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Lena Corazon
Flights of Fancy
Author: Lena Corazon (page 21 of 24)
Wow, we’re one month into ROW80! I don’t quite know where time goes. I feel like summer just started, but now every time I turn on the television I’m seeing “Back to School” advertisements. *shudder* Thankfully, UC Santa Barbara is on the quarter system, which means that I don’t have to go back until the end of September. Till then, I’ll be at my parents’ house, relaxing, catching up with friends, writing, and finishing the 1st draft of my thesis. I miss little things about Santa Barbara — my desk, sunshiney deck, and the beach especially — but it’s always nice to be back home with the family.
My progress update is short and sweet for today. Given that I’m using 750words, I apparently need to bump up my daily writing goal to 750. I’ve exceeded that over the past few days, adding about 2000 words to tell me no lies since the last check-in. At the moment, the MS is about 8000 words long, which isn’t bad for one week’s work. I need to clean some things up and start knitting scenes together (I’m writing in a bit of a hodgepodge fashion at the moment, jotting down conversations and scenes as they come to me, but an outline is going to be necessary to wrangle all my subplots into order), so that’s the goal for the coming week.
I’ve been slacking off a bit as far as Life List Club goals are concerned, chiefly when it comes to exercising, so I’m placing that at the top of my priority list this week. And once I finish grading final exams and essays, I’ll be returning to the thesis.
-oOo-
Anyway, with that out of the way, I turn to the fun stuff: lady criminals from 19th century San Francisco. I ran across a few mugshots by accident, scanning through archives for photographs of SFPD uniforms from the 1880s. These come from the Jesse Brown Cook archives, held by UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. Cook was a member of the SFPD from the 1890s to the 1930s, starting off as a beat cop and ending his career as Chief of Police. Only a few volumes of the vast collection of photographs, newspaper clippings, and other miscellany are online, but they are absolutely fascinating to browse.
Source: Jesse Cook Archives, Bancroft Library
Mabel Keating is one woman who I ran across in my research. The archives describe her as “a clever pickpocket of this city,” and tell us that she “roamed on Grant Avenue and her prey were men from the Palace and other Hotels, as she was sure that they would not dare to prosecute.” The Cook archive states that she left San Francisco for Chicago (presumably to attempt the same trade) in 1895, though not before being convicted for grand larceny in California.
Source: Jesse Cook Scrapbooks, Bancroft Library
Likewise, Hannah Landridge (apparently known as “Fat Annie”), also hung around the hotel district and robbed unsuspecting men. She was arrested in 1896 for allegedly stealing $300 from a farmer, Felix Busch, convicted of grand larceny, and spent two years in San Quentin prison. According to this article from the San Francisco Call, there was a great deal of controversy that surrounded Landridge’s case — chiefly, that the money she had stolen had disappeared. Rumors indicated that at least one police officer was involved, leading to the suspension of one, Patrolman Rourke, who was accused of “embracery” (the attempt to corruptly influence a juror, apparently). When interviewed, Rourke indicated that he had “friendly feelings” for Landridge, as she had proved to be a valuable witness in a criminal investigation a few years previous.
Finally, I wanted to include a picture of the so-called “Chinatown Squad,” who are near and dear to my heart. Due to the level of crime and corruption in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the Chinatown Squad was created in 1879. The squad was made up of plainclothes officers who were armed with pickaxes and sledgehammers (!) so that they could get into gambling dens and other centers of illegitimate activities. If my protagonist’s love interest, Adam Davenport, the detective in tell me no lies charged with investigating crimes around the Barbary Coast district, was a real person, he would have been part of the Squad.
Source: Online Archive of California
Above is a picture of the Chinatown Squad circa 1898. The Chinese man in the middle is the Squad’s interpreter, Dong Tying. Oh, and in case you were wondering, that’s an opium pipe laid out on the floor (evidence, presumably). The men are also armed with their trademark axes and sledgehammers, and while they look rather fierce, I have to admit that their facial hair makes me giggle. Such thick moustaches!
