Putting On My History Hat

I juggle lots of different things - with varying levels of success. One of those things is historical research. I studied history for my primary degree, and have a master's degree in the social and cultural history of medicine.

I started researching again in October after a year off, and I'm really enjoying it. I find my subject fascinating, and I love piecing together evidence in order to discover something new. I only realised how much I missed research when I took it up again. I've fallen back into a familiar groove and I can completely lose myself in it, in the same way that I can lose myself in writing.

I know that the logical thing to do would be to pick one thing, academic research or writing, and pursue that path exclusively. I foster, so I'm effectively a working mother with a full-time job who's pursuing a degree and whose house permanently look like a mini tornado stopped by. I'm piling stress on myself, and that's not good for my condition, my sanity or my husband.

But yet the idea of giving up either option makes me sad. How do you reconcile all the things that you want/need to do? Did you learn to let some of them go, or did you keep on juggling?

Vocabulary and Society

In between changing nappies (diapers) and longing for a full night’s sleep I’ve been doing some of the preliminary work for my PhD. I study the social and cultural history of medicine, which involves looking at medical records, movements and advancements and using them to try to reconstruct ideas about the way people thought and regarded themselves in the period in question. I look at Ireland and Britain during the late Victorian period up until Irish Independence from Britain in 1921.

The late nineteenth century saw the establishment of ‘proper medicine’ as we know it today, and it was pretty controversial. Opponents claimed that the medical profession used Latin to describe medical conditions not because it was a lingua franca (a bridging language that two people with different mother languages could use to communicate), but because it excluded those who hadn’t received a classical education i.e. the vast majority. Therefore, language was used to protect the economic interests of a small minority while preventing the masses from making their own educated decisions about their healthcare.  It essentially made people unable to understand or learn about their own medical conditions, and reliant on doctors both for interpretation and treatment.

This is probably too simplistic an explanation of opponents, but it does show the power of language to include or exclude. It doesn’t even have to be a different language such as Latin it can be as simple as the type of vernacular you use. Anyone who has read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four remembers how the aim of Doublespeak was to reduce language to so few words that resistance to Big Brother couldn’t even be articulated, let alone carried out. Every country has a section of disadvantaged youth who are frustrated that their lives seem to have so few options available to them, yet don’t have the vocabulary available to communicate this. On the flip side, street-speak or slang can be sometimes used to exclude older generations.

I suppose it brought home just how much the vocabulary that you use, or that you have your character use tells the reader something about that character. The type of vocabulary you have, the language you speak, the accent you have, how you address people around you – it all helps give a picture of the social groups that your character belongs to, wants to belong to, or opposes.

How do you guys approach language style in your work?

P.S. That lolcat has nothing to do with the post, just thought it was cute.

Check-In-Tuesday: Holiday Edition

I'm on holiday so I'm not writing, and I'm also away from my email account and my mailbox, so I'm also not getting rejected. Which is good, rejection on holiday is not good for relaxation. So what is there to talk about, you ask? Books. 

Books+Time to Read= Happy Christine. 

Here are a few of the books that I'm hoping to get through on holidays.

This is one YA book that I've been meaning to read for a while. It's been getting great reviews on the blogosphere and seems to be one of those books that divides the YA community down a 'those that have read it, and those that 

haven't' line. I'm very excited about this one.

This book is about a group of women who have different backgrounds, but one thing in common: they all have cancer. The author herself has suffered from an aggressive form of the disease itself. I was hooked by this line on the back 'the experience of facing and fighting this illness is life-changing - and even life enhancing'. As a fibromyalgia patient, I like to see books with this theme, that explore the difficulties of illness without wallowing in self-pity. Illness really separates you from people, and it's something we don't talk about enough. Also, the author signed it in pink pen, how sweet is that?

 

I got hooked on the HBO series, so now I just have to read the book. It's great as a historian to be able to read a story inspired by the medieval age, and not keep getting dragged out of the story by anachronisms and mistakes. What, they're drinking water? But pure water was undrinkable in the medieval age, that's why everyone drank beer. Even kids drank special 'light' beer. (This is a true fact). But wait, this is a fictional world! So people can drink the water.

*Any recommendations? Reading is an all round thing, I'll need new titles when I come back from holiday*

*These blog posts are scheduled, so I'll respond to any comments when I come back*

*Miss you all!*

Friday Fives: Creative Inspiration

Every week, the lovely people over at Paper Hangover give a blog prompt to help those of us who, very occasionally, run out of ideas for posts. This week they want to know: What are the five things that get your creativity juices flowing? Because Paper Hangover is predominantly YA, I'll be listing things that help me write YA urban fantasy, rather than my other genre, women's contemporary fiction.

1. Music: When I get stuck in a scene, I find playing music can jog my brain. Maybe it's because music appeals on an emotional level? 

2. Rain: I find that I get inspired by the rain, and I find it easier to get write on cold, damp days. Good thing I live in Ireland then.

3: Reading history and mythology: I find that my YA fiction depends more on my university education than my adult fiction does. The political situation in Ravensborough is inspired by historical research, and my steampunk WIP is based in an alternative Victorian era, a period I've specialised in. So non-fiction comes into play.

4: Eavesdropping: It's amazing how many ideas you can pick up from listening to people talk in public. Not that I would lift an idea completely, but if gives you a starting point. Then you ask 'what if...' and a plot strand begins to take shape.

5: Life: This sounds like a bit of a cop out, but it really isn't. The more things you do, people you meet, and places you see, the more your imagination grows. Like any living thing, creativity needs fuel.

What about you guys? What inspires you?

Another Award!

