New Poem: New This Season

Since I've started working at my great outdoor museum, I tend to spend a lot of time outside.  So much of my job revolves around what's growing, blooming, dying, falling, that every so often, I have to write about it. Right now the big question is when the daffodils will be out. (Not for a while -- we can't magically turn them on, you know.)

But there's something really pretty, really hopeful about seeing the little green leaflets peak up out of the dead grass -- kind of like that flash of lace on racy underwear, a promise of further delight.

Hence, the poem.

 ---

NEW THIS SEASON

Today it is April, and I know
That Earth, too, is itching to peel off her winter- white long johns
in favor of the coming season’s newest floral frocks.
Still, Winter lingers, and with it,
the heavy coats of snow, the caps of ice.
Yet Earth begins to dream in polychrome.

Just yesterday I saw a hint of green-spaded lace peeking out
from underneath the snow-white nightgown
and there were sprays of witch-hazel in her hair.
On my morning walk the squill, spilling out in blue haze along the hillside,
promised new delights for her next lover
when those tired brown leaves finally get packed away.

Oh, sister, I am with you.
I, too, am tired of feeling frumpy.
Bring out your blue dress and your shoes that shine.

Spring (poor silly man) is waiting just around the corner to make his entrance,
sweep you off your feet with sweet words and sprays of flowers.
But your friend Winter is still lounging at the door
 Even though we’ve all told him, more than once, to go home
and take his troubles with him.

 (Spring is at heart a coward’s season
Creeping in when Winter finally packs his dingy whites and leaves.)

So we wait.

But there was birdsong from behind your boudoir door
and my heart wished you would just open up
and sing that tramp right off your doorstep.

The Uneaten Feast

Every so often, everyone needs a good cry. Not necessarily because of any one thing, although those are good, too, but every once in a while, after a lot of little tiny things build up and build up, sometimes you just need to let the dam go and let the tears out.

Well, I hadn't had a cry in a while, and this morning, I was thinking (quite randomly, I have no idea why) of a friend of mine, Shannon, and suddenly there are all these tears on my face.

So I stood in my room for a while, in the gray of the morning (it  had to have been about seven or so) and let the tears out. I didn't really have a reason for it, other than that I missed Shannon, and all the other people that thinking of Shannon reminded me of, and it occurred to me that people are a bit like Champagne bottles. Life shakes us and shakes us and then with one shake too many the cork comes flying out. Waste of good Champagne, usually. Needs to be drunk right away, if it doesn't all get lost in fizz.

I didn't have anyone to share champagne with this morning, which might have been part of the reason I lost my cork, so to speak. How much of who we are and how many of our gifts get lost in fizz when we don't have someone to share them with?

Hence the poem. Haven't written a poem in a good long while, but here it is. It's called The Uneaten Feast. I suppose, on a second read, it could be rather innuendo-laden, but it's really meant about friendship.


Like a cask full of spirits
stoppered to keep them in
so is a human heart straining its staves.

The sky was gray and the rain was soft on my window
and as the sky was weeping so I was weeping

I am a cask that has not been tapped
I am a drum stretched too tight
I am a loaf that waits to be split
I am a candle that has not been burned.
I am a stone turned in a strange river, and no other stone knows me.
I am a feast at which no friend eats.

The wine in the cask is rich with waiting
and the heart in me is weak with wanting
Take a chair at my table and let us drink together
And the warmth of my spirits will be warmth for yours.

Hyper for Hypertext!

This week I took a break from my typical writing routine to try something different, something so groundbreaking and new that I had to explain to every single person I told this project about what it was, exactly, that I was writing. Short stories? Yes, everyone knows one or two of those. Fanfiction? Okay, it's sort of like a short story. But Hypertext? Hold the phone there, buddy; what on earth is a hypertext story?

Well, Imaginary Rhetorical Device Man, I'm glad you asked.
In the process of describing a hypertext story, I explained it as 'a series of photographs no one will ever see in the order they were taken'  'a story written on notecards you throw up in the air and read in a different order every time' and ' a labyrinth out in cyberspace'.  It's a series of events  -- things like text, pictures, music, videos -- strung together by hyperlinks. The idea is that the story is partially created by its author and partially created by its user. When we read a text, we bring our experiences to it and interpret the text through that experience. Hypertext stories bring this to the forefront -- our very experience of the text itself will be different than our freind's, and that is the first thing we will talk about when we discuss the story -- the experience.

I didn't write the story so much as I built it -- I created a map where I wanted all my links to go and then starting carving out bits of trail where someone could stop, take a breather, admire the flowers. Some are paths that lead to more paths and some are paths that lead to dead ends you have to back-button out of.  There's music, some quotes, some pictures. It's not just a story, as I've said it's a stereophonic, mulitmedia event. (Much like this blog!) And not a purely textual event, as I've just described.

You can read the whole thing (or parts of the whole thing) here at Past Lives: A Hypertext Story

The Mind in Summer, Idling Along

Having just recently discovered the simultaneous joy and curse that is social gaming on FaceBook (Hello, FrontierVille!) I am ashamed to admit that I haven't had a lot to write about this past week. I also just completed my first week of work, and as kindergarteners are not the most literate of audiences, the most word-based thing I've done in the past week and a half is read a few books (none of them knock-out-of-the-park brilliant) and emcee my library's Poetry Slam, which turned out be a resounding failure because a) someone is telling today's youth that poetry isn't cool and b) the Slam was at 3pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Nevertheless, the three kids that did show up had a great time reading stuff out of books and I think good fun was had by all.

Since feeding my pigs and harvesting my apple trees has been taking up most of my idle time, I haven't been paying very close attention to my feed reader, which I've set to alert me every time FF.net gets a new submission in about ten different categories, among other things. Many of these posts are coming from the Percy Jackson section, and I think that's another reason why I'm breezing through and skipping over a lot of them. There's nothing there that really stands out, nothing that I want to read. I'm also getting a lot of posts from Flamespots, which I've also added to the feedreader just to see how much lag time there is between the story getting posted and someone putting it up as flamable. It's also interesting because occasionally the Flamespots posters will add comments that they've gotten back from the authors, and those are ALWAYS worth a read.

Reading these replies, you get the sense that there seems to be an idea of entitlement in the writing world -- I wrote it, I worked on it, it must therefore be good, and if you don't agree with me, I  have the right and possibly the duty to shout at you. I know this exists because I feel it sometimes. No one is entitled to be recognized as good -- you have to earn that right, through practice, through revision, and through listening to critique. But everyone is entitled to know what they did right and wrong, and it is a duty of owning that right that you must listen to all your supporters and detractors with good grace, and not shout back in your author's comments.

