You Can't Tell a Gentleman without a Scorcard

My husband and I happily watched, for the second time, Sharpe's Eagle, the BBC television movie based on Bernard Cornwell's novel. The whole point of the Sharpe stories is that Richard Sharpe, the up from the ranks officer, is no gentleman. That is, he's more than common, he's trash. His mother was a drunk and a whore. He didn't learn to read until he was in the army. He has a criminal past. He was in a foundling home in Yorkshire until he ran away to London and became a street tough. Sean Bean, who plays Sharpe in the movies, is from Sheffield and sounds it. Not Yorkshire or London, but it works.

But in this movie, the second in the series, Sharpe is introduced to the vile Colonel Henry Simmerson, a pompous pedantic slime of an aristocrat who dogs Sharpe throughout several of the movies. He insults Sharpe right off the bat. Sharpe manages to keep his dignity and gives the Colonel a civil anser to some simple questions. It is then that someone informs Simmerson that Sharpe is no gentleman. He is an up through the ranks field commissioned officer. Simmerson blows a gasket and refuses to work with an officer who is not of the nobility.

What's wrong with this picture, or rather this soundtrack? Simmerson would have known the instant Sharpe opened his mouth that Sharpe was no gentleman. His manner of speaking, from accent to diction to phrasing would have revealed that right away. This is somethign I notice in historical fiction though. Rarely is the class distinction obvious to a real person in whatever social era the book represents acknowledged by the author. This is true of American authors but also of British. Is it that the regional accents have faded so much that we don't realize how distinct they were in, say, 1809 when this movie and the novel it is based on takes place? Or are class distinctions so foreign to us these days that we don't think of that when we write our characters? Are we so exhausted researching every other little detail that we just ignore distinctions of speech entirely and hope no one notices?

Well, I noticed.

"Are You in that Group, You Know, the Ones That Dress Up. Nan?"

"Are You in that Group, You Know, the Ones That Dress Up. Nan?"

"You mean Goths? Drag queens? Drill teams?" I chuckle and relent. "You mean a reenactment society, like The Society for Creative Anachronism."

"Yeah, that one!"

The answer is not at the moment, but not want of getting involved again. The answer is also that I used to be. And here's that story, and it is all true.

For those who don't know about the SCA, it is a worldwide organization now dedicated to enjoyment of the arts, sciences, crafts, warfare, and culture of a sort of sanitized Middle Ages where there are only nobles and life is good. That is to distinguish it from reenactment societies that recreate the era with all its warts. Local groups hold events such as tournaments and feasts and conduct classes and get themselves on the local news from time to time. It can be fascinating and a lot of fun, unless. of course, you run into some "Scadians" who forget to have any or that the newly crowned king is really a used car salesman.

In about 1967 I lived in Sacramento, California. My friend Linda Laaksdonen's sister, Patty White, was interested in a group of people mostly from UC Berkley that met in a farm house between Sacramento and San Francisco. She knew I was into the Middle Ages and had gotten Linda into it too, so she offered to take us with her to a meeting there. Linda and I did not actually attend the meeting but instead wandered around the farm. It wasn't until later, much later, that I realized that meeting had been one of the initial founding meetings of the Society for Creative Anachronism and the birth of the Kingdom of the West. The most I can claim about my part in it is that I was outside with Linda the whole meeting.

We moved to Chicago about a year later. In gym class at Senn High we were doing archery. According to Ellen Scaruffi, the girl paired with me for that, I charmed her instantly by talking about Robin Hood. It was she that heard about an event being held at a park near the University of Chicago campus. We scrounged together a couple of "medieval costumes" and went. It was the end of the reign of the King of the Middle kingdom of the SCA, Cariadoc of the Bow. Cariadoc is otherwise known as David Friedman, the son of the famous Milton Friedman, and of much greater distinction to me, the first and only King of the Middle Kingdom at that date. (They call it the Kingdom of the Middle now.) You can find his novel, Harald, at medieval-novels.com in "England -> Celts, Saxons and Danes". In the tournament that day Franz von Bllinkenlichten became the second King of the Middle Kingdom. They are on their ___ now.

Some years later I tried to join the SCA again, this time a group associated with Loyola College in Chicago, where I desperately wanted to attend the Medieval Studies program. (My father wouldn't pay for it...) I only attended one meeting, which seemed to have nothing to do with medievalism, and did not look for a new group for many years.