Anyway, that’s just a few of the nuggets that I’ve picked up over the past couple of weeks. I raise my glass to the rest of my ROW80’ers, and encourage all of you to bloghop about and offer words of support as well.
I’m currently sitting in the midst of overflowing suitcases, bags of books, stacks of books that won’t fit into bags, and a few pairs of shoes with no home. Ugh.
The last day of summer school is today, and my original plan was to drive to my parents’ house near San Francisco early Thursday morning. Trouble is, I started getting antsy Tuesday afternoon, eager pack up my truck, hit the road, and feel the wind in my hair. Once I get that notion into my brain, well, there’s really no way to hold myself back.
So here I am, doing a terrible rush job at packing. I really only have one rule at the moment: grab everything, put it in some form of container (suitcase, paperbag, etc.), and rope it into the back of the truck with bungie cord. I only have 3 bungie cords, so I’ll have to get creative — it’ll be like one of those terrible logic tests. We’ll see how this goes down.
Needless to say, this will be a short update. I had all sorts of interesting archival tidbits to share (including mugshots I found of lady pickpockets who preyed upon wealthy men in San Francisco during the 1880s!), but I’ll save those for Sunday.
-oOo-
Blogging: Looks like Mondays around here will be dedicated to a post on world-building and inspirations. I’m focusing on the elements of the world I’m creating for Path to the Peacock Throne, my fantasy WIP. My post on costuming went up the other day, and I’m proud of it for all the pretty pictures. Architecture, I think, will be next Monday’s topic, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Writing: I finally gave 750words a try, and wow. The researcher in me was seduced by all the stats that were automatically generated: not only a graph showing my word count, but colorful pie charts that demonstrate the overall mood of the scene (mine: DEATH) and countless other things. I kinda want to steal whatever algorithm thingie that they use to figure out all of this stuff, because it would make the data analysis for my thesis (a textual analysis of 1920s etiquette books) so much easier.
I’ve been working on tell me no lies since Sunday night, and wow! I went from zero words to roughly 4900 words since then, so I’ve definitely exceeded my nightly writing goals. I’ve got some loud characters on my hands, and a steampunk world that is coming together. It takes place in the late 19th century, where San Francisco’s harbors are now home to airships. Robots are utilized by the police in their investigations, and two female-owned, Moulin Rouge-esque saloons dominate the nightlife on the Barbary Coat (the Belladonna and the Palace Grande). There are loose women and wealthy bohemian playboys, opium and booze, and a cynical chanteuse torn between a strait-laced detective and a rakish air pirate. I actually just found out about this love triangle last night — always nice discovering something new about your plot, isn’t it?
Thesis: Met with my advisor on Sunday and she had nothing but complimentary things to say about the first chapter of my analysis section. There are weak points, of course, but overall she tells me that I’m on the right track. The best thing that she had to say: “I am just having so much fun reading this!” Squeeee.
I’ve only got one more substantive chapter to write, and I actually think I’ll be done with the first draft by the end of summer break. As this coincides with the end of Round 3, I will make this a goal.
-oOo-
Unless I fail at getting the rest of my things together, I’ll be on the road by 5 pm and back at my parents’ by 10 pm. I downloaded Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander audiobook to keep me entertained, and with a little caffeine to get me going, I should be grand. Comments will be sparse from me till the weekend, when I’ve recovered from the travel lag, but know that I am offering warm fuzzies and happy thoughts to all!
I’ve gotten a number of comments over the past few days about my header, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about some the inspirations that I’m drawing from for my fantasy WIP, Path to the Peacock Throne.
Art by Susan Seddon Boulet
I’ve been nursing the idea for country founded and governed by women for some time now, and it was in April that I started to build the basic structure of the land I have since named “Vao Artan.” The central organizing myth is that the realm was settled by seven sisters, siblings who were in the goddess’s favor and blessed with dominion over the land. Each sister had a specific talent — the cultivation of land and livestock; hunting and martial prowess; music, painting, and the arts; scholarly research; mathematics and science; magic; and diplomacy and rule. The descendants of each sister correspond to a specific strata or occupation within the society.