I actually got talking with the three teens at the poetry slam about online reviews, and their response was clear -- everyone needs to get bad reviews once in a while. But one of the teens said something very interesting on the subject of non-complimentary reviews -- "Everyone needs constructive criticism."

Very true, everyone does need concrit. Concrit is what makes the writing world go round. I endeavored to explain to him that in the online writing world there is such a thing as a non-complimentary review that offers very little basis for improvement, which shocked him and my other two audience members (I was at this point doing a little lecture/Q&A on fanfiction).

Does such a thing exist in the face-to-face world? Is it easier to deal with there? Or are the social situations in which writing is shared so exclusive (or so friend- or kinship based) that baseless criticism is seldom found there?

Check Your Flamethrowers at the Door -- a few thoughts on Flaming.

I know I've been talking a lot about the Percy Jackson people on this blog lately, but it's really interesting watching this community work and evolve. It's like I'm turning into the Jane Goodall of fanfiction. It's kind of scary and kind of cool at the same time.

And lately, I've been thinking a lot about flames.

I've been seeing this kind of notice in story summaries for years, but I haven't started thinking about it until now -- it's the kind of hopeless, feeble attempt at saving face you could only find on the internet. "Plz don't flame! first fic!!!!!" the newbie writers cry plaintively from their summary boxes.

First of all, if you think your story is worth flaming, chances are you might be right, which means that you ought to go back and change it, get a second opinion from someone you trust and whose writing you admire...something else besides putting a note in your summary that might only attract more flamers.

I understand why people put the notes there. They're scared. They're venturing out onto the ice for the first time and they don't want to end up at the bottom of the lake with ten-thousand pounds of icy pressure drowning them in the sentiment that their writing sucks. And after a lot of further thought about this, I realized that not only does flaming hurt the recipient, but in the long run hurts the writer of the flame and the community as well.

A lot of you may be sitting in your desks going "Really now? Flaming doesn't hurt the flamers." But it does. Allow me to explain.

The reasons behind how flaming hurts the recipients is easy enough to understand. It's almost a form of cyberbullying, a senseless barrage into why the story is terrible and, in tandem, why the authors as people are terrible as well. Without face-to-face interaction, critiques against the material become critiques of the author themselves. (And often, flames bite into an author's personal character, asking why they'd be such a terrible person to put this up in the first place.) Flames also hurt recipients because they do nothing to solve the problems that started the flame. If flamers are truly anti-bad writing, they should begin by telling people (personally, not just in a blanket statement on their profile page) what it is they need to fix.

Now, on to the tough sell -- how flaming hurts the flamers.

The best writers (as Nancy Atwell, writer-workshop teacher extraordinaire, tells us in "Writing from the Inside Out") are the self-reflective ones, the ones who in addition to reading extensively THINK about what they're reading, why they like it, and what they can incorporate from that writing style to better their own work. I experienced this firsthand last semester when my Writing Essays professor asked us to read several essays by Annie Dillard (AMAZING!) and incorporate something from her writing that we admired (her sentence structure, her format, etc) into our next essay.  Flaming as a practice does nothing to encourage this reflection -- because flamers don't stop to identify problems as well as possible solutions, their own writing doesn't benefit from the give-and-take process of attempting to mentor another writer.

When you attempt to explain what you would do differently, you're mentally problem-solving for something that you yourself might have to do in the future.  When writers begin to work collaboratively and mentor each other's work, they gain an increased understanding of what they themselves need to change in order to become better at what they do. I know I've become very mindful of the critiques I give others and make sure that I'm following my own advice when I post my own stories.

Flaming is also hurtful to the flamers for another reason -- by starting blogs like Flamespots, (a collection of the worst PJO fanfics on the web) writers are drawing attention to the terrible examples of writing, which beginning writers see ALL THE TIME.  Instead, attention should be given to the exemplary pieces  in the collection, which serve as models for newer writers to emulate (like Annie Dillard in the example above.)

Now, I know what the hard-core flamers are thinking -- We haven't got time for all this hold-your-hand-and-talk-you-through-it nonsense! The world's a tough place. Deal with it. And I realize that in some cases, this very well might be true and there may not be much time for mentoring. If that's the case, then go with my mom's Golden Rule --

IF YOU CAN'T FIND ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL. 

This works in fanfiction almost as well as it works in life. A lack of reviews says volumes to a new writer. It says "No one likes this enough to take the time to tell me; I need to change something." Just like attention-seeking children, sometimes giving them the cold shoulder is the best thing to change behavior.

In addition to all of this, flaming is hurtful because it doesn't foster a sense of community or networking, only fear.  (And as we all know, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering and suffering  leads to the Dark Side.) Who's going to want to begin writing if they know their first efforts are going to be knocked over like so many passers-by in a police chase? Heck, even I was scared to post my first PJO fic, and I'm a senior in college! People respond much better to the sentiments of a helping hand up --  "Well, I didn't loooove  it, but if you changed this it could be really good -- keep working at it!" than a stomp in the face suggested by "You have got to be kidding. Seriously? Is your conscience clean after you posted this piece of sh*t? It can't be. It just can't." How can you expect the quality of writing to improve if you don't offer any suggestions on where to start?

Flamers only network with other flamers. Constructive Critics network with new writers and become mentors, sounding boards, and beta readers.  Mentoring means that you hold yourself to a higher standard because you know someone's looking up to you for advice and direction. (This is also great practice if you want to teach English and/or writing some day like I'm doing this summer, but that's a small side-note.)

Constructive Critics also get emails like this in thier inboxes (received after five lengthy and at points kind of harsh reviews were sent to the same author) "Thanks for your in-depth reviews. Nobody apart from my beta has given me such CC before. I really feel as though I can improve this story with your help!"


That's much better than a flamewar, methinks.

Not Without Ambition -- Summer Plans take shape

It has been a very productive last two weeks. Since my last blog post, I've curated a book (put all the pages together in the right order, bound and covered the whole thing) typed my last essay for my Writing Essays course, have almost finished my portfolio for Writing Essays, sent a belated birthday package half-way around the world, and helped work a triathalon. I've sent in  all my paperwork for one summer job (camp counselor's assist at my local Park District) sent an email asking for another job (summer term rush at the bookstore) and am now planning another caper.