My husband Jim and I moved to Juneau, Alaska, in 1983. We found out there was an SCA group there, the Barony (now Shire) of Earngyld in the Principality of Oertha in the Kingdom of the West (at that time, anyway.) We got involved in a small but active group, most memorable of which was Wolf Federweiss, a musician, herald and calligrapher. We made the mistake of accepting the then Baroness's to share an actual house with her. it was SCA day and night after that. Most of the time that was wonderful, but Jim and I are not cut out for group living situations, so the living arrangement spelled the end of our sojourn in the Current Middle Ages. But while we were in Earngyld. I, Angharad of the Coppery Shields, became the chatelaine and keeper of the Golden Key (a lending library of costumes so new people can attend in period garb), and Jim, Aethelwic of St. Edward's Ford, their Minister of Sciences and and even had one of his articles published in the corporate sciences annual. I won first place in a story contest for my "The Theft of the Moons" which I wrote while thinking in an irish accent.

I am interested in joining again, but the logistics are the problem now. i live in the Barony of Aquaterra in the Kingdom of An Tir now, and the meetings are on the same night every month as my Let's Read Historical Novels group. I will look into what exists of the canton of Brarwood in hopes it is nearer and meets on a different night. In the meantime I will work on my Saxon costume and brush up on a new persona, Leofwen Taverner.

By the way, I was a member of Regia Anglorum for a year, a group that reenacts Anglo Saxon, Viking, and Norman era England. If you saw the BBC Television movie, 1066L The Battle for Middle Earth, you saw RA fighters in the battle scenes. That's what they do. Historical novelist, Elizaveth Chaadwick, is a member of that group primarily located in England. Again, it's logistics that keep me out of that group.. the nearest chapter is Westmearc, otherwise known as Oregon.

So, to answer the question, regrettably, no, not at the moemnt .. but i have been in small ways and by happenstance at some seminal events.

Are you in a medieval reenactment group? Let us hear about it in Comments! i would also love to hear from any of the people I mentioned above!

And there you have it.. enough links to start a darn good suit of mail.

Pctured above, an SCA group in Pennsylvania.

Here's a Health To the Company

Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes at a Society for Creative Anachronism event has heard this song. Here it is performed a capella by one of my all-time favorite musicians, Kevin Conneff who is also part of The Chieftains. I just couldn't resist posting this and share with all my friends and companions.

The Facts About Tudor England

Dude, my Book's on Kindle!

=
'Nuff said.

Book Giveaway! "The Last Apocalypse" by James Reston, Jr.

Everyone loves a freebie, especially when it's a fascinating book about the Middle Ages, right?

The book we are giving away is a brand new copy of James Reston Jr.'s The Last Apocalypse. In what he calls "history without footnotes" Reston recaptures some of the notable events and people of the last fifty years of the First Millennium, 950-1000 AD. He draws on the popular sagas and tales and other sources from the period to paint a time not when people were panicking as we did for Y2k but faced it with a willingness to see the Kingdom of Heaven at hand. Reston's position is that in fact the Messiah did indeed return, but in the shape of the Christianization and civilization of Europe. Whether you buy what he's selling or not, he's book contains fascinating people whose conversion changed the history of their lands forever.

Now just how do you win a copy of this book? Easy.. and fun! Go to the blog set up for An Involuntary King at http://aninvoluntaryking.blogspot.com and read and post a comment on one or more of the posts you read there. I have already chosen one of the posts to be the one that will contain the prizewinner. It is not necssarily one that is already there. Those who have left comments on that particular one will be entered in a drawing for the winner of the book. Anyone anywhere is eligible. Either post your email address or, if you prefer not to, send it to me at the time you post your comments. The more posts you read and comment on the more chances you have to read the right one. The deadline will be the post for June 1. I will announce the winner on June 2.

In the meantime, enjoy reading the letters and stories I wrote when I was a teenager!

A Distraction: Fun With Spellcheckers

If I were so inclined, I might create a new form of divination based on a spellchecker.

I mean,when I put "Agincourt" into one, the spellchecker offered "encouraging" instead. Now what if I had told Henry V abbout that? He would have lauded me as a prophet of great skill.

So let's see what we can come up with for some other familiar names and terms.

Agincourt -> "encouraging" Certainly to henry.

Pontrefract -> "refracting" The death of King John gave everyone a whole new biew of things.

Crécy -> "précis" Perhaps if the French king had submitted one...

Clontarf -> "frontal" Those darn Vikings with their frontal attacks.

Roncesvalles -> "convaliscences" If only Roland could have.

Fothringay -> "mothering" Sorry, Mary, it's far too late for that.

What can you come up with?

The Answer

People who write books and then publish them independently of the corporate publishing industry believe they are at a disadvantage. I have been thinking about this long and hard and gathering information, and I have come to the conclusion that this is true, but only in part and in only one area of the industry. Let me en numerate what I have concluded.

First let me quote a very smart man who says that the first mistake people make when thinking about indie books is confusing content with delivery. Content is not really the problem, except when we make it one. Indie books don't look any different from corporate books. Their content runs the gamut from good to bad.. but so do books from the mainstream. There is in essence nothing to tell you whether a book was published by a corporate publisher or the guy next door through a POD.