This is where things get interesting. Each of the seven sisters is associated with a type of bird — swans and magic, owls and scholarly research, nightingales and the arts, etc. The bird imagery continues throughout the duration of the society, to the point where the military’s headquarters is known as “The Falconry,” and the royal mage is known as “The Cygne” (cygne being French for “swan”). Each queen takes the name of a bird to represent her personality/rule. The current queen, Vaedyn, is known as the “Eagle’s Claw,” which symbolizes her status as a warrior. My MC, Liandre, will take the peacock for her standard.
So with that in mind, I’ve been collecting all sorts of bird-related things to help me out with world-building. I’ve been thinking about fashion, architecture, and decor, among other odds and ends. Today, though, I’m going to look at fashion.
Luckily, the fashion world has been drawing on avian inspirations for ages now, so there’s a wide range of ideas from which I can draw.
Feathers will definitely be integrated into this tale, from the crests that adorn the helmets of the nation’s soldiers and warriors and other accessories, like jewelry and belts, to elaborate gowns, cloaks, and other items of clothing.
I am completely in love this headpiece by Arturo Rios, which is elegant and dramatic, as well as a bit gothic. It’s just the sort of thing the aristocrats of Vao Artan might wear.
I also love the idea of drawing inspiration for makeup and cosmetics from birds, like makeup artist Mark Lim did here, using this absolutely gorgeous peacock headpiece and choker. (This is actually a look I’ve attempted with the bright blue and green eyeshadow, but I’m not nearly this talented!)
Other pretties include these phenomenal necklaces designed by Lucy Hutchings. They are apparently inspired by the Bowerbird, “who loves to feather his nest with lots of blue to attract an egglayer,” according to Trendhunter. I’ve introduced a similar sort of necklace into the third chapter of PPT, which is worn by the witch (or “Mother Cygne”) Simone. Instead of being made from stones of blue-green, it is a rope of egg-sized, rough-hewn amethysts.
The women of Vao Artan, I think, like their jewelry big and bold, their clothing bright and colorful, and their accessories noticeable. They are women after my own heart. 😉
Finally, here’s one last gown, created by Indonesian designer Anne Avantie. It doesn’t have any explicitly avian details, but the color scheme is absolutely perfect for a young woman about to assume the “peacock throne.” The model also reminds me of the way that Liandre appears in my mind, which is an extra bonus:
And there we have it! A wee peek into the world that I am attempting to craft for Path to the Peacock Throne. For more pictures and ideas, you can visit my Pinterest board (which is my method of choice for organizing world-building ideas).
Where do you turn for inspiration when you’re crafting a new tale? How do you organize your ideas — scrapbooking, collages, digital photo galleries?
Happy Sunday, friends! I’m currently feeling a touch under the weather, so it’s going to be a Josh Groban, tea, and fuzzy socks sort of morning for me. 🙂
I want to extend another welcome to the bloggers who are visiting from the SheWrites Blog Hop. It’s gotten bumped down a bit, but my official welcome message is here. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all! For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, please do. There are many of wonderful writers who have joined up.
I’m slowly trying to give this blog a bit more structure and life instead of only using it for ROW80 updates, so over the next few weeks you will see more posts on non-check-in days, covering a wider variety of topics. I’m toying with the idea of book reviews, wee blurbs about the historical research that I’m doing, discussions of world-building (which is one of my favorite past-times), and maybe a post or two on how I’m using philosophy and sociological theory in my work.
I added my first “experimental post” yesterday — a few idle musings about love and romance in the Odyssey, one of my favorite works out of ancient Greek literature. I’d love to hear any feedback that you may have!