I'm going to try and host a writing workshop this summer.
 

Yeah, I know, ambitious. I haven't really got any credentials to be doing this kind of thing, but I figure three years as a literature/education student and seven years as a participant in online communities should be to my advantage. Where did I get this crazy idea? Well, the dinner we hold for the English majors every year brings one of our alumni back as a guest speaker, and this year's was a woman who since graduation from Saint Ben's has worked on a children's lit mag, New Moon Girls, become a freelance copy editor and is now working as a young adult librarian.

Basically, she's where I want to be in ten years.

So after this, as well as the extended study of the Percy Jackson fanfiction, I thought it would be really cool to get together a group of beginning fanfic writers and talk to them, face to face, about how to create better stories online. Online critique is some of the worst to write and to read, and most of the time it's the hardest to get anything helpful out of, too. Beginning writers are either good from the get-go or really downhearted that the only thing people are saying about their stories is "This sucks; go do something else for a hobby, you loony." It doesn't have to start like that, but the advice given to these beginning writers is all the same, and it doesn't mean a terrible lot unless someone in real life affirms that yes, this would make the story easier to read or more interesting or what have you.

And I'd like that affirming person to be me. Now I realize I can't get a group of fanfictioneers exclusively, so I've expanded my criteria to beginning writers (6th through 12th graders) of varying ages to impart some lessons I've learned over the years. I began drafting a one day workshop.

After talking to several people (two professors included) it's morphed into a four session seminar. Here are the basic topics we'll be covering at each meeting.


Week One -- I'm a Writer: Who are You?( And what are you writing about my story?) -- introductions, goals,  and how to leave good reviews
Week Two -- Before the Pen Hits the Page: Prewriting your Way to Good Product -- timelining, research, narrative decision-making
Week Three -- Creatures of Habit: Developing a Writing Process and a Revision Process
Week Four -- So, What Happens Now?  On getting published, online communities to join before that happens,  and how to get more help doing what you love

Thoughts, suggestions... strong hints I go get a new hobby? I'm open to anything.

Why Rewrites are Bad News

So, the MaMotR rewrite steamrollers along at close to 50 pages now (and Boromir hasn't even left Gondor yet, which is a good sign for the narrative pace, I think.) I had a discussion with my sister about whether a rewrite was against FF.net rules, and we agreed as long as it gets a new title, I should be okay. I've decided on "A Rose Among the Briars", a twist on a line from the Christina Rossetti poem "The Rose":

The lily has a smooth stalk,

Will never hurt your hand;

But the rose upon her brier

Is lady of the land.

But something about this story is really starting to worry me. I actually had a discussion with myself the other day that went a little something like this:

Muse: You had Rhoswen get a dog for New Year's in the original. You still want to go through with that? I think getting a hawk would be so much cooler.

Me: A hawk would be cool. But the dog would have to be a hunting dog, and I think the original had greyhounds, which I still think would be appropriate.

Muse: But dogs and hawks are symbols of the hunt, and I don't think they're big on the hunting scene in the Tower of Guard. I mean, you've already established that the Pelannor Fields are townlands.

Me: Damn, you're right. They wouldn't have time for stuff like that in Gondor. Hunting is a replacement for fighting, and they fight all the time. Nix on that. Still want Rhoswen to get a hawk, though. Maybe it could just be an elite status symbol, a throwback to a time when they did have the time.

Muse: Now, wait. She's good with small children and gardening. And she sings later. You can't have her be good with animals too!

Me: Damn, hadn't thought of that either. Gonna have to think of something else for a present.

Yes, I had this conversation! I am so afraid New!Rhoswen is turning into a Sue after reading Why Bella is a Mary Sue by whitedog1 on DeviantArt. The MarySue Litmus test gives me a 20, which still isn't very reassuring, but I checked some canon character boxes that only get checked because I took her dad's name from the list of lords that ride into Minas Tirith before the Battle for the Pelannor Fields.

And on top of all that, I guess I'm afraid no one's going to want to read it. All in all, not good prognosis here.

The First Rule of Fight Club is...

...you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is -- You DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we're not supposed to talk about Fight Club.But I watched this movie for the first time last night while I was trying to work off a coffee cooler I drank around seven pm and I realized something after the movie was over.

SPOILER ALERT!!! If you've never seen Fight Club, don't read the rest of this post! It will spoil the movie and this is not a movie you want spoiled for you. Stop reading this and GO WATCH THE FILM.







----






Are you gone yet? Good.






Brad Pitt's character (We'll call him TylerSurreal for the purposes of this blog post) is a Mary Sue. Why do I say this?

"You could not do this on your own,"TylerSurreal tells TylerReal (Edward Norton) towards the end of the film. "All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck. I am smart, capable and, most importantly, I'm free in all the ways that you are not."

Like MarySues, TylerSurreal was created by TylerReal for the purposes of personifying everything he's not, everything he wishes he could be. He uses TylerSurreal to do things he otherwise wouldn't have done, just as writers use MarySue to sleep with their favorite character (Something most younger female writers wouldn't do in real life if they had the chance) be brave and commit deeds of daring do (another thing we don't have the chance to act on in real life) and probably most importantly, realize our desires for physical perfection. (If TylerReal wanted to be Brad Pitt, I think MarySue wants to be Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox, or some other Hollywood dazzler, someone who stops traffic and makes cameras stare.)

Like MarySue, TylerSurreal is destructive. TylerSurreal destroys by blowing up buildings and created an army around his cultish personality becuase he's a disconnected half of one person, trying to become fully realized, taking over the whole brain. MarySue destroys because she too is disconnected. She is aloof from her creator, who neglects to put essential humanity, essential imperfection, into the way she interacts with other characters. And we hate her because of it, just as we hate TylerSurreal for making TylerReal shoot himself. But in the end, we have to metaphorically shoot ourselves to make MarySue go away. Earlier in the movie, we remember TylerSurreal putting a gun to Raymond K. Hessel's head and asking him what he wants to be. At the end of that interchange Raymond runs off screaming, and Tyler Surreal calmly reminds TylerReal, "Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted."

By shooting himself, TylerReal recognizes the same thing. The next day of his life will be the most beautiful day he has ever experienced. His breakfast will taste better. Why?

Because he knows he's not perfect, he knows he never will be, and he's glad of that fact, because perfection is dangerous, and the only thing that makes life worth living is getting to fix the mistakes we make.