So what is the problem with delivery? Two things:

1. Libraries and bookstores get their books through distributors who buy books in great quantities at a discount.
2. Distributors offer bookstores a buy back policy.

That is the only difference between a POD book and one from a traditional publishing model. It's a big barrier, but once we understand these two issues, perhaps we can come up with solutions. Keep reading.

It is not true, as many indie authors believe, that indie authors are at a disadvantage compared to authors on contract to corporate publishers when it comes to marketing their books. Only a tiny fraction of those authors get any help with marketing their books beyond inclusion in a catalog. Only the blockbusters get anything special. The rest of the authors have to figure out how to tell the world about their books same as do we indie authors.

Another advantage they do have is one that we can acquire for ourselves, and that is know how when it comes to getting galleys out to Library Journal and other important reviewers before the book goes to final printing. That's where a group like the Independent Authors Guild comes in and provides the ultimate guide to publishing one's book. The POD won't do it.. mine didn't. You can't trust them to act much more like a publisher than a printer, so the profession has to take this on.

Speaking of PODs... don't forget you can just get your book printed in whatever quantity you need and can afford. There's something to said for this. The advantage of of a Print On Demand company is that your initial investment can be relatively small. The disadvantage is that if you need lots and lots of books, you will pay more than you might if you have a print run done.

This brings us back to the two delivery issues cited above. In order to get into a distribution company's catalog and author will need to be prepared to cough up a lot of copies. And the author may need to be willing to buy back books that don't sell.

A couple more things. I had a revelation recently about library purchases of self-published books. I fell into the trap of assuming librarians know about indie books. Oddly, they don't. In the recent case, I discovered that the librarian turning down my book for their collection had never heard of indie or alternative publishing. The only books that authors had handed her were genuinely not suitable for their collection. Some were poorly produced, others were an individual's idea of what the world needs to read, and none of them were what I would describe as perfectly good, wide appeal books that just did not make it into print in the traditional way. Once I gave her a list of the hundreds of books that won Independent Publishing Book Awards and she saw the depth and breadth of the titles, her whole perspective changed.

We indie authors spend too much time assuming people will reject us and our books because we are not Jackie Collins or Tom Clancy. Very few authors are either one of those two or one of the ilk. But those less blockbuster books still get into libraries and bookstores. Why? Again because they have tapped into distribution. That is the only thing we need to worry about, the only real problem we need to overcome.

The good news is that while libraries remain important, bookstores are losing in the competition with Internet booksellers, not just the Aamzons and Barnes and Nobles but the little specialized ebook sellers too. And that's where we are at no disadvantage compared with the bulk of the mainstream published books. One product page on Aamazon is the same as any other. There is no shelf.

I said I had the answer.. I did not say I know how to put this answer to the test. But the group I helped set up last week, the group to analyze all the opportunities out there to market our books, is in existence specifically to batter down those walls. We will find out what it will take to breach the wall, then we will give you cover as you storm the breaches. Join us... but be ready to work.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiebookmarketing/

No amount of hand-wringing will solve this problem. We have to get down to the basic issues and find ways to make those tools and resources our own. Cracking this nut now will be much to our advantage. The corporate publishing world may well be on its last leg. It is so expensive to produce books in the quantities they need that they are publishing fewer and fewer and relying on more and more lowest common denominator models through the golden gateways. It will not be long before it will be what might be called cottage industry books, books with the tight following of genre fiction and producible in modest quantities, will be the bulk of what is produced. Het started building the best bandwagon we can so that when it's some of the only transportation in town, we'll know jumping on it is safe and effective.

So go for it.. click on comments below and tell me what you think.

I Have the Answer to the Indie Book Challenge!

No, seriously, I really do! I am writing it all up and will post it in the next few days. Check back to see what I figured out! All will be revealed.

Nan

Analyzing Indie Book Marketing

The following is a post I placed on a writers group in response to a report from a major event for romance writers and publishers in London.

I am part of a movement which has a steeply uphill climb but I still think it is worthwhile for reasons I could wax eloquent about for hours.. indie or alternative publishing. It is in response to what the author was talking about, the narrow standards of corporate, for lack of a better term, publishers. Yes, the other term for what we are promoting is "self publishing" but it has in this era of the Internet a great deal of potential.

I and others in the alternative publishing movement feel that corporate publishers are doing a great disservice to readers, particularly readers of genre fiction. The very fact that writers are told that publishers will only consider books about historical women means that anyone out there who might like to read about purely fictional people who have modest everyday lives or about historical men of an era really gripes me. Maybe those books won't sell gazillions, but readers still want to read them. And self published does not automatically mean crap. Each book deserves to be judged individually.. and readers are the ones who should decide. That's what I believe.

