I joined a Nano BlogHop

This is only my second attempt at a bloghop so we'll see how it goes!

Finally got a title for my Nano story!

Albeit a tentative one.  I wanted to put One Man's Duty but kept giggling, talk about maturity.  Instead I went with Sir Rycroft's Duty.  Okay, so I'm still chuckling.  This title is just my working one for a few reasons.  One of which is because I still haven't decided if Sir Rycroft will be his name.  What do you think of Sir Sebastian Rycroft for the second son of a so far unnamed lord (I was leaning towards an Earl but need to check my peerage information) who is an officer in the Royal Navy?

Here is a picture I took downtown Salem, Mass the other day and used it as my book cover over at Nanowrimo.  Excitement is building and I'm getting to know Sir Sebastian (who until a few hours ago was named MC) after I interviewed him.  Now I need to spend a bit more time getting to know FC whose age ranges from 12-22 throughout the story.

After November is through I'm planning on going through all my old stories and working on a few children series before I tackle anything of this magnitude again.

Currently reading:  1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

Signed up for Nanowrimo 2010

I started this blog over a year ago just for the national novel writing month and as you can see my posting since then has been less than spotty.

But I back ready for another attempt at the 50,000 goal. Will I make it? I'll be away for about a week on vacation and find it very unlikely that I'll get any writing done then but if I write 2,000 words a day plus a few 5,000 bonus days I'll make and surpass the goal.

I'm going down the historical fiction route again, yes it is a regency too. I've been researching quite a bit, it has been exciting to request books from all over the place and read biographies, history books and the like.  Last night I stumbled on some online books through google that are free to read. A big plus when you're writing something from so long ago.

Like last year I'll attempt to share what I learn on the way. Which means I'll need to update my getting started page.

Outlines     Characters     Research     Grammar

My handle on Nano is C.McKane

Research can be Overwhelming

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo a bit early this year I felt that I didn't complete 50,000 words last November for a few reason, my lack of research ahead of time being a main one. Although I've been reading and loving Regency Romances for years trying to write one that is somewhat historically accurate has been another tale. Last year’s story, well-meaning and awesome in my mind just had too many gaps when I got down to writing it. While this works great for a lot of writers I realized fast that I'm not one of them.

So I've been brainstorming off and on for about two months. I filled emails and OneNote pages full of online links to check out but had yet to delve into old-fashioned offline resources.  After checking links for suggestions over at Absolute Write (which I just signed up for this month) I began adding books to an Amazon wish list and checking prices.

Being rather cheap I decided to bite the bullet and pay my horrendous fines at my local library and check out their books. Sadly for me they were closed for renovations but as life randomly throws you a rope (to pull yourself out of a well and not hang yourself with) I was able to kill time at the local community college library while waiting for my sister.  An hour and a half and pages full of dates, quotes and names later I stumbled upon a cart brimming with free books.

Free is my favorite kind of book and I left with four huge books.

     Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature: Vol 1. (Part 1) 1802-1881

     Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature Vol. 1 (Part 2) 1802-1881

     Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary

     Ten Thousand Wonderful Things

In all I spent around two hours researching yesterday without rhyme or reason and it quickly made me realize I need a plan. Otherwise, NaNo will come and go and I'll still be researching obscure tidbits.

Currently my goal is to work on my stories 2-4 hours two days a week. Until the actual writing in November I will break up my time half towards research and half towards the collection of strange short stories that has been slowly piling up.

I think I’ll break it down into categories. For example, right now I’m brushing up on historical highlights up until 1814 where the bulk of my story takes place and am jotting down anything I want to dig deeper into. Fashion, Historical dates, wedding customs, daily life for women, steamboats, drowning and school life for boys are all topics I’ll be focusing on.

What is your research strategy?