Wow, I was having one of those awful days today. You know the type. I spent the majority of the day waiting for a delivery person who never arrived, seething inwardly at myself for being one of those people who always seemed to get shoved to the bottom of the queue. I've had a blinding headache since yesterday which means that I'm behind in my edits. So, all in all, not a good day. But then, my day turned around when the fabulous Kate Larkindale gave me this lovely shiny award right here, and my day started looking up! Thanks Kate!

Ok, so this award comes with some rules, which are thus:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

So here are seven things you may not know about me:

1: I'm trained as a social historian, and my main research interest is public health legislation in the British Isles during the Victorian and early Edwardian era.

2: My name is Christine, and my parents deny that they named me after the female lead in Phantom of The Opera despite the fact it came out the year I was born and they played the album all the time. When I was a kid and I heard the characters sing about 'Christine' I thought that there was somebody in our house calling me, and would run off to find them. My parents found this so funny that they played the album over and over again just to see me search.

3: I was an only child until age fourteen, but am now the eldest of seven. I'm the only biological child my parents have. Three of my siblings are adopted, two from Romania and one from China, and the other three are foster siblings. 

4: The first writing award I ever won was a national poetry competition I entered when I was ten. My poem was about a unicorn.

5: When I was in Transylvania with two of my brothers I got two mosquito bites on my neck about an inch and a half apart. At least I think they were mosquito bites...

6: My first pet was a rabbit called Bunny that I had when I was two. My granny told me that it died because I hugged it to death. I carried a whole lot of guilt around with me about that until a couple of years ago when my mother told me that in actual fact it died from anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee. Though why my granny told me that I'd killed it is still a mystery...

7: I love archaeology, and worked on an excavation of a Cistercian nunnery in Belgium. The site was so close to the Luxembourg border that we would walk across the border in the pitch black every night to go to the nearest pub.

Ok, so the people I am passing this award onto are:

1: Caitlin Vincent

2: Krista M

3: Dwight Okita

4: Heather

5: Julia

Hope everyone is having a great day :)

Magic Month of May

Ok, I wimped out of finishing the A-Z challenge, I didn't do Y and Z before the end of April. I was going to finish it on the last day of April, but I forgot until yesterday that there was only thirty days in that month. I can only ever remember by using the rhyme. Still, the challenge did what I wanted it to do, it got me writing in my blog regularly so I'm pretty thrilled with that.

May is promising to be a busy month with a lot of introspection. Do you remember my angst about whether or not to go further with my education? Well, my potential PhD supervisor got back to me and said she'd support my application. She agreed to do it last year, but I couldn't proceed because I was too ill. I always wanted to do a history doctorate, and doing it would be an achievement that I didn't let my fibromyalgia stop me from achieving my dreams. But I have another dream - to be a published writer - and I only have so many spoons. If I do a PhD then I will have less time to write, but if I don't do a PhD and I don't become a published writer then I've lost two dreams. It's hard to decide. You're probably thinking 'But Christine, you can't even remember how many days are in April, are you sure that going back to University is the right thing for you to do?' This is a valid point, but I'm actually quite a good student. It's real life that leaves me baffled.

I'm also editing Storms in Teacups for an early June submission to a number of agents. How scary is that? Oh, and hopefully by the end of this month I will be halfway through the first draft of If Life Gives You Lemons. So a busy month ahoy.

And in totally awesome news, the fabulous Caitlin Vincent gave me an award! How cool is that? I'm fairly new (yet addicted) to the blogosphere, and it made me tear up a little to think that someone would give me an award like this. It literally made my day, thank you so much Caitlin!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend :)

H is for...History

Hmmm. Now I know why I have such a bad back.

Other than writing, my other love is history. I've been interested in since I was a kid, and I think part of the appeal of the urban fantasy genre for me is that you get to create your own new histories and mythologies from scratch.

I studied for my BA in Trinity College Dublin. I met my husband there, also a history student and we met on a history society trip to Edinburgh.

After graduating I went to University College Dublin and got my MA in the Social and Cultural History of Medicine. When I told people I wanted to study history at BA level, they assumed I wanted to be a teacher, when they found out that I was doing an MA in the history of medicine they assumed I wanted to be a doctor. And the embarrassing thing is, at 24, I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life at all.

When I was younger, I was so definite. I was going to get my PhD, write in my spare time, and raise children. I was energetic and determined, but then I got ill. I just don't have the same amount of energy as I used to. I'm currently on a year out from college, and I don't know whether I should go back and start my research doctorate this autumn. My husband thinks I should focus on writing, but I worry if I do that I'll end up five years down the line no nearer to being published with all my dreams in the dust. I really don't know what to do.

If I do my PhD, I won't be writing as much. That's a fact. But other people seem to juggle lots of things in their lives. How do you all juggle everything?

The guys over at Paper Hangover are asking people what are five things they'd wish they'd known before becoming a writer. Here are mine:

1) No matter how great an idea sounds in your head, it always loses a slight something when it moves onto the page. This is normal, and not a sign that you are a failure.

2) When you're a writer, everything is material. Worried about going to a family occasion because you can't stand someone? That's ok. Save up the negativity and use it for a character. Stuck waiting in a queue at the grocery. Eavesdrop on other people's conversations. It helps you learn what makes people tick.

3) Coffee is fuel. It has magical qualities, the stronger the better.

4) Sometimes I will prefer my imaginary world to the real world. Though, I've been like this all my life, even before I started to write.

5) I wish I'd known how much writing can hurt. Your wrists, your back, your fingers (not to mention the whizzing of caffeine through your veins). I see physiotherapy in my future.

And that's it. Have a good Friday! ;)