So I published AN INVOLUNTARY KING myself. Of course there are disadvantages, but they are all disadvantages that can be overcome. That is why the organization Independent Authors Guild was formed and even more specifically why I set up a working committee yesterday to analyze book marketing opportunities for indie authors. If you are interested, here is the skinny. www.independentauthorsguild.org and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiebookmarketing/ .

For some reason the embracing of indie film making and indie music recording has not been extended to indie book publishing. That's part of the movement, to shift that situation. The latter group I mentioned was formed to look at only one aspect of indie publishing, how to improve book marketing for indie authors.. with any book getting the same space on, say, Amazon, as any other, it is purely getting the word out that keeps indie books at a disadvantage. We want to examine the tools and resources in a methodical way to see how we can get or make access for those whose work does not meet the corporate publishers sales criteria.

You know, one book I highly admire is Brandy Purdy's THE CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON. She does things with first person narrative that made me sit up and look. She has little if any chance of having that book published unless she did it herself.. Even though her other book, which will now be called THE BOLEYN WIFE was actually picked up by a traditional publisher - female, historical, first person, and Tudor -- the publishers all say of GAVESTON that no one will reader a first person narrative by a man, especially a gay man. So this marvelous book would never see the light of day. Except.. the author had the courage to face the bias against self publishing. I thank the literary gods she did.

The publishers have to be realistic, especially these days, but since "these days" also shows an increase in library use, I am glad there are people who are creative enough and willing to be risk takers to get their work out there so readers aren't cheated. No one is going to get rich off this.. except maybe intellectually. So being a born problem solver I look not at regretfully bowing to the inevitable but instead to be part of the solution and find a way to strengthen the alternative. Power to the people and all that.

Will I publish DEATH IN EAST WELLOW as an indie book? I won't pretend that would be my first choice.. I will try to get an agent and a publisher, but my guess is that that will be a waste of time. If it works out, then wow, cool! If not, I will have,. I hope, helped level the playing field for indie authors.

Each of us has to choose.. though ultimately the choice is the publishing industry.. I honor whatever choices you each make.

Nan Hawthorne
http://nanhawthorne.blogspot.com

Broadsword

A sort of amalgam of the song, which I adore, with Lord of the Rings and other fantasy impressions.

Guest Post: Write On, by Lloyd Lofthouse

By Lloyd Lofthouse

In the world of alternative publishing, self-published books start out untested, which mean the book hasn't run the gauntlet of professional agents, readers and editors that traditionally published books have to survive to reach the marketplace.
Sure, traditional publishing is a flawed system and good books aren’t selected all the time. Due to individual biases, the people that populate this pipeline make mistakes. On the other hand, what human system, corporate or government, is perfect?

In addition, do not forget that traditionally published books reach bookstores with a guaranteed buy-back if they don't sell. Why should a bookstore or library take a risk on a self-published book that hasn't been vetted by agents, editors and reviewers before it is available just because an author with an over inflated sense of self-esteem believes his self-published work is good? The reality is that there is only so much shelf-space in bookstores and libraries. Books that have proven themselves already fill most of that space. There isn’t much room left for newcomers. Even authors published by Traditional publishing houses don’t get into every bookstore. How can they when the average bookstore has room for twenty to fifty thousand titles and there are over a hundred thousand new titles published each year?

There is a good reason for the traditional book world being the way it is. A bookstore owner has to sell books to survive, so he shelves books that have already passed the test. Why take a chance on a title that has no guarantee?

There is no way to prove that a self-published title arriving out of the cold with so many other self-published titles is worth taking up shelf-space in a library or bookstore unless that self-published book somehow earns further attention as “The Shack” by Wm. Paul Young did.
That's where the promotional challenge begins.

It is up to the self-published author to prove that the book he or she wrote is worth further attention. To do that, the author must seek reviews, enter literary contests, promote on the Internet, and drive to brick and mortar bookstores in and near his hometown. In other words, get noticed as often as possible until people start paying attention. Don’t forget, tens of thousands of other self-published authors may be doing the same thing. Regardless of what your teacher, friends and family may have told you about your ‘fantastic talent’, that does not guarantee success. Watch the early tryouts for America Idol, and you will discover what I mean.

Sitting back and waiting for lightning to strike is not going to bring the vast majority of self-published books to the attention of the people that buy and read books when there are several hundred thousand new titles each year and more than six million books in print.

Who has time to read them all? Book store owners and librarians have more to do than read endless books from self-published authors, most of which may be of a questionable quality making it more difficult for those that are up to traditional standards to get noticed--like a rusty needle in a hay stack the size of a ten story building. It may be easier to win a state lottery than getting a self-published book noticed if the author sits around waiting to be discovered.

