To Birmingham on business, but managed to squeeze in an hour’s research on the train there and back, and, arriving early at the City Library for an event, was able to use their reading rooms for another half hour. Slow work, ploughing through three different people’s accounts of what they did between ten and eleven […]
Writing and Researching
80K reached – shattered!
After four days of tough slog with chapters one and two, I am pleased to report that I have licked these into shape pretty well and am very happy (though inarticulate from fatigue). Spent most of today in the Bodleian. Have now gone over the 80,000 word mark. Just one more chapter (number three) to make respectable before […]
Ready, steady….coke!
With a long weekend ahead, husband packed off on a trip of his own, fridge stocked and infinite supplies of diet coke on ice, it’s time for a four-day stint of writing. See you on the other side.
The Afterlife of Charles I’s Death Warrant
The Death Warrant One thing leads to another when you’re researching, and as a result of work on the fire book, I have gathered enough spare material for an academic article, which I’m planning to call “The Afterlife of Charles I’s Death Warrant”, telling the story of what happened to this iconic document, one of the […]
Inspiration
Bought two postcards of the principal Turner watercolour of the fire today from the Tate. One for home, one for work.
The Loneliness of the Longdistance Narrative Historian
After my nine-day marathon of writing, and a bit of work over the Bank Holiday weekend, I have now jogged past the 75,000 word milepost. I am very pleased with progress, but the first three and a half chapters are still just a series of half-digested chunks of narrative and references which is annoying. […]