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getyourwordsout was a mistake really, given I am also doing AS levels this year. OH WELL. My soul is sold now.And what do I want to write? A Victorian style Gothic novel with mystery, adventure, parody and fantasy elements. I am well aware that this is insane. I think that I should probably do some research for this, to avoid the use of [square brackets] which infested my Nano.
If anyone has any recommendations for a) non fiction books on the Victorian period (19th century London in particular), b) 19th century Gothic novels that you think I should be reading (I've got Northanger Abbey, Dracula, Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights) and c) any modern novels which deal with 19th century gothic/ fantasy settings; I've only read Susanne Clarke's Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, and Joanne Harris' Sleep, Pale Sister, then please, let me know.
Thanks :)
Oh, finally, I took a look at next year's History syllabus, and you know what one of the research topics is? The Age of Justinian, which is one of the most fascinating periods of history there is. Unfortunately, my history department only likes Modern History, and so we are all researching the Russian Revolution. Yay.
- Mood:
cold - Music:Rasputina - Sweet Water Kill
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My school's history department did modern history too. Gladstone and early 20thC Liberals and NAZIS and 20thC US foreign policy and Korean/Vietnam wars and MORE NAZIS. It's a wonder I actually stuck with history long enough to get some delicious ancient history action at uni.
How many words did you pledge? I think 200,000 averages out at about 500 a day, which should be manageable around AS levels (except for exam-time, but you can make up for it in the summer).
I pledged 250k, which works out at as around 600 a day. I don't think AS levels will be quite as writing killing as GCSE when I had 22 exams though.
I don't understand what it is with History departments and NAZIS. My school teach it through 3rd, 4th, 5th and Lower 6th.
I'm doing 250,000 as well, which is 685 a day.
You might enjoy Harris' Holy fools, Catholic Gothic with mad nuns, and missing daughters and 17th century traveling theatres and everything!
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Gothic, amazingly cool, and vaguely homoerotic. But then, a lot of novels of that kind are like that. Nightmare Abbey is pretty much a parody of the whole gothic thing, and very short. Caleb Williams, too. Orlando by Virginia Woolf's a crash-course through time, from sixteenth-century London to twentieth. The last is a somewhat remote recommendation, as it doesn't deal much with Victorianist attitudes and more with gender/gender-bending in general.
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age has Victorian-pastiche elements to it, I believe, though I haven't read it yet. It's in my to-read pile, though. Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time features a protagonist who's infatuated with Victorian England, and parts of the collection take place in nineteenth-century London. It's excellent stuff, if you haven't read it already. Anubis Gates likewise involves time-travel to Victorian England, but Anubis Gates is also a plodding borefest.
I shall definitely look into the rest of those as well; finally an excuse to read both Moorcock and Woolf. The Private Memoirs sounds exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
Thank you :)