I suggest that a self-published author gets started close to home by becoming a salesperson and taking a copy of his book into the local brick and mortar bookstores while also mailing out copies to the best reviewers she can find that will give the book a chance. When the bookstore owner is not interested, be nice. You never know. A door closed today may open tomorrow.
One virtual place to seek reviews is PODRAM, which is a review site with several volunteer reviewers. There is also The Midwest Book Review among others. Some of these free book review sites may have good reputations and others may not. It’s a learning process. It will cost an author the price of the book and postage to find out. These reviewers, for the most part, expect to get the book free. Self-published authors should also become involved in a virtual literary community like Authors Den (there are several sites like this) where writers post their work and hope readers/strangers will stop by and leave a bit of praise now and then. Heck, that readers may even buy your book.
If a writer does not have the confidence in what he or she wrote to send that work to those reviewers that give self-published work a chance, why are you writing? Stick your neck out. Take a chance. Grow a thick skin. You might be surprised. If the reviews are not glowing and the author drops into a depression, he may need to return to the drawing board or change his dream while holding down that crappy day or night job that pays the bills.

It helps when writing is a passion. That passion may keep an author going even when it seems dark and forbidding out there. That way, if you do not make it onto the bestseller lists and become the next King or Grisham, on the day you draw your last breath, you can say you gave it your best shot. Who said life is fair and dreams come true? Anyone that said that was a liar.

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of My Splendid Concubine, a historical novel set in 19th century China. Lloyd will be the guest on a discussion of his work at Let's Read Historical Fiction, June 2, at 9 PM Eastern on AccessibleWorld.org. See the site for the time in your time zone.

Just Waiting for the Book Sales to Roll In!

This appears in the Consumer Blog on the latest edition of EE/TIMES. The author is Nic Mokhoff, Research Editor.

Nan Hawthorne, a successful historical novelist, was born with Stargardt's Disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes the deterioration of a person's vision over time. Nan has been partially blind her entire life; now with 20/1200 vision, she has learned to live with the disease but has had to constantly rely on others for help when reading and researching.

In fact, to accomplish this, she had to go through the laborious effort of mailing every research book she needed to a third party service that converted the lengthy tomes into spoken word in order for her to complete her research--a frustrating and time consuming endeavor.

Hawthorne has a Plustek BookReader V100, a reading device that has both text-to-speech and optical character recognition. She was impressed with the dramatic results she achieved even from her very first attempt.

"Now I am able to buy the books I need and read them whenever I want. It has dramatically changed my life," said Hawthorne.

Nan Hawthorne is the author of An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England. She is currently working on the first of a series of historical paranormal mysteries.

Glad to hear i am successful.. articles like this may be self-fulfilling in their prophecies.

How To Re-educate Librarians About Indie Books?

Sigh. Here we go again. Why are they, the very people I worshipped from childhood, who stood in the forefront of so many populist causes I care about, who at least appear to champion the proliferation of books and literacy, why are they so contrary about learning about indie publishing?

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone informs me, a founding member of the board of Independent Authors Guild, that self-published books are just poorly produced self-indulgent crap of interest to no one but the author and few family members and friends. The latest instance is a librarian at the Washington Talking Book and Braille library. Danielle King wrote,

We do frequently get requests from authors who have self-published books and unfortunately, they haven't been of a very good quality and we haven't felt they are appropriate for our collection or been something that would be popular with our patrons.

I replied that I would not be at all surprised. I am sure they get a combination of book length racts, reminiscences of wacky family life, and stories about just how remarkable "my beautiful guide dog, Sally, was."

I had written to her to advocate for a change in policy to reflect the changing nature of publishing and in particular the development of the indie publishing industry. I started out just wanting my own novel recorded, being a local author and all, but when I understood the policy would automatically mean the the rejection of lots of great books, I changed my focus to asking for a general policy change. I found out quickly that yet again I had to do some re-education. And I thought librarians were more savvy than that.

I got this same response from Jim Fruchterman at BookShare.org, and from a friend who works for the Smithsonian Libraries. They are not the only ones. They are stuck in outworn notion of what an indie book is. They picture photocopied and largely unreadable rants, ladies' auxiliary cookbooks, and books about family histories printed in Courier New. Is it possible they just don't know about the sorts of books coming out of the indie publishing industry? Books in under served genres like historical fiction, books that simply are not fated to compete with John Gresham or his ilk? Books with their own simple, honest integrity, written with intelligence, professionally produced, that indeed "would be popular with our patrons".

What I will try to do with this exchange with Ms. King is to have a chance to share what indie publishing has become, an alternative to mass production and quick profit. You know my own strongly held belief that the arbiter of what is good in a novel in particular is the reader. Those very people Ms. King serves. I realize that library resources are limited, but why deny fans of certain genres what's coming out of indie publishing for no better reason than that the professional librarians don't know they exist yet?

I think one thing I will do is send Ms. King the list of books that made the IPPY semifinals.. that ought to enlighten her. If my book never gets recorded, sobeit... but at least the greater cause will be served.

