The Hampton Court Clock. Very cool looking, but seriously outdated. Note the SUN revolving around the EARTH? Image attributed to Mike Cattell via Wikimedia Commons.
I’ve always liked the Hampton Court clock. First of all, because I was fortunate enough to see it in person during an excellent tour of the palace, courtesy of one of my Cambridge professors. Secondly, because it gives me the impression that there are more hours in the day. All 24 hours are represented, giving me the proof illusion that I have plenty of time to complete my projects and squeeze in some ‘me’ time.
Maybe I torture myself.
A few weeks ago, I started to realize that my postings were quite irregular, and many times I just couldn’t come up with anything to write about making that my excuse for not posting at all. So I set a goal that I’d post something, anything on Monday mornings. Last week, I got my post ready days in advance and relished that I was able to tweak it here and there to make it better before Monday. But it is Monday morning as I type this one… *sigh*
The lyrics to that Steve Miller song keeps running through my head – Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’, into the future.
A big chunk of my time is devoted to my boys. Other spaces are filled with housework, researching the next inspiration for my book, getting the inspiration written, and now I’ve added harp practice to the blend. But this last gave me a nice idea for the subject of another post when I have more time to devote to it. 😀 So yeah, I’m just going to get back to the illusion of more time via Hampton Court’s clock...
How does time, or the lack thereof, frazzle affect you?
I love analogies. Looking at a situation or idea another way helps to understand it better. Sometimes that helps to explain it better too. However, I’m not always crack shot at coming up with a good analogy, so I’ll practice here a bit. And because I’ve learned volumes just by watching my kids…
Last Christmas, my mom got my boys an awesome puzzle game made of blocks. Each side of the blocks makes a new puzzle, so there are six puzzles all together. William, who is four, can put them together himself, but Charlie, who is three needs help.
Charlie and I can sit for 30 minutes together going through each puzzle image. But he likes to take it a step further. After we put it together, I take the puzzle row by row and turn the blocks into a train wall, or firetruck wall, or whatever vehicle we’ve put together. Then, of course, he loves to knock it down.
This is kind of the same way I’ve been learning how to approach my WIP. When I got stuck in 1715 Kells, Ireland, I had to figure out a way to describe what happened there. It’s one thing to know the puzzle pieces of the history (which I struggled to find), and describe what it looked like in that time period. But I needed to take it a step further and show what it could have been like. So, I threw in a couple of violent English soldiers and…well, you’ll have to wait till I’m done.
It’s fun for Charlie to see the motorcycle in the puzzle, but to make it really engaging, he takes that extra step with knocking down the wall. I find history to be fun, but I hope I’ve built a proper “wall” to make my scene in Kells really engaging for my reader.
I know where I want my characters to end up. It’s getting them there and making the journey exciting, that’s the puzzle. But, I love puzzles too. 😀
Do you love puzzles and analogies? What are some of your favorites?
It took a lot of practice for me to get the hang of this…
When I was younger and had a lot more time on my hands, I would sometimes spend an entire day reading books. But because I could never quite make up my mind which one to read first, I’d set up a stack of about 5 or 6 on one side of my lap. Then I would read one chapter of each until they were all on the other side of my lap and I’d do the same all over again.
My WIP has been working the same way. I’ve got a timeline going for my characters who are in 1715, and another for the ones who are in 2023. Except for the first few chapters, I’ve been pretty much switching back and forth between the two time periods with each new chapter.
While I’m hoping that doing this helps to build the tension especially if I end the previous chapter with a cliffhanger, I’m wondering if writing this way is stalling my momentum. One author that comes to mind who writes in this manner is Michael Scott of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamelseries (which is a fantastic blending of history, mythology and modern adventure, by the way :D). I wonder if he wrote his story lines individually first, then mixed the chapters appropriately or if he wrote it they way I’ve been doing it.
I guess it doesn’t matter too much as long as I get the writing done. I’ve been doing much better since the gluten is out of my system. I figured out what to do with Kells and now am a writing machine lately. Well…as much as I can be with 2 little boys that sometimes make me feel like an overworked waitress. 😉 But yesterday, I got 1300 words in the 4 hours that I’m allowed to have them in the YMCA play center. Yay!
What do you think would work best for you? Would you write each plot line separately until the point that they meet and integrate the chapters appropriately? Or would you switch back and forth like me?
If you haven’t guessed already, I love the poem Beowulf. During that England/Ireland trip, I was very excited to see Sutton Hoo. Even several of you folks from England are asking, “What on earth is Sutton Hoo?” In short, it is a viking burial ship which dates back to the culture that brought us Beowulf.
On the ship, they found an instrument believed to be a lyre that the scop might have played while singing such epic poems. Fortunately, I happened to see the Sutton Hoo exhibit at the British Museum in London first because that was where the remnants of the instrument were displayed at the time.
Sutton Hoo Lyre fragments
So what does all that have to do with The Hobbit?
Well, since you’ve already dipped your toe into Lake Nerd by reading thus far, perhaps you like to wade out a bit farther with me? I promise it will be fun! 😀
Tolkien also enjoyed Beowulf and would begin his lectures on the poem with a dramatic recitation of the opening lines in Old English. (Oh! to have been in that room at that time!) For anyone who has read both The Hobbit and Beowulf, you can see how Bilbo Baggins is Beowulf.
To compare (spoiler alert for both Beowulf and The Hobbit):
We’ll start with Beowulf. In the poem, King Hrothgar’s men are being attacked by Grendel, who essentially is a violent, cantankerous neighbor who doesn’t like Hrothgar’s parties. He chases them all out of the mead-hall and for 12 years terrorizes the people.
“As [Hrothgar’s] woes became known widely and well,
Sad songs were sung by the sons of men” (Beowulf, lines 129 &130)
Songs! Hmm… I wonder who heard them? You guessed it! Beowulf, an outsider, comes to defeat this Grendel guy who couldn’t be pierced by any of the blades of Hrothgar’s men.
But Beowulf is different. He is a wrestler!
After watching Grendel eat one of his own soldiers, Beowulf gives Grendel… a handshake? Well, his grip breaks Grendel’s fingers and rips off his arm. So much for attempting friendship.
Anyway, Grendel slinks off to his lair and dies of his wounds. Yay Beowulf!
Now for The Hobbit. We’ve got Thorin (Hrothgar) whose people were driven out of their mountain (mead-hall) by the dragon Smaug (Grendel). I know, I know. Beowulf has a treasure hoarding dragon/worm creature too. There are a lot of blending of symbols in The Hobbit. I’m simply going over my favorites. Then, there is Bilbo (Beowulf). He too is an outsider who does not use weapons.
But Bilbo is different. He is a burglar!
Much like Beowulf has a natural strength to defeat Grendel when no one else could, Bilbo has the natural ability of stealth. This not only helps them to defeat Smaug, but many other foes along their journey.
But what inspires Bilbo to help the dwarves? Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 1:
“They came back…with Thorin’s harp wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful golden harp, and when Thorin struck it the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.”
What was that? Was that music? A harp even? Whether Bilbo likes it or not, he has already started his journey with the dwarves when he first heard the song describing their sad history.
*deep breath* Okay I should probably stop now because I’m entering the realm of what really inspires me, but may bore you guys. 😉 Maybe soon I’ll post my thoughts on the new Hobbit movie 😀
Have you read either of these works? Have they inspired you in any way? Have you ever seen Sutton Hoo?
Glutened Goals update: (a letter)
Dear Rocks In My Belly,
I get it. I’m not supposed to injest gluten of any size. It was a complete accident and happened a month ago. Please stop punishing me! It makes it very difficult to get anything done.
At the risk of sounding like I didn’t enjoy myself when I went to England and Ireland in 2005 (which is far from the truth) I’m going to post another regret from that trip. This one was my own fault.
When I was in Dublin, I went on a pub crawl – one of those touristy things (I’d gone on another fantastic one in Scotland which covered Burns and Stevenson). It was guided by 2 musicians who explained all about Irish music and the history of it.
During the tour, they talked about how you may find yourself at an impromptu session of music making at any pub and it’s possible you may be asked to contribute. The lead fellow on the tour explained (tongue in cheek) that it would be highly offensive to refuse. If you aren’t any good, the musicians would be happy to give you tips to get better, and if you are very good, they still will give you tips to get better.
Since I still had the rest of the week to go on my stay in Ireland, I was already dreaming of how nice it would be to find myself one of these musical sessions, but it would be a shame that there probably wouldn’t be a harp around for me to play. As it was there was no harp at this tour, and when it came to the end of it, the guides requested us to contribute something.
Only 2 other guests got up and during their performances, my heart started hammering because the thought crossed my mind that I could contribute after all. Neither one played an instrument; a lady recited a poem about fairies and a fellow sang a song about Boston a capella.
“Beowulf! You can sing Beowulf!” A voice in my head was screaming at me. Another voice was saying, “Eh, don’t bother, you don’t have your harp with you anyway.”
It would have fit in nicely. Beowulf originally passed along by oral tradition before it was written down, much like the traditional Irish tunes. It was originally sung by a person called a scop (I believe it’s pronounced “shope”), who would play the tune on a lyre. I had learned the first 11 lines in Old English and set them to the tune of “The Grenadier and the Lady” because I’m not that good at making up my own tunes. I did it for a project in one of my classes at USF and enjoyed the creative and historical aspect of it. I’ve never forgotten how to sing Beowulf, though now I’d have to practice again to play it on the harp.
In the end, I chickened out. At the time, I made the excuse to the first voice in my head that I didn’t have my harp, so there. But as we were all walking out of the door of the last pub, part of me wanted to gather everyone back in there so I could sing it a capella like the guy from Boston.
I know it wasn’t that big a deal, but I was really kicking myself that I was going home with a regret instead of what could have been a fun story. If I ever get the chance to do something like that again, I hope that I can push myself out of my comfort zone. Doing this blog thing helps, I think. 😉
Have you ever had an opportunity like that pass by? Do you regret it, or are you happy you didn’t jump on it?
Glutened Goal update: I haven’t been able to get any writing done the past 2 days because of illness and gluten. But on the plus side, I came up with another creative analogy to what gluten sometimes feels like: Don Quixote is riding around on Rosinante in my belly and for reasons only known to him, he’ll suddenly wield his sword and swipe my innards. These are the times when I have to just stop what I’m doing and let the jabbing pain pass. lol My writing today was finishing this blog post.
Attributed to Tracy, from North Brookfield, Massachusetts, USA.
I was fortunate while finishing my Literature degree at USF to be able to attend the summer study abroad program at Cambridge England in 2005 (a big shout out to my hubby for facilitating that!). While there, there was no way that I was going to pass up the opportunity to attend a play performed at Shakespeare’s Globe. The only night that I was able to go offered a modernized production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. I managed to read the first half of the play before attending, but I have yet to actually see the play through to the end.
I was so disappointed.
I’d taken numerous college courses on Shakespeare including one which focused on effective theatrical accounts of the plays based on textual evidence from the scripts. Perhaps this was my undoing and why I had no problem with leaving the playhouse to catch the train before midnight back to Cambridge.
I’m not stuffy enough to say that it was because only “traditional” productions are the best. One of my all time favorite Hamlets is Kenneth Branagh’s set in the 19th century. In fact there were parts of the Pericles play that weren’t even in the script that I somewhat appreciated, but it was also where I started to say, “Hey, come on now. What are you guys thinking?”
In the production I saw, they had an older version of Pericles looking on his younger self during the play; much like Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Past. This wasn’t in Shakespeare’s script, but I was okay with it and looked forward to what else they would offer.
But then each Pericles spoke their lines.
The young Pericles (quite appropriately) spoke with a mediterranean accent, while the older Pericles spoke with a decidedly British accent. Huh. Maybe they thought that they could pull off what Madonna couldn’t? I mean, come on, they were supposed to be the same person! So much for continuity.
Then came the tournament in Pentapolis. We were subject to sit through about 15 minutes of acrobatics and rope tricks. While they were impressive, it added nothing to the story. Just after the intermission, the “narrator” came out and made a big speech about how he knew we were all thinking “This is not Shakespeare!” but then made some argument about how Shakespeare would have loved it. I’m sorry, but he just did not convince me.
Maybe I haven’t studied enough plays, but I never saw where Shakespeare added spectacle except where it moved the story along. He might have enjoyed the stunts, but I feel as though he would have wondered at their point.
The point where I finally left was when Marina was trapped in the brothel. I hadn’t read that far, and if the actors were trying to do Greek accents, it was lost on me. They were speaking Shakespeare’s Early Modern English with really thick Italian accents. I had no idea what they were saying anymore, which was a shame because the language of Shakespeare is half the fun.
If I didn’t have a train to catch, I might have stuck it out. It was awesome to be inside the Globe and seeing a play performed after all, even if it was a disappointing production. By the time we were at the brothel, I admit, I stopped following the play and simply imagined what it might have been like to attend a play here in Shakespeare’s day. Though I don’t think they had any night performances due to lack of light. The seats were uncomfortable and the groundlings were getting rained on. I felt that the experience provided a testament to the awesome plays that Shakespeare wrote. It just would have been nice to see a production that not only stayed a bit truer to Shakespeare, but also made sense.
I was amused to find a few months later that I was more impressed by a highschool production of The Secret Garden than a British acting troupe at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Do you think I was overly critical of the production? Have you been to the Globe? What was your experience?
Shea McIntosh Ford - Author, Harpist 