time that the great fear was not Germany, but Communism. And even the Aux Units were less concerned with Paratroopers than they were with Fifth Columnists.
And they were right to fear this.
This is why Anderson shelters, and public shelters such as the one at Kennington Park. Shallow, poorly protected, and little protection for the poor for that matter; corrugated iron was hard to come by and many of the poor lacked gardens to dig into. When the bombs began dropping, the doors were locked at the tube stations. There was barbed wire around Oval (in the Kennington area). The public shelter was flooded and stinky and too small and the last was perhaps to the good because it collapsed when a fifty-pound bomb hit it, killing almost everyone inside.
This started a growing movement -- and, yes, local Communists take credit for some of it -- to squat in protected basements of the big store. To charge into the really, really nice shelter under the Savoy. And to force their way into the tubes.
And the government may have expressed their desire not to see a troglodyte life (their words) spring up, but they hadn't counted on just how widespread the destruction was of homes. And how little the poor, already stressed enough, could afford to rebuild. Of course the poor had taken the brunt already. The rich were often in the country. The poor were right where there was industry. So they went to the tube and they camped there not just for shelter from the bombs but because they had nowhere else to go.
It wasn't until almost a year after the Blitz that any of the deep shelters were completed. Some, like Kennington, never were. Basically, they never got used.
When you dig deeper --as it were -- you run into references of the Deep Underground Shelters, which are largely still there. More footage has been shot in those shelters for a number of movies than was ever taken in period. Because here is where it starts getting interesting.
The possibility of needing shelters had been discussed between the wars. The government expressed doubts, though. More publicly stated was that they didn't want the people to develop a shelter mentality, to hide instead of doing the necessary work to support their society. Less publicly said but very much there was the fear that people left to congregate underground might start to talk to each other. Might get certain ideas. Might organize.
It is hard to understand at this time that the great fear was not Germany, but Communism. And even the Aux Units were less concerned with Paratroopers than they were with Fifth Columnists.
And they were right to fear this.
This is why Anderson shelters, and public shelters such as the one at Kennington Park. Shallow, poorly protected, and little protection for the poor for that matter; corrugated iron was hard to come by and many of the poor lacked gardens to dig into. When the bombs began dropping, the doors were locked at the tube stations. There was barbed wire around Oval (in the Kennington area). The public shelter was flooded and stinky and too small and the last was perhaps to the good because it collapsed when a fifty-pound bomb hit it, killing almost everyone inside.
This started a growing movement -- and, yes, local Communists take credit for some of it -- to squat in protected basements of the big store. To charge into the really, really nice shelter under the Savoy. And to force their way into the tubes.
And the government may have expressed their desire not to see a troglodyte life (their words) spring up, but they hadn't counted on just how widespread the destruction was of homes. And how little the poor, already stressed enough, could afford to rebuild. Of course the poor had taken the brunt already. The rich were often in the country. The poor were right where there was industry. So they went to the tube and they camped there not just for shelter from the bombs but because they had nowhere else to go.
It wasn't until almost a year after the Blitz that any of the deep shelters were completed. Some, like Kennington, never were. Basically, they never got used.
The war we have
Four-hundred and nineteen words into the second half of the book and there was a trouble spot.
The idea was, my archaeologists uncover the diary of a young woman who was in the Nine Elms shelter during the London Blitz. Simple enough. She was also friends with an older man who in fact is the officer who caused the "Zero Station" hidden within the shelter to be built.
Yeah, and then I hit the scene where someone opens the diary. So I started building the details. And in the process, I found things I wanted to do. But there was a problem. The timing wasn't working out.
It took three days of basically letting go. Instead of struggling with the ideas and the research and trying to force them to go the way I had intended, of letting the ideas percolate in the back-brain until I was able to move outside the box and see what worked better.
And here's what I've decided. The diary doesn't cover the wartime use of the shelter, up through 1944. It covers only the Blitz.