Now then, onto my update:
The Life List Club: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ways that I can strive for a more balanced and healthy life, and so I am throwing my hat in the ring for the Life List Club. I’ve created a page for my list, which includes ten goals that I will pursue over the next year. I’ll try and report in on these, maybe during my Wednesday check-ins.
Social Networking: I downloaded TweetDeck on Thursday! I think I spent the first twelve hours just staring at it, because it is so very pretty. I am now learning the ins and outs of hashtags, and twitter communities, and lots of other awesome stuff like that, and I am having an absolute ball chatting with people.
Relevant to this: the Pew Research Center has found that spending time on social networking sites actually leads to a strengthening of interpersonal bonds, and helps to foster trust in others.
Writing continues on. I’ve been meeting (and, at times, exceeding) my goals over the past few days, which is awesome. Strange Bedfellows is coming along quite well, and I’m basically forcing myself to throw down words for Path to the Peacock Throne. I’m trying to lay down the overall skeleton for the final half of the book, and I am ignoring the perfectionist inside of me that keeps wailing that it isn’t absolutely perfect. I’m also struggling to find my MC’s voice, so I’m doing lots of writing exercises in the 1st person… and wondering if the story might actually be better served as a 1st person tale, rather than 3rd person.
Today’s goal includes finally getting around to tell me no lies, the story that is starting to feel like the neglected middle child (yes, my stories have feelings). I’d like to have the first chapter laid out — just the action and the dialogue. I’ll fill in the blanks with description and whatnot later.
Finally, the thesis is slowly taking form. My thesis advisor sent along a list of helpful suggestions and critiques yesterday, and she and I are meeting today to chat about my progress. I think I am going to approach this draft the way I do my fictional work: put the words onto paper, finish the draft, and then sit back, review, and figure out how to make it amazing.
And that’s all from me! I’m off to drink more tea and grade the rest of these papers before I have to dash off to meet my advisor. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, all!
Long as the day in the summer time
Deep as the wine dark sea
I’ll keep your heart with mine.
Till you come to me– Loreena McKennitt, “Penelope’s Song”
I’ve had romance and myth on the brain for the past few days, the former because I’ve been busy devouring regency romance novels, and the latter because I’ve been watching documentaries about Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey. This morning’s Twitter feed also encouraged me along, providing me with Amalia Dillin’s post on why Heracles isn’t her favorite, and Terrell Mims’ excellent discussions on myth and legend.
Greek Romance Sketches, by Kate Beaton
Somewhere in the bubbling cauldron that is my brain, romance and myth merged together, and I started thinking about my favorite love stories from Greek and Roman mythology. The ancients are a passionate bunch; hatred and death tango side-by-side with love and romance. As a child, I found that classical mythology challenged my notion of happily-ever-after, honed and sharpened from too many Disney films (I was actually slightly horrified after I watched Disney’s Hercules and then read the *real* myth. So much death!). After a while, however, I came to appreciate this world where gods meddled and interfered (see: every myth ever written), and mortals were driven by their base instincts and egos.
All of this leads me to Homer’s Odyssey, one of my favorite epic poems. Unlike poor Echo and Narcissus above, Odysseus and his wife Penelope do experience a happy ending. The storyline is simple: Odysseus has spent 20 years trying to return to his home in Ithaka after the end of the Trojan War. Along the way he manages to offend both gods and mortals (including Poseidon, who is enraged at the way Odysseus taunts and provokes the Cyclops), but through his wily intelligence, and the guidance of “grey-eyed Athena,” he manages to finally return home. There he discovers that his home has been overrun by 108 (!) men attempting to win Penelope’s hand in marriage, as they believe him to be dead. Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, slay the suitors, and finally, the wandering warrior can be reunited with his wife.