Welcome to the Time Capsule: Spring Cleaning and a Trip Down Amnesia Lane.

"Thank you, gentlemen, for that trip down Amnesia Lane. Burn that." -- John Keating, Dead Poet's Society, after looking at his senior year Welton Academy yearbook.

Learning to live in a 12 by 15 foot space for six months of the year on a carload of clothes, a 2 foot tall fridge, and standard set furniture teaches a person a lot of things. It teaches you to set schedules because your mother is not there to do it for you. It teaches you to clean up after yourself, because there is no cleaner place for you to run to. It teaches you to put things away, becuase otherwise you will rapidly run out of functioning space. It also teaches you that there are many things in your room at home that you do perfectly fine without when you're up at school in your dorm.

This valuable piece of information was why the first thing I did on Saturday morning when I got home after an 8 hour drive was clean my room. It wasn't really a clean -- I didn't sweep and I didn't vacuum -- it was more of a purge. I went through every ounce of paper I had and recycled two large paper bags full of back issues of Merc's Life and National Geographic. And a lot of that paper brought me back a few years, to when I first started writing. I had old drafts, slips of paper I had written down ideas on that never got used, notebooks filled with now-useless conversations between characters I grudgingly remembered I had written.

And to put this quite bluntly, it was scary. I thought I was hot stuff back then, writing the next Hugo Award-winner or something. (For those of you that don't know, the Hugo Award is given for the best of the best in the Science-Fiction genre) And the writing! Man, the writing was just bad. And I'm trying to decide what I've learned from this.

A few of my friends have started rewrites of stories they started five, six years ago, stories that made them famous. (Really, I do mean famous. These were like 'toast of the Internet' stories. I have never written one of those.) It makes me jealous because, as I just mentioned, I have never written a toast of the internet story. But it also makes me wonder, because I don't have enough pride in anything I wrote five years ago to attempt a re-write. Meaning and Mystery of the Rose? I wrote that because I was a raving Sean Bean fangirl. Now my fangirly heart is bestowed on about five other actors. That was my magnum opus back then, and now I look at it and chuckle fondly. People thought it was so good! I thought it was so good!

People also thought I was in college then, because that's what I told them, and they believed me, so I'm not so sure now how much we should trust 'people.'

I'm reading a story written by a girl my age on ff.net now, and let me be the first to tell you, it's not the greatest. I'm the only one who's reviewing it, which should give you an indication of how bad it is, because I feel bad and it's in my token category right now. And I'm having a hard time finding the right words to tell this author that everyone has to start at the bottom and work up. Sure, you may have been writing stories that only you can read for years and years, but it's the critique from having them out on a public forum, whether that's in a classroom or online, that makes you grow as a writer and recognize your mistakes. I'm a grammar Nazi now because online writers HATE people who can't spell correctly or be bothered to proof their text before posting it. I'm a better writer now because people shot me down a lot when I was younger. They boosted me up a lot, too, but they shot me down more.

So I guess the point I'm making is this -- Tari.Tinuviel, AurelliaFramboise, and anyone else on ff.net that I may or may not have written less than complimentary reviews for, I'm not doing it out of spite. I'm doing it because that's what I wanted when I started writing. I wanted someone to tell me what went wrong and try and help me fix it. Please accept my apologies for any down days I may have caused and let me be that person for you.

Crisis

In the past four hours, I've left three reviews on two stories on ff.net. None of these reviews were particularly complimentary -- in fact, all of them had several items the author needed to fix. And now, after having left these three reviews, I'm feeling a little...full of myself. Haughty. Mean. Egotistical. What gives me the right to tell someone "I don't think the way you're writing a story is the right way?" What gives me the right to say "You're making a lot of the same mistakes many beginning writers do" to a girl from Jordan who's been on the site for all of a month and probably doesn't speak English as her first language? What authority do I have that could possibly allow either of these girls to take my criticism seriously?

I liked the first story. Really, I did. It was a fairly well constructed and clearly well planned Horatio Hornblower fanfic. Finding one of those (especially after the A&E miniseries came out) was impossible -- book canon went out the window. Mary-Sues were rampant. This story had all the promise of not being a Mary-Sue, or at least of keeping the Mary-Sue as a supporting character, a stock image for the background to annoy Hornblower and keep a female presence in the room. She even acknowledged that she had read the books, which I gave her due credit for. But I spent a whole paragraph in my reivew explaining the vagaries of the Duke of Wellington's title to her and why "Wellington" is not a name we can apply to Barbara Wellesley, the Iron Duke's fictional sister and Horatio's wife. What gives me the right?

The second story was the one written by the girl from Jordan. I wanted to read it because her author's note was afraid she wouldn't get any "good reviews" because her main character was a Muslim. I wanted to show her that the religious orientation of her character shouldn't be a grounds for flaming. (And we all know how I feel about multifaith dialogue fics...) I wanted to give her a 'good review'. Sadly, that didn't happen. The story was written in a very elementary style, introducing superfluous details about the character in the first paragraph that could only come from an author trying too hard to make it look like they spent time thinking about who thier main character was. I thought the concept was great, but the execution needs a lot of help. I don't know if I can give that help. I'm not qualified to teach English yet! Heck, I can't even explain my own grammar to other English speakers! What gives me the right to tell this girl "You're making a lot of the mistakes beginning writers make, but it's okay, practice makes perfect!" I'm still learning how to write myself! I'm not perfect. I'm not even particularly good at what I do.

Obviously I haven't reviewed anything (seriously reviewed anything) in a while. And clearly I'm having a little bit of a crisis of authority now.

Inspiration, or Lack Thereof

Some days, writing is easy. You sit down, and by some act of god or the alignment of the cosmos or the fact that you're just having an awesome day, the words come. My inspiration has a lot to do with weather, and when it's about thirty degrees outside and then you get a new full blanket of snow (and then, of course, a snow day in which you would like nothing better than to write all day), trying to write a scene that takes place in a desert becomes a lot harder than you would think.

This wasn't any snow, either -- it was wet snow, the kind skiers hate because it clumps and sticks to everything and slows you down. I would know -- I went out and snowshoed in it. Powder, the light, airy kind of snow, behaves like sand -- it drifts, forms snow dunes. Looking at wind swept powder looks a lot like looking at a desert. Looking at wet snow...looks like looking at a winterscape. Not helpful at all.

