Sunday, September 11, 2005
I just joined this marvellous listserv catering to the Victorian era--and it's filled with scholars and professors from all around the world! I also just placed an order for a slew of books on Yorkshire for research purposes, so I'm excited to begin research for my WIP, tentatively entitled The Poetess.
I realized that the reason why I procrastinated continuing to sketch out the bare bones of my WIp for the past two days was because I was scared of good things happening to me. I've been so used to things failing(and 9/10 it was my own fault as a result of that fear) that when things began to go good--like a story idea coming to me like a waterfall--I would stop doing it, putting it off until the inspiration dried up because I was afraid that it would dry up and fail eventually, never consciously realizing that it dried up not because it was destined to, but because I willed it to do so!! And I also caught myself in the act of helping that fear along. In the past, whenever a story idea was coming along well, as I was researching, I would then procrastinate by seeing what other authors were doing and then I would start researching on whatever they were doing with the semi-serious and v. vain hope that what they were doing would help me to success. Now yesterday, I was buying Susan Carroll's The Dark Queen and started to gather books on the France of Catherine de Medici and Henry of Navarre. Now I am a big fan of this period in French history which is why I really anticipated Carroll's trilogy, but then I started trying to emulate her because of my lingering fear and uncertainty of The Poetess. But I caught myself red-handed and recognized what I have been doing before it escalated.
So now I'm feeling sufficiently confident and assured in my ability to write this book. The only dilemma I am dealing with is the actual poetry of my heroine--should I find someone to write it for me or should I find some obscure Victorian poetess whose prose I use(but with acknowledgement)? I'm reading A.S. Byatt's Possession and am wondering whether she wrote the poetry herself...any suggestions?
i can be. anything.
11.9.05