It’s the reunion that makes my poor little heart stutter and my eyes mist up. Penelope is shrewd, and she challenges Odysseus to prove his identity. In response he describes how he built their marriage bed with his own hands, fashioning it around an ancient olive tree:
Extending a warm welcome to anyone visiting my blog from SheWrites Blogger Ball! I’m new to the world of blogging (so be a bit gentle), and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to chat about here at Flights of Fancy. At the moment, you’ll find updates for ROW80 (A Round of Words in 80 Days), a writing challenge and community that I’m participating in, as well as discussions about writing and my various works-in-progress. I’m thinking about branching out and posting more often, maybe about topics like world-building, character development, and historical research, but we’ll see how things go.
Looking forward to getting to know all of you!
Happy Hump Day!
I’m back home from the family holiday, and it feels good to be snug in my little apartment once again. Flying always takes a lot out of me, especially when I have to deal with layovers (and Santa Barbara airport is so tiny that I almost always have at least one layover), so all I want to do today is curl up with a blanket and a good book and do absolutely nothing. The instructor that I’m TA’ing for is wonderful and told me to go ahead and take today off, so I plan to devour one (or two!) of the Georgette Heyer regency romance novels I have sitting on the shelf. Grading and thesis-work will commence tomorrow once I’m rested up.
The second half of the trip was absolutely wonderful. We left my grandfather’s house in southern Nevada Sunday afternoon and made our way to the Las Vegas Strip, where my parents renewed their vows to mark their 25 wedding anniversary.
The Happy Couple
The event turned into a mini-Jamison reunion, with my mom’s younger brother and sister, niece, and father in attendance.
The family (except for me, as I am taking the picture)
All in all, it was a wonderful trip, especially because it was the first family vacation that we’ve taken since I moved out of the house for grad school, three years ago. Now that my sister has moved out to go to college, finding time for all four of us to be together is a major challenge. It’s good to be back in Santa Barbara and to have a little quiet time (three women in one family = lots of squabbling), but I do miss having all of them around. However, I don’t have to despair for long: summer session ends next Wednesday and fall quarter doesn’t begin until the 3rd week of September, so I’ll be driving back to San Francisco next weekend. I will have six weeks for lots of family time, and even better, lots of non-school time. I’ll also be able to work on the thesis without other distractions, which means that I should be pretty productive.
Now, for my ROW80 check-in. I didn’t have internet access Sunday-Tuesday, so I basically worked my smartphone to the bone. I now know how to utilize my Twitter app, the WordPress app, the MS Word app, and the copy/paste function — all incredibly useful tools for when I’m on-the-go. I also managed to write for an hour or so each night since the last check-in. Yesterday was the exception, as I was basically was sitting in an airport or airplane for six hours straight with nothing but my ipod, a blank notebook, and pen (that sounds like some sort of desert island challenge!), so I did a lot more brainstorming.
The breakdown, project-by-project:
Thesis: I took a break from the behemoth that is my thesis for the last few days. I have a check-in meeting with my advisor by the weekend, so cross your fingers that her feedback is favorable!
Strange Bedfellows: The characters for this story won’t shut up, so at the moment I am a slave to their whims. However, I was able to put a hold on the snappy and snarky dialogue to focus on developing the first couple of chapters, which is good, because I’ve been writing scenes out of order, just to get them out of my head. I added another 1400 words to this, which brings the current MS up to about 12,700 words. I went through my notes the other day and realized that this project took over my life at the beginning of July, so yeah, I’m a little shocked at this total word count.
Path to the Peacock Throne: I haven’t written anything new, but I devoted all of yesterday to working on backstory, world-building, and character development. There’s a lot of stuff that goes down in this tale before the story even begins, so the challenge is (1) getting the details all straightened out and (2) finding a way to allude to the backstory without a major infodump. I now have many handwritten pages with notes about systems of magic, and fictional civil wars, and my MC’s personality. She is shy and a bit aloof, I think, with a secret wish to travel and explore the world. She’ll get her wish in Act 2, though not quite in the way she imagined.
That’s all from me right now. Off to do a bit of bloghopping, and once I am done with that, to grab a book and enjoy a decadently lazy day.
Another short post from me today. Vacation continues, and we’re having an excellent time. The highlights so far have included catching the midnight showing of Harry Potter, and taking a daytrip to Zion National Park, where we took a short tour via shuttle bus, and took many, many photographs of pretty rocks. I’ll post those sometime in the coming week, when I get the chance to upload them to my computer.
When it comes to progress, I seem to have done better over the past few days than I did earlier in the week. I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me to satisfy my goals between Wednesday – Sunday, probably because the weekend makes my responsibilities a bit lighter, so I’ll have to see how I can take this knowledge and use it to my advantage. I’ll potentially end up saving up my writing for the latter half of the week, when I know I’ll be able to have the time to go beyond 500/night.
So, without further ado, this week’s accomplishments:
Thesis: I finally managed to tidy up the latest section of my findings and send it off to my advisor. As I’ve warned her, it’s a very, very rough first draft, there are holes and things that are missing, and many things that will need to be cut. All the same, it is 19 pages long (almost 6000 words), which brings the current draft to about 40 pages in length. I estimate that I’ll need another 15-20 pages to talk about the next set of findings, along with another 10-15 pages to encompass other details (methodology, conclusion, etc.) which means that the complete first draft will approach somewhere upwards of 80+ pages. Granted, I don’t know what will happen during the editing process, but I feel rather proud of myself. After three years of stressing and reading and pursuing countless ideas, I’m finally at the point where I feel like I can say, unequivocally, that I will finish this. When I am done, I have promised myself that I am going to utilize my esoteric knowledge of 1920s etiquette and apply it to a new story, one that involves flappers and bootleggers and vampires, or something paranormal. 😀
tell me no lies: I managed to get some research done last night. As a grad student I have access to digital newspaper archives, so I availed myself of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s collection of issues from 1887, when “tell me no lies” takes place. I started combing through all the stories on crime and murder (a cheery topic, let me tell you, though infinitely fascinating), and stumbled upon some real gems, including a trial for the murder of a “Chinese highbinder.” From what I can tell, highbinders seem to have been the Chinese version of the Italian mafia. An article from an 1886 issue of Harper’s Weekly compares the Highbinders to the Freemasons, except with lots more blackmail and bribery. It’s a fascinating read, for anyone who is interested, though it drips with the casual racism that was prevalent during the period.
Strange Bedfellows: I added about 2000 words to this between Wednesday night and late Saturday night. I’d like to say that it was difficult, but at the moment I feel like I’m just eavesdropping on my characters’ conversations and transcribing them. Out of all my WIPs, I know these characters the best. They’ve been salvaged from earlier abandoned projects, and so we’ve managed to “form a rapport,” if you will. The hardest thing about this story is slowing myself down long enough to scrawl out some decent descriptions, but I managed to hammer out an opening scene (the aftermath of a very bloody battle) that will satisfy me until it’s time for rewrites and edits.
All in all, not too bad. If I am doing the math properly, it looks like I more or less squeaked past the goal post by the skin of my teeth this week! I’d say that this is an excellent time to head to Las Vegas, as a bit of partying is in order. 🙂
How’s everyone else holding up? Has anyone met or exceeded their goals for the week? Anyone else need to tweak things a bit?
Over on the homepage for A Round of Words in 80 Days, Kait Nolan has invited participants to share our Twitter accounts and Google+ pages. I’m trying to get back into the swing of Twitter, and I’ve just picked up a Google+ account that I don’t quite know what to do with (currently poking at it with a stick to see what it will do), but I’ve posted mine over there nonetheless. I love connecting with my fellow writers in all ways possible, so add me on G+ and/or follow me on Twitter. 😀 Better yet, check out the rest of the lovelies from ROW80! They’re listing Google+ accounts, as well as Twitter accounts.
In other news, the whole family made it to Nevada in one piece. We all came together in a rather circuitous way, with Dad leaving San Francisco a day early to drive down (he has to take off a day early to get back to work), Mom and Rowