St Dwynwen is the Welsh equivalent of St Valentine. The patron saint of lovers, and today is her day.
Happy St Dwynwen's Day
Dydd Santes Dwynwen Happus.
(Excuse the short post - knee deep in edits for Masquerade on the Riviera - cover reveal tomorrow! )
11th to 17th January.
I had three books on my mind in the week that's just gone - Masquerade on the Riviera, the new release scheduled for March, Summer in San Remo, the first of the Riviera Series, which was on a daily deal on Friday and the one I am planning to write next. I decided it might be interesting to make a diary:-
Wednesday 11th
Spent a couple of hours writing the obituary of someone who does not exist. Writers are weird. I keep telling you that.
Popped down a few rabbit holes AKA research. Bought a book on Arts and Crafts house gardens and ordered a few on architecture of said houses from library. Went hunting for information on the WW2 war artists, particularly artists who drew the official pictures of the Nuremburg trials and found myself looking at various portraits and busts of the artists themselves in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery, then had a pleasant ramble around the website of the Imperial War Museum. Found a lot of useful stuff. Downloaded a banner from my publisher for the deal on Friday. The edits will be back next week. Now looking for a corner to hide in. Tomorrow I have a long delayed trip with a friend to look at the Egyptian exhibits in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Maybe I won't come back. (See edits, above.)
Thursday 12th
Very good day with Mary in Bristol, even if we did get drenched! The museum/gallery has an attractive, intimate Egyptian exhibit which was the object of the visit - atmosphere for the forthcoming launch of Masquerade on the Riviera. We also got a very nice lunch in the cafe - toasted sandwich and decadent hot chocolate - and a scamper around the display of PreRaphaelite paintings, which you know is my catnip.
Inside and outside of sarcophagi from the museum. These were quite small - I have three huge ones in a very creepy scene in the book - at least, I hope it is creepy!
Friday 13th!
Tired after my day out, still not used to being out/out. Mostly just vegetating and doing promo for the Kindle daily deal for Summer in San Remo. Thrilled that by lunchtime it had a best seller banner.
I remembered that I was going to do a short post on a lecture from Cardiff University on Physionotrace portraits.
It's a technique developed in France in the 1780s for drawing a silhouette created by a machine in a frame, which could then be used to produce multiple copies. Robespierre comes into it as there is a portrait of him using this method, which reveals his characteristic tip tilted nose. Apart from enabling greater availability of likenesses before photography, portraits done this way were closer to a true portrayal of the subject and can be used to test the accuracy of subsequent art work, some produced well after the death of the original subject. Famous people could circulate copies for publicity purposes and they were also used for medical records.
Apparently Robespierre was considered very good looking and had fan girls - just like a contemporary pop star - who packed the public gallery when he was speaking. Certainly many of the portraits were very dashing. The lecturer - unfortunately I can't find a note of her name, but I think it was Dr MM Gilchrist - showed how an original could be manipulated to produce other portraits - reversed, given different style clothes and/or tinted with pastels for numerous variations. The further they got from the original the less distinct the likeness became.
It was an interesting evening. I always like to learn things about art. You never know what might be fuel for a new idea. Will I ever use this in a book? At the moment I don't think so, but who knows what the subconscious might throw up in the future.
This week I have taken the first steps on a new book. This is scary, exciting, satisfying. At present there are some words on paper and a lot of assembling ducks in rows. Bit like jigsaw puzzles. I'm not particularly good at those, but I do like to puzzle out a new plot. Besides that, and a cast list and a genealogy - it's going to be one of those books again that have family history going back to the war, so I need to get births and deaths and age at key dates sorted out - there is the business of names.
Names operate in mysterious ways. Sometimes the characters arrive with them already in place. Sometimes they have a name, but it doesn't feel right and the book doesn't jell until they get a new one. Sometimes naming a character means resorting to baby name books and lists on the internet.
The characters in this book seem to have been rather shy over divulging names. A few have to be Welsh, so that involved the list option, but I have them now. Naming the hero seemed to be especially difficult this time. As I said, I have done a bit of writing and it was time for him to make his entrance - except he couldn't do that until he had a name! I've been mentally throwing options around - he almost seemed as if he was going to be Rafe, but that didn't quite fit. Yesterday morning though, he settled - his name is Nathan. I think now that is right.
So - Eleri and Nathan are ready for their journey. It's a complicated one - when are they not, when I get my hands on them - three interlocking mysteries. Hope I can cope with that. I also have an ancient solicitor for whom I have unexpectedly fallen rather hard who seems to have set himself up as a kind of narrator, plus a story line that goes back to the War and the 1950s. The quotation that opens Romeo and Juliet keeps running through my mind,
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
The book isn't set in Verona - although I think Lake Como may be making a guest appearance, but it does have two families and star crossed lovers.
At the moment I'm figuring out the connection between my hero and a local serial killer - as you do. It will putter along for a bit, as the edits for Masquerade on the Riviera will be back soon, but at the moment I am having fun.