The Daily Story Boog

"An Involuntary King" is now a blog -- of sorts. Most of you know that the novel started out as stories written by a couple of teens with overactive and rather medieval imaginations, then decades later became a couple years' worth of more adult stories posted on the collaborative writing group, Ghostletters. Now it is a daily posting of letters, stories, drawing, even a ballad.

For a daily infusion of teenage angst or grown up drama along with humor, intentional and otherwise, come visit at http://aninvoluntaryking.blogspot.com .

Reality Check: New Views on Old Clichés

Some less than lovely news put me in mind of some of those annouing clichés people try to cheer you up with. Let's reconsider and make them more realistic, why don't we?

That which does not kill you.. can still leave you crippled for life.

If at first you don't succeed, check to make sure you really know what you're doing.

When God closes a door, he throws away the key.

Let a smile be your umbrella, but hold it upside down if you tend to drool.

Turn your frown upside down, but first make sure you have a soft dry place to put the top of your head.

I wept because i had no shoes, but thenI saw a man who had no feet, which would certainly save money on shoes and socks.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.. unless it's your diabetes medicine.

In every dark cloud, there is a silver lining.. of silber nitrate, which means it's gonna rain.

It is always darkest before the dawn.. the dawn of another lousy day.

Cheer up! It could be worse. It could be happening to me!

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up. Unless of course they are one of those ingrates who wouldn't know cheering up if it sat on their chest and screamed it in their face.

Remember, someone somewhere loves you. Oh yeah? Then why are they staying the hell away?

Finally one I left alone because I just love it.. It is a fine thing to have an open mind, but not so far open your brains fall out.

The Importance of Historical Novels: An Informal Exploration

By Octavia Randolph
Octavia.net

The title above is a mildly provocative statement. But those amongst us who enjoy reading (and writing) fiction set within a given historical period believe that good examples of the genre do far more than entertain. Well written historical fiction can hand us a telescope to peer back into our own or another culture's past. In a day when world history is given short shrift by many school systems, reading Dumas' The Three Musketeers may be the only way to glimpse the dizzying complexity of 17th century French political and social intrigue. Carefully researched historical fiction can educate, and even more excitingly, provoke speculation through original conclusions to historical puzzles. In Mary Renault's brilliant The King Must Die and Bull From the Sea, she takes the classical hero Theseus and presents a wholly believable character whose strengths and flaws allow us to understand and even anticipate the heretofore inexplicable aspects of his behavior. His abandonment of the princess Ariadne on the island of Naxos is transformed from the disgraceful act of an ingrate (she has after all, helped him to triumph over the minotaur - in Renault's book, a man, not man/beast) to an utterly correct and necessary action allowing both Theseus and Ariadne to come to their fullest potential.

Another way we know historical fiction is important is the firestorm of controversy it sometimes elicits. Isn't there something remarkable about the fact that 70 years after it was written Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind was still powerful enough to provoke a response such as Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone? Described by its author as an "antidote", The Wind Done Gone is a retelling of Mitchell's story, using many of the same characters - Art imitating Art.

Let's turn now from the broad canvas to the intimate personal narrative, such as Jane Mendelsohn's I Was Amelia Earhart. This slender book takes us inside the aviator's mind, up to and including her experiences on the South Sea island where she and navigator Fred Noonan make their way after ditching their plane. With sensitivity and deftness it allows the reader imagined access into Earhart's thoughts, and provides a form of emotional closure to the mystery of her disappearance. As in Renault's books, solutions to unanswerable questions have been proposed, and the reader in encountering these solutions and examining their ramifications may find previously opaque eras or personalities resolving into sharp and even indelible focus.

My own fiction deals with a time seemingly far removed from our own. Late ninth century Britain was largely composed of competing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms - people who knew Christianity, enjoyed good ale, composed epic poetry, and forged wondrous weapons and jewellery. They also lived under the legal code that would become English Common Law. Suddenly, and with increasing frequency, marauding heathen sea farers from first Norway and then Denmark began decades of terrifyingly violent predation upon the mostly agrarian Anglo-Saxons. Most of the predation was carried out by a people the Anglo-Saxons called Danes - they were in fact from the same areas of modern Northern Germany and Denmark that the Angles and Saxons had come from a few hundred years earlier. That is very meaningful to me as a novelist, that connection; and the ability to see in repeating cycles of invasion a mirrored view of one's own history.

The Vikings originally wanted treasure, but later they also wanted something more precious - land. They wished to settle and live in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms they had toppled. Decades of warfare, appeasement, negotiation, and intermarriage of Saxons and Danes ensued. A new nation was slowly being forged - a process that as we know from world history, is rarely comfortable for its participants. The examination of conflicting values, divided loyalties, and the thrust of opposing religious beliefs and practices are timeless and universal human themes, and make a rich ground for the novelist's imagination.