I have a new chapter due this Friday (I use the word 'due' as an indication that I am giving myself deadlines, one new chapter a week, to make sure this story goes faster.) and I haven't edited it yet. Tomorrow I go to a conference on Medieval History in the Twin cities at the University of Minnesota. Topics being lectured on will include the following:

10:15am - Introduction to Exhibit of Medieval Books
10:30am - On the Road with the Crusades
11:15am - Food, Feasting & Fasting
1:15pm - Beowulf: Fact, Fiction, & Film
2:00pm - Exploring a Medieval City
2:45pm - Readers’ Theatre: The Chase: Harts & Hearts

Needless to say, I'm terribly excited, because most of these speakers (with the exception of Beowulf) have something to do with Song of a Peacebringer. I'm also the only CSB/SJU student going with someone from the HMML, who sent out a free range invitation to the entire history department. I'm the only one who responded, and I'm not even part of the history department! Hopefully more inspiration will strike after the conference is over.

Editing -- An elephant, only with more punctuation.

Editing. Everyone hates to do it, but it's the elephant-in-the-room of the writing world -- something that cannot be ignored despite the fact that everyone wants to.

And I'm not talking about the cross your Ts and dot your Is editing, either. I'm talking about the redirect the last forty pages of your story editing, which I am getting a crash course in this week as I try to do that in addition to juggling a host of other things, not the least of which is beginning my prep work for my study abroad experience this fall. (Galway, Ireland? Anyone? Anyone?)

Was it necessary for me to abruptly decide to uproot the ending and take it in a completely different direction? No. But one of my reviewers suggested it, and after much thoughtful consideration, I decided that her suggestion had a lot of merit, and it would pose new and interesting challenges for me as well as a different (and more thought-provoking) message for the reader.

Last Friday I posted the first chapter in this new and revised ending sequence, and it felt a bit like pushing the button to initiate a countdown sequence on a bomb. A very large, imposing, life-in-the-world-as-we-know-it-altering kind of bomb. Well, now it's several days later, and I still don't feel any better about it, mainly because of the three people who I can generally count on to review only one has actually gone and done it.

But I'm still having fun researching and adding new elements to my story, one of which I am shamelessly borrowing from the Arabian Nights -- the character of Scheherazade, the great storyteller who sets the fantastic and elaborate tales of the one thousand and one nights in motion. I'm not actually putting her in the story, per se, but instead I'm borrowing the concept of so skilled a storyteller and applying her to my main character, herself something of a storyteller. Her new love interest refers to her by this long and strange name, and Aude asks her tutor where the name comes from. The tutor explains the story of Scheherazade and Sharyar, and Audemande realizes what a great compliment this is coming from her love interest.

As I was sitting in the library reading The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East and West in between my math class and Shakespeare, I realized something very interesting about Song of a Peacebringer in relationship to the Arabian Nights. The Nights are well known for their use of a frame story (Scheherazade having to tell stories in order to be spared execution) and for their subsequent deepening levels of narrative within the narrative -- Much like Hamlet's 'play-within-a-play' plot device, some of Scheherazade's stories have in themselves more people telling stories, embedding a story within a story within a story.

Song of a Peacebringer, then has an 'intertext' or 'narrative quilt' five layers deep, something I certainly didn't plan on but was kind of pleased to discover. Let me explain:

First there's
ME, Mercury Gray, the author, telling a story about
AUDEMANDE, who is in turn listening to a story about
SCHEHERAZADE, who is telling Sharyar a story about
A PRINCESS IN A FAR AWAY LAND who is telling a story to her children about
AN ENCHANTED CASTLE.

and Voila! Intertext five layers thick. Needless to say this discovery made me feel very talented this morning.

A confession, of sorts.

So I think it's been determined that I'm an Orientalist. Edward Said would be ashamed of me. Professor Mitra will be ashamed of me. Professor Steve will be ashamed of me.

After a review last week from Axel Blaze, my original character Audemade from my Kingdom of Heaven story up and decided she didn't want to marry a Frankish knight, go back to France, and have five lovely children. No, she wanted to marry Nasir Imad al-Din al-Isfahani and make my life difficult.

I'm sure the august personages mentioned at the beginning of this blog post would chalk this sudden change of heart up to Audemande's creator's weakness for Arabic love poetry and an ongoing love affair with the image of a world that has never existed, and they'd be very right. If Post Colonial Lit is teaching me anything, it's that I'm very much an Orientalist. I love to read about "the mystic east," about Mughal India and pre-Meiji Restoration Japan and the Middle East under the Ayubbid caliphate. "Latticework, caravanserai, fountains," to quote Nazim Hikmet, the Turkish poet. "This is the Orient the French poet sees. This is the Orient of the books that come out of the press at the rate of a million a minute. But yesterday today or tomorrow an Orient like this never existed and never will."

So true, Mr. Hikmet. I'm sure you wouldn't approve of this turn either. It involves a franj woman falling in love with a poem-composing Syrian general. Somewhere everyone who fought against the image of the lacivious Arab is turning over in his or her grave. Hopefully I won't rouse too many ghosts -- this is going to be a relationship built on mutual appreciation. And I'm well aware I'm going into dangerous territory here -- now it's not just my own religious history I'm fiddling with, but someone else's. But what is art besides taking chances?

So, in response to this turn of events in my Kingdom of Heaven story, the readingand research list for this week looks like this:

Music of a Distant Drum. An anthology of classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew poems. I read this today. Those 9th century arab poets really knew how to turn a phrase. Some of the best love poetry I think I've ever read.

Arabic Script. A book on the art of Arab calligraphy. Beautiful work. It's making me want to learn calligraphy in any language.

Becoming Muslim: Western Women's Conversions to Islam. Because the contents of this book may become necessary to the direction of the story. I still have to look into this.

EDIT: Success! Apparently Aude doesn't need to convert at the end of the story! Women in Islam, by Wiebke Walther, tells me that Muslim men may marry non-Muslim women, but Geraldine Brooks' Nine Parts of Desire (which I own, by the way -- wonderful text) only mentions women who converted and my hasty scanning of the Qu'ran online seems to indicate otherwise. I think I need to find out which theology professor teaches the Islamic studies course here...

Islamic Art and Archaeology of Palestine. I get to design Nasir's house, and I needed suggestions. I at least know they weren't all zenanas and flowering gardens.

Night and Heros and The Desert: An anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. More poetry. I am a glutton.

Di'bil b. 'Ali. A poet of the Ayubbid period, so someone who would have been Nasir's contemporary. I need him for stylistic purposes. 12th century arabic poetry has a very set form, and I have a feeling I'm not talented enough to recreate that in translation, because of course I will be composing thier love poems in English.

The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival. Fascinating book -- started some of it last night at dinner. The Author mentioned Orientalism in the introduction.


Yes, it's going to be an interesting next few weeks.

Progress on This Blessed Plot

Today I made the first update to my original story (We'll call it a co-authored original story, since it's not really my idea) in several months and made Simon (the co-author) very happy. You can make me happy by reading and reviewing it here, at fictionpress:

This Blessed Plot -- A MechKnight Story

To try and refocus my mind after so many months of non-work on this project, a few nights ago I started writing a little woodle to regain a sense of my characters. I wrote this into the future of The Lady's Guardian and This Blessed Plot, so it'll probably only make sense to me and Simon, but I'm curious what the rest of you will think of it. It's called Tea and Solace.

Jane loved Japan. There was always something serene about the place she had spent so much of her adolescence, the place that had been home when home had not wanted her. Years of riotous tumult and lost wars had taught the Japanese two things – how to cultivate patience and peace. Every imperial islander seemed to have both in spades.

It was an island outside the world. Across the sea, the People’s Socialist Republics of Asia created sprawling factories out of entire villages, employing faceless masses of people making everything from children’s toys to parts for cheap, readymade ‘mechs. The pieces were like their producers, stamped out of the same unchanging molds by the billions. In Japan they still valued the hands of the artificer and the artisan, taking years to craft the perfect blade. Jane had two such blades over her mantle at home, unused, gifts at her first leavetaking from Japan many years ago. They had never come out of their sheaths, reminders of a simpler time she wished she could have seen. She was not a knight as those knights were – she had different weapons and a different, equally deadly precision. But they valued the old ways in Japan, and she had learned to use blades like that. She had honed her body into a weapon, her teachers making her learn the limits of her fleshy shell before they would let her near a mech.

And all that training was nearly wasted when Father made me come home to fight in the Balkans, Jane mused. Because Harry and Vincent had the bad sense to die and leave me to pick up their part in the Balkans. And I didn’t understand it all, young as I was.

There were many wars she didn’t understand, even some of the ones she fought in now. This business with Vlad and Monica, the bad blood between the Pallavincini and the Hunyadi: that she understood, even if she didn’t want to. That was why she was leaving Japan so soon, even though she had only been there a matter of weeks. She had come back to her old teachers and her old school after Vlad and Byrghir had rescued her from Count Rudolf. She had needed time to rest, trying to run away from the world and her injuries. But now it was time to settle debts. She owed Vlad this.

In her luggage, stowed somewhere beneath the decks of the hulking transport ship, there was a plain wooden box, tucked lovingly inside one of her chests. Nesting inside that box like precious eggs were two identical celadon cups, glazed the traditional, translucent ephemeral blue. Jane had called them skyware when she had first seen them as a child, though she knew they had a different name. There were also seven canisters of finely powdered tea leaves, a whisk, ladle, kettle and siphon, as well as several bundles of charcoal.

It was more than just a tea set – it was tradition, it was grace beyond time. It was peace.

She was bringing it with her to share with Monica, during the long, cold days of Romanian winter when Vlad was away. The tea ceremony needed no words – and Jane knew (because she was in that place as well) that where Monica was, there were no words. Jane had been caught before falling down the well; Vlad’s message had indicated to her that Monica had drowned and would never swim again.

Jane’s body twinged at the thought of that kind of violation, so far removed from what she herself had suffered. It went beyond the physical into the emotional, the psychological – yes, even the religious. And it was partially her fault.

Who but God alone knows what our ends may be? Something inside her asked. He placed mountains in front of us to test our faith, and enemies behind us to test our courage. To turn aside is to turn away from him.

She could offer no words of consolation to her friend’s wife, but she could bring her own peace, and company. It was all God had given her, and it was all she could give. And they would share tea, and solace, and hopefully, the hurts would heal.

Edith Wharton

Today, my Quote of the Day email informs me, is Edith Wharton's birthday. For those of you not familiar with the Pulitzer Prize winning authoress, Edith Newbold Wharton, nee Jones, was born on January 24th, 1862 and came into her life and her writing at the turn of the century. She saw the Old New York give way to the New, and the nineteenth century bow out to the twentieth as World War One came, and went, leaving a bloody swath and a irraprable impact on world politics. Wharton wrote several novels and short stories, including a manual on interior decoration that continued to guide American fashion for many years as well as Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and the House of Mirth.

The Age of Innocence holds a special place in my revered literary canon as one of the only books I've started reading after I saw the movie, and one of the only books I thoroughly enjoyed after watching the movie. Martin Scorsese is to be commended -- his film brilliantly realized what I think is some of the greatest prose writing ever, in some places even going so far as to narrate passages straight from the novel, as if he were afraid it would loose something in visual translation. I would give anything to be able to fully realize a place in prose the way Wharton does.

Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin.

The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the ball-room chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess's bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home.

Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing- rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo.

Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort's few fatuities), had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests whom Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawing-room...

Taking Writing Seriously

Today I have to give a presentation of my linguistics research on fanfiction, and over the past twenty four hours when I've been composing my little speech I've presented it to several different people (My furniture got bits and pieces of it for several hours last night.) Reactions were varied, mainly because either my audience knew lots about fanfiction or nothing at all. In fact, one of the more knowledgable audiences, Mallory, said something I've never even considered before --

"Wow, you really take your fanfiction seriously, don't you?"

I realized then that writing fanfiction for me was never a question of taking it un-seriously. I've treated my work as worthy of research, worthy of investing in books I may never read and will probably not be able to use outside of my appropriative linguistic endeavors. (How many people do you know get excited over a book with a title like "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew"? Exactly.)

So I have a bit of advice, not specifically about writing but about whatever your hobbies may be. Take them seriously. Even if you're not very good at them (and heaven knows there are better writers than me in the world) your being committed to your hobby says something about you to other people. Maybe you collect bottle caps or you make cut and paste collages from old calendars, but if you're committed to it, if you treat it seriously, then I think people have a little bit of respect for it.

And if they don't? Personally, I think that means they're jealous.