Once I'd switched firmly to that track, the only problem to solve is how the diary is still down in the shelter after both characters have left the scene. But I can solve that.
At the moment my arbitrary cut-off isn't even all the way through the Blitz; it is Christmas. That in 1941, something-rank-someone (bio still under construction!) vanishes and "Linnet" volunteers for war work a little more exciting than the factory work she'd been doing.
The biggest thing I'm working on right now, though, is how much of the diary will actually be seen. Aside from not wanting to do all the research it would take to really do it right, I don't know why I feel so but I feel it shouldn't take up a lot of my pages. It turns it into a different kind of book. Or something. Instead the diary is one more story going into the mix, and the parallels to Penny's own experience should be soft-pedaled (because they are very much there.)
It is a lot of thematic balancing. I opened with the flooding of Doggerland, and the image of the rising North Sea is running constantly under the text, conflated with invasion and destruction and siege and made concrete in the last chapters when the rains flood the hidden shelter. But running in parallel to that is rising from mere resistance, choosing action, choosing the path of the hero.
Heck, I'd been quoting Shakespeare all along -- have to, it is England, we're visiting the Globe twice, plus it is one more version of the standing joke of this book. Every time Penny quotes, someone else corrects her or shows they know the source better. Anyhow, back in the chapter before the Highgate Cemetery she did a bit of the Hamlet speech; the "whether tis better in the mind to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or by taking up arms..."
So it makes sense a poet (an American poet but oh well) found me the focus I needed for not just the diary but the way it interacts with the main plot. And what poet? Can you believe -- Dickinson?
Quick! a sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!
The idea was, my archaeologists uncover the diary of a young woman who was in the Nine Elms shelter during the London Blitz. Simple enough. She was also friends with an older man who in fact is the officer who caused the "Zero Station" hidden within the shelter to be built.
Yeah, and then I hit the scene where someone opens the diary. So I started building the details. And in the process, I found things I wanted to do. But there was a problem. The timing wasn't working out.
It took three days of basically letting go. Instead of struggling with the ideas and the research and trying to force them to go the way I had intended, of letting the ideas percolate in the back-brain until I was able to move outside the box and see what worked better.
And here's what I've decided. The diary doesn't cover the wartime use of the shelter, up through 1944. It covers only the Blitz.
Once I'd switched firmly to that track, the only problem to solve is how the diary is still down in the shelter after both characters have left the scene. But I can solve that.
At the moment my arbitrary cut-off isn't even all the way through the Blitz; it is Christmas. That in 1941, something-rank-someone (bio still under construction!) vanishes and "Linnet" volunteers for war work a little more exciting than the factory work she'd been doing.
The biggest thing I'm working on right now, though, is how much of the diary will actually be seen. Aside from not wanting to do all the research it would take to really do it right, I don't know why I feel so but I feel it shouldn't take up a lot of my pages. It turns it into a different kind of book. Or something. Instead the diary is one more story going into the mix, and the parallels to Penny's own experience should be soft-pedaled (because they are very much there.)
It is a lot of thematic balancing. I opened with the flooding of Doggerland, and the image of the rising North Sea is running constantly under the text, conflated with invasion and destruction and siege and made concrete in the last chapters when the rains flood the hidden shelter. But running in parallel to that is rising from mere resistance, choosing action, choosing the path of the hero.
Heck, I'd been quoting Shakespeare all along -- have to, it is England, we're visiting the Globe twice, plus it is one more version of the standing joke of this book. Every time Penny quotes, someone else corrects her or shows they know the source better. Anyhow, back in the chapter before the Highgate Cemetery she did a bit of the Hamlet speech; the "whether tis better in the mind to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or by taking up arms..."
So it makes sense a poet (an American poet but oh well) found me the focus I needed for not just the diary but the way it interacts with the main plot. And what poet? Can you believe -- Dickinson?
Quick! a sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!
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