Viking attacks followed a predictable pattern - small bands of men sailing during the good weather, in Summer, striking quickly at more or less unprotected coastal targets, and then fleeing home with the booty. But in 865 this pattern changed; something called the Great Army landed in southern England, and stayed. These men were serious about settling, and conquering as much land as they could. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fought back, were often defeated in a series of mostly small skirmishes, and resorted to buying off the enemy with silver. Appeasement never lasted for long; the Danes were hard to make treaties with as they generally had few acknowledged leaders and so a peace treaty made with one was not honoured by another, and so forth. One by one the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fell, until by 872 there were only two left, Wessex and Mercia.

It's an interesting story, but where is the compelling hook? In periods when power hangs in the balance between nations, it is as usual in the individual. In the case of English history, a young man who became King of Wessex in 871 at age 23. His name was Ælfred and he is the only British monarch to be awarded the honourific "the Great". Ælfred was a stunningly effective leader; if he had been less so we might be holding this conversation in a language much closer to Danish. Would that be a bad thing? Not necessarily - but it certainly would be different.

I don't write about Ælfred except as a peripheral character; to me it is more interesting to see things from the point of view of a more passive observer than the prime actor. So my narrator is a young woman, who can relate what she witnesses. But it is the late 9th century, when so much hung in the balance, that I find intensely interesting.

So much for the setting - what about the actual, and factual framework on which to hang a story? What do we know about the Anglo-Saxons - this vitally important ancestor of ours - an ancestor to all of us who speak English as our first language? We have documents - because they were Christianized they had an effective means of writing, and Ælfred himself translated Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy from Latin to Old English so it could be widely read by his people. The primary document of the period is an invaluable record known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was begun in Ælfred's time and documents the known history of the nation year by year from the year one and was continued right up to the 12th century. We have in a precious single manuscript the saga Beowulf, which tells us much of Anglo-Saxon mores, warrior life, the roles of women, and much more. And a handful of other fragments of poetry and wills and laws and ecclesiastical writings. We have physical evidence - artifacts such as the magnificent Sutton Hoo Treasure, the burial goods of King Raedwald, who died about 625. We have other grave finds from many Anglo-Saxon burial grounds and occasional finds such as weapons retrieved from rivers and bogs. We have very little architecture, for the Anglo-Saxons made full use of the mighty oaks they found and built largely in timber, but post and beam construction using massive members does leave post holes and several great halls - the homes of tribal chiefs - and other settlements have been recreated. They did build with stone, mostly churches which were overbuilt by later Norman stuctures, but we do have a few small Anglo-Saxon churches which survive.

How do we use these things? You certainly don't need to try to reconstruct all of the events of the era from the brief mentions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; there are many fine history books that will stitch together the action for you far more easily, and more being published all the time. But what primary sources do provide is a feel for the era that can't be obtained anywhere else - the rhythm, the cadence, the structure of the language, the emphasis placed on certain topics or persons - that a modern source can't provide. I'm also a great believer in looking at the artifacts and landscapes of the era whenever possible. Studying one beautiful brooch, or fragment of embroidery, or a pattern welded sword, or a cluster of clay loom weights in person conveys information, and spurs the imagination, in a way that no amount of looking at photos can.

And this is where, in the combination of reading and looking, you can make the informed imagining that is perhaps not documented but is more than likely. For instance, we know that in both pagan, that is earlier, Anglo-Saxon society and Viking society, the tribal leader - who was always a war chief - also served as a religious medium between his people and the Gods; served as a priest in fact in ceremonies and sacrifices. Sometimes sacrifices to ensure good harvest or success in battle would entail the sacrifice of animals and possibly even humans. Other times objects such as food items or baskets of amber were buried, seemingly as a thank-offering. That's what we know. What we can see are finds of spear points, seaxs, swords, helmets and other war gear - all tremendously valuable, precious even - which have been purposely bent or broken or otherwise rendered unusable, and then deposited either into rivers or in shallow pits dug in bogs. This is where the informed imagining comes into play: These may be weapons that were sacrificed as thank-offerings for victory, or weapons that have been "punished" for failing their owners. In historic fiction we have the luxury of drawing these sorts of conclusions, which is one of the reasons I prefer writing fiction to writing history.

Certainly one of the things to be considered when writing historical fiction is the amount and quality of evidence that remains. Especially in a distant era or for a people that were not literary - the Danes for example had only runes with which to write, a very imperfect method of recording things -or those who perpetually lost out to other dominant cultures and thus had their history obliterated or altered to reflect the conqueror's viewpoint. Where is that information, what language is it in, what remains of the physical evidence, how easy is it to view, and so on.

This brings me to the unasked question of Why do we write historical fiction? I mean, it's set in history, we know how it turned out! The task is to show the utter inevitability of what happened, as in the books of Mary Renault; or how it almost did not happen, or that it actually happened differently and the story has been altered either deliberately or through accretion over the years, such as Donna Cross' Pope Joan, about a ninth century female pope. History, as has been famously noted, is written by the victors. And, in the form of historical fiction which is sometimes referred to as "mirror history" it can show an alternate history - a book built on the premise of what if Napoleon hadn't lost at Waterloo.

But the real point is, even if you are writing about a time period or actor very well known, there is always the deeper questions to be answered - the "understory". The understory in The Circle of Ceridwen is Who is my enemy?

[Octobia Randolph is the author of ground-breaking novels set in the Anglo Saxon era in England. Visit her fiction and much more at Octavia.net.]

Of Tenterhooks

Post number 250 here, and a brief explanation of the term "tenterhooks" and how I find myself on them.
In the final preparation of woven wool in the Middle Ages, the product of the weaver's loom went to the fulling mill whose processes, some of which you would rather not know, had tightened the weave to make fabric that could be cut and sewn, it was sent to the tenter. It lay stretched on the frame to dry, held in place by tenterhooks. I now hang suspended on literary and emotional tenterhooks.

The Independent Publisher Book Awards, the IPPIES, for this year are in the final stages of judging. Only a few semifinalist categories remain to be announced... see below. The one in which my novel, AN INVOLUNTARY KING, is entered, namely Historical/Military, is one of those. I indeed feel the tension of hanging cloth-like on tenterhooks.

I wish I could be as calm as our cat MacDhui, who took all the competition in stride at the Average Joe Cat Show this past Saturday... where he took home a Best in Show purple ribbon!

Here is the latest official statement:

Greetings and thank you for entering the 2009 Independent Publisher Book Awards!

Judging continues, and the excellence of your books continues to amaze us. The independent spirit of publishing is alive and well, as demonstrated by the creativity, originality and courageous spirit these books display. It's a real privilege to experience this cutting edge of writing and publishing. You are all winners of our respect and gratitude!

Yes, getting us to announce all of the semifinalist results must seem like pulling teeth - and since I'm starting today at the dentist's office, I'm sending this update early this morning in case I don't make it...Below and online you'll find updated results now including all but three adult fiction categories (Historical, Religious and Visionary), the kid's ficton and picture book categories, and five non-fiction categories (Parenting, Mind-Body-Spirit, Self-Help, Inspirational/Spiritual and Best Book Marketing). We’ll post those results later today or Wednesday. Regional category results and the Outstanding Books of the Year will be announced by Friday, May 8th.

Note that I've added another "expanded list" of semifinalists - the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller category now lists 12 titles (120 were entered), joining the Popular Fiction and Literary Fiction categories to include expanded lists of books that the fiction judges have narrowed these large categories down to at this point. Not all of them will receive medals, but we thought we’d list all of these excellent books and wish they could all win - and we recommend them all. We’ll narrow them to 5-7 medalists by next week.

Remember, in all other cases, all of the books listed as semifinalists will become gold, silver or bronze medalists.

Here’s the updated online results article link:
http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1294

I’ll have final entry statistics by Wednesday, and at that time the semifinalist results list will go live at www.IndependentPublisher.com. Until then, the results article can be accessed but won’t be live. So, if your book is listed with any typos or incorrect wording, please let me know. This listing will eventually become the results program for the New York event.

On Friday, May 29th, from 6-9 pm, we'll present the 13th Annual IPPY Awards in New York on the first evening of this year's BookExpo America convention. More details to follow, but the event will be held at Providence NYC, 311 W. 57th St. (Anyone who attended the 2007 event will recognize it’s the same venue, but this year we’ll be upstairs in a larger space.) Medalists will receive a medal, a certificate, and 20 awards seals. Those not attending the New York event will receive the above items by mail, in a packet including the event program, press release, etc.

Again, thanks for entering, thanks for your patience and understanding, and please let me know if you’d like any email addresses added to the update list. Congratulations to all on your efforts!

Stay tuned, Jim Barnes, Awards Director, jimb@bookpublishing.com

One thing I would dearly love is for my local library for the blind and Liberians in general to read this statement and see Mr. Barnes's comments about the quality and originality of the entrants. I continue to be told that indie books are not recorded by the library even if the author is a local not to mention a longtime patron and volunteer of tyhe library. Unless such a book gets a rebiew from one of the sources the library deems worthy, you may as well forget it. You aren't good enough, and what's more, we aren't even going to waste our exalted time reading your trash.

Sorry, I'm just really anxious that my next post will not have the news I hope to have.

Celtic Music of Spain

Nan is away until tomorrow. Hope you are enjoying the book trailers! An now for something completely different.

Book Trailer: The Traitor's Wife

Nan is away for a few days.. enjoy the book trailers!

Book Trailer: Agincourt

Nan is off for a few days... enjoy the book trailers!

Book Trailer: The Cartographer

Nan is off for a few days... enjoy the book trailers!