Slowing down, for good reasons

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deadline, marketing, Plank 7, publication date, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, title, writing

I’ve just had a five-day break in Norfolk.  For those of you not from the UK, Norfolk is one of our more traditional counties, for which we love it – you can visit seaside towns that seem much as they must have done in the 1950s, and the simple pleasures of bird-spotting, cake-eating and countryside-walking are Norfolk’s selling points.  And what inevitably happens on a Norfolk break is that you slow down and take stock – you step back from daily routines and pressures and wonder why life can’t always be this relaxing.

As some of you will know, I am retiring from my full-time paid work at the end of this year – for many and complicated reasons, but it’s the right decision at the right time and I am looking forward to spending much more time on writing and book marketing.  However, when I announced my plans to my clients, I was (very flatteringly) inundated with requests for “just one more training session before you go”, and my diary for the last three months of the year is now jam-packed with bookings.  The net result is that I am further behind with “Plank 7” than I would wish – and I was getting panicky about meeting my own deadline (mildly important) and also finding the actual writing a chore rather than a pleasure (hugely important).  And after looking at it from the distance of Norfolk, I have decided to postpone my publication date until 25 February 2022.  (My late father’s birthday, so always a significant date for me.)

I am aware that we are in the middle of our title poll – many thanks to those who have already voted.  I can’t see me changing the plot elements significantly or changing my short-list of titles, so the decision of that poll will simply carry forward – and it will be lovely to stop calling the poor thing “Plank 7” and give it a proper name instead.

And to those of you who suspect that this is all simply a ruse to spend a couple more months with Sam and Martha, well, I couldn’t possibly comment…

Sex on the brain

Tags

deadline, etymology, library, Martha Plank, Plank 5, research, Samuel Plank

I imagine you think I’ve stopped writing.  Certainly my decision to take eighteen months to write “Plank 5” – as opposed to a year each for the first four books – has taken away some of the urgency I used to feel about word counts and deadlines, but rest assured that Sam and I rarely go more than four days without spending some time together.  (For new readers of this blog, I am not the world’s laziest novelist: I actually have a full-time job, and the novels are my – somewhat overwhelming – hobby.)

Anyway, I know you like to hear about the mechanics of writing historical fiction, and recently I have been thinking and reading a lot about sex.  Well, to be more specific, about contraception, pregnancy and fertility.  I don’t want risk any spoilers, but if you have read earlier Sam books you will know that Sam and Martha are childless – and not by choice.  In “Plank 5” I look into this a bit more deeply, and this has proved quite tricky.  For instance, did Sam and Martha know what caused babies?  Of course they knew that sex had something to do with it, but did they know about sperm and eggs?  What did they think was going wrong for them?  Did they blame themselves, each other, God, fate – or did they not see it in terms of blame, but rather simple destiny?  Even today people are reluctant to discuss these very personal matters, so you can imagine that diary entries, newspaper articles and learned discussions about them from two centuries ago are, to say the least, thin on the ground.  I’m reading some pretty peculiar stuff – hope no-one’s analysing my borrowings from the rare books collection at the library…

And you know my fixation with etymology – in essence, making sure that the vocabulary I give to Sam is not too modern.  Surprisingly, it is tricky to find the words that nice people would have used to refer to pregnancy and childbirth.  As ever, there is plenty of rather coarse language, but that’s not what Sam would have recorded in his books.  “Pregnant” was in use, but (and this nearly caught me out) both “expecting” and “in the family way” are much too recent, dating only from the 1950s.  French was back in favour, so “enceinte” could be used in more refined households.  And when no-one could miss it, you were “great with child”.  But the one I had never heard – and I’m still in two minds about using – is “lumpy”.  I mean, not terribly flattering, is it?