Tinged with Thought of Suicide -- National Novel Writing Month

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - William Somerset Maugham



Ah, W.S. Maugham. How witty you were. Are. Continue to be. It's always a funny thing to try and refer to an author or an author's work, becuase while they may be dead, as is the case with the author of "The Painted Veil" and "Of Human Bondage," their works are still very much living, attaining a new life every time thier covers are cracked open. In that way, writers seem to be immortal, continuously in the present tense.



And that immortality is what many participents are probably striving for as NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, begins. I applaud the intrepid souls who are starting out on this suicidally tinged quest for greatness -- I once tried in the 9th grade, got 8 thousand words in and decided it was hopeless. Now I have my heart set on being a teacher, a much more marketable use for an English Degree. If that falls through, I plan on becoming a librarian, in the hopes that I may someday help a handsome ex-pat break out of jail, go gallivanting through the desert in search of buried treasure, and be able to explain, while in a somewhat inebriated state, "Mr. O'Connell, I may not be an adventurer, or...or an explorer...but I am proud of what I am! I...am a Librarian."

Additonal props to anyone who knows what movie that's from.



For those of you not familiar with NaNo, let me elaborate -- NaNoWriMo is a contest, of sorts, in which aspiring novelists across the country commit themselves to writing 50,000 words in one month. 30 days.



As I mentioned before, tinged with thoughts of suicide. Especially if you're a full time student like me. Which is why I am staying far, far away from it and contenting myself with one small, insignificant fanfic at a time.



Props to all of you crazy people, though. I hope W.S. Maugham's three rules occur to you some time in the midst of your word churning. Who knows -- perhaps this time someone may actually write them down.

The Liberating Writer (and a few thoughts on Women's Studies)

I've blogged before about the nature of words in different langauges (A Million Words for Love, February 08) and I've found another that I think writers and readers everywhere will appreciate. And once again, this linguistic revelation comes to us courtesy of Arabic.

I'm reading a book now called "The Forgotten Queens of Islam" by Fatima Mernissi (University of MN Press 1993) and Ms. Mernissi, in explaining the difference between levels of power in the early Islamic state, has this to say on the subject of freedom and, by association, writing:

"In Arabic words like hurr (free) and hurriyya (freedom) have little to do with the modern human rights connotation....Hurr also has to do with the idea of resistance, since one says of a bride that she has spent the night hurra if she was not deflowered on her wedding night, since her husband could not penetrate her. This idea of resisting, of concentrated energy contained in hurr, is evident in the word harrara, which means 'to write.' When you decide to write a text, what you are in fact doing is liberating words (tahir al-kitaba). You are arranging alphabet letters in a specific order that makes sense and liberates meanings. Al-muharrir (the liberator) is one of the many words for a writer. One of the many duties of the hurr, the aristocrat, is to think globally..."

Being a liberator of words is a beautiful image of writing, if, of course, one writes well. I'm sure some of my writer freinds would say that bad writing does not liberate words but rather enslaves them for evil and terrible purposes(see Simon's The Coming of the Madness to see what I mean.) But more than being liberators of words, I would also contend that writing is a liberating of ideas. Certainly we have seen that many movements for change and political ideologies have come from written texts, in which words have been set down and the reader is inspired to think on them. With Mernissi's acknowledgement of a writer as al-muharrir, (and certainly she fills this position with her writing, ) English speakers can also consider the idea of the author as an authority (note similarity of root), the teacher and beginner of discourse, as theorists like Foucault ("What is an Author?") point out to us.

So far the book has been exceedingly interesting, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Women's Studies. On the back, one of the commentaries from another academic, Ella Shohat, says this: "Mernissi's breathtaking investigation challenges both contemporary fundamentalist Islamic opposition to women in the public sphere and one-dimensional Western representations of Muslim women as completely lacking in agency..." {bold my own}

Ms. Shohat is also the author of "Unthinking Eurocentrism" so I think we all know what her aim in life is. But really, she has a point. We of the West never hear about exemplary women of other cultures, the Nur Jahans and Aisha al-Hurras and Trung Sisters of the world (It took me about five minutes to come up with that list, and I can only explain two of the three on it, so don't laud me just yet) while we valiantly praise the Victoria Woodhulls and Susan B. Anthonys and Gloria Steinams (and that list is entirely American, so that goes to show something else about my education, too).

When I came back to school, I began reading a lot of non-fiction books, and many of them had to do with the subject of women. I read Something from the Oven, a book on the culture of domestic perfection that grew up in American households after World War II, Hen Frigates, a book on the lives of women as wives and daughters of sailing captains in the 19th and early 20th centures, Women of the Raj, a book on the role of women in British Imperial India, and Women, Crusading, and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative , which kind of explains its subject matter itself. It was a Eurocentric reading list, to be sure. So, when I started this past weekend writing a Kingdom of Heaven fanfic based around the arabic origin of the word checkmate (shah-mat, the king is dead in Arabic or more appropriately the king is helpless in Persian) I realized I was woefully underprepared to deal with the Sultan Saladin (or Salah Al Din, as it is appropriately spelled) as a character.

Bearing this in mind, I went to the library to find a book on him. Easier said than done, but I did find Ms. Mernissi's book. After reading it I feel a little better about my reading habits (although I did find the book towards the end a little poorly organized, to be truthful) but I also realised something else, a unique similarity between women's cultures around the world.

In the last passage of her book, Ms. Mernissi says this:

"We, the inhabitants of medina democracies, are whirling around between Heaven and Earth, astronauts despite ourselves, without space suits or oxygen masks, launched into that planetary dance with bare faces and open palms. And there is one far from negligable difference; we women have to do all that whirling around wearing the veil. Heavens! When I think about our power! But shhh! We mustn't talk about it. We might attract the evil eye!"

After reading that, I recalled another saying, much in the same tone, from a western source --

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels."

I may not have understood the politics and various intrigues of the worlds and religious tones that Mernissi was talking about, but I did at least understand that what they did was exemplary.

(I realize, also, that this blog post was very poorly organized, but there was so much to be talked about!)

Things I've Learned from National Talk Like a Pirate Day

First, Happy National Talk Like A Pirate Day, People!

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging urge to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
- Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910

He blam'd and protested, but join'd in the plan; He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man.
- William Cowper, 1731 - 1800

The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate.
- Bern Williams

The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.
- Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910

Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates.
- John Pilger

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
- Henry Lewis Mencken, 1880 - 1956

Every day my RA puts up a message on the large white board at the end of our hall. Today's was a cheerful reminder that today is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum and all that jazz. Surrounding it were suggestions of how to talk like a pirate.

ARGH!

ME HEARTIES!

YO HO!

and my personal favorite --

BLIMEY!

Blimey? Since when has that been accepted pirate jargon? Which brings me to the point of this post -- when you're a writer, you have to make sure that when you're writing stereotypes, you write the right stereotypes. Make sure your dialogue is appropriate for your characters. Blimey is for Cockneys and lower class British people and Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter books.

Not, as my RA seems to think, for pirates.

Keys to Writing Good Historical Fiction

Okay, we've covered how to write a good review. Now we have to get down to the writing task, and I'm going to talk about something that I know a little bit about: Writing good Historical Fiction.

Now obviously the best people who write about historical things are the people who were there. No one, repeat, NO ONE, will write the Regency like Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackaray did, because -- big surprise here -- they lived it. C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien will draw close seconds, but no one can compare to the originals.

But we love writing historical fiction. I love reading it. I'm not just talking about novels, I'm talking about fanfiction, too. Jane Austen fanfics get published all the time. And there are some things to consider when we consider those fanfics and our humble little offerings.

There are two things standing between the Jane Austen section at ff.net and the publishing house at Scholastic.

One is volume of content.

The other is research. Yes, research, ladies and gentlemen, that lovely word that sends college students scurrying to their corners and high school teenagers screaming to their teachers about how hard the class is. Nothing ruins a historical peice faster than to find that someone has not done their research-

I hate to rain on an otherwise very promising and enjoyable passage, but paper bags weren't invented (or in wide use, sources seem to differ) until the early 1850s. Their pastries would have simply been wrapped in paper and then placed in a basket one of the woman probably had brought. Ah, the good old days before the epic paper or plastic bag decision. Anyway, small note, doubt anyone else besides me noticed, still a very cute passage.

Yes, that is an actual review by me, and yes, I did actually go and look up when paper bags were invented because it bugged me. And I'm not the only one. So here are a few things to consider when writing in a historical context.

• MONEY- It will make a big difference to your story whether people are carrying around Bank of England notes or gold bezants. Find out what people were using for money -- a 'gold coin' isn't going to impress your readers as much as florins, guiders, and guineas are. Especially if you can find how they convert to today's money.
  
• MODES OF TRAVEL- Nothing breaks up a good history more than "The hero left town, and using his horse, traveled across all of England to arrive with his battalion the next night on the opposite coast."A horse does not travel that fast. Find out how people are going from point A to point B, and how long it's going to take to get there. Edith Wharton makes a big to-do about the Brown Coupe people take home from the Opera, and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath wouldn't be the same without the beat-up car they drive around in. Transportation is everything.
• CLOTHES. A skirt is de rigeur attire for women from William of Normandy to the D-Day invasion of Normandy, but skirts have changed a lot in that time frame. Find out what your people are wearing, down to their shoes and underwear! (This just in -- people did not always have Hanes.) This is the fun part, because you, the author, get to look at lots of pictures! You can watch movies, too, but any period film before, say...the advent of Technicolor film is bound to be a little iffy on period accuracy. The more recent (and big budgeted) the film, the more accurate the costumes will PROBABLY be. There are no guarantees. Your best bet is still books. This is also a really good way to immerse yourself in the culture -- how women and men are dressing will tell you a lot about acceptable behavior. For instance, you can't run in a floor length skirt. Believe me on this one -- I've tried.
  
• MUSIC- Find out what the favorite tunes were. The mood alters significantly if you're playing Flo-Rida as opposed to Frederic Chopin. If you can find it, listen to it while your writing. I'm in the middle of a story about the Crusades and I've been listening to Gregorian Chant, Provencal chansons, and the Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack until my headphones were tired. Music is evocative -- use it and muse it.
• PASTIMES -- People did not always have monopoly for rainy days. When you were bored, you could not always pull up a game of solitaire on your computer. Chess is a good standby, but there are other games. Cards have been popular since the 1400s, but Poker and Go Fish were not always the games of choice. Find out what people did when they weren't talking to each other and moving the plot along. Who knows -- they could do this activity AND move the plot.
  
• RANK AND POSITION WITHIN SOCIETY. Believe it or not, doctors were not always as respected as they are today. In the 1700s, for instance, many 'doctors' (or physicians, as they were then called, were quacks and the real medical know-how came from men called barber surgeons. Find out who's who, and why.
• FORMS OF SPEECH AND DEPORTMENT. Somehow I can't see Mr. Darcy greeting Charles Bingley in a ballroom with a hearty "Yo, Whaddup, dawg?" and pounding it like some young men would do today. It's just not done, to use the Wharton phrase. People today do not talk the way people did hundreds of years ago -- you need to remember this and implement it. If you use a phrase with your friends, chances are you DON'T want to use it with your characters. If you have trouble with this, go to the original source. Maybe you don't know how people talked during the Civil War, but I'm certain Mr. Mark Twain does.
• POLITICAL STRUCTURES. It makes a big difference in a story if there's a monarchy or a democracy or a communist Soviet in place. Find out who was ruling who (and how they were doing at it) before you begin writing.
  
• CURRENT EVENTS. Nothing warms my heart more than to see small and often stupid references to things that would have been going on in the world at the time. If you're character is in a bar during the 1910s, how's the war going? (Props if you asked yourself which one.) Have we whooped the Kaiser yet? How are the Bolshies doing? Have those darned Irish stopped making a fuss about independence already? (Those were the three conflicts I can think of from 1910-1920, anyway.) If it's set in the 1830s, are your characters discussing how wrong they think it is that a woman (Victoria) is in line for the throne and will probably get it? Things like this really set the scene for the rest of what's happening, and they set the tone of your characters actions.

Finally, and very importantly, that Elephant in the Room,

• GENDER ROLES. We live in a very different world from the heroines of Charlotte Bronte, Edith Wharton, even Sylvia Plath, and unfortunately, women have not always been able to run around in combat zones (they're still not really, actually) and run businesses and represent people in Congress. Additionally, men were once upon a time very concerned with how they dressed and being 'fashionable' and caring about exactly how you looked was not always considered 'gay' as it sometimes seems to be labeled nowadays. Find out how people were expected to behave. Were women allowed to read at this point in history? Were men allowed to date a girl without asking her dad first?
  

Hopefully this list has given you some ideas to think about, perhaps not for a first copy of a story, but maybe for a revision or editing of a previously published work. This is what separates the published authors from the unpublished ones. It's called Research, and it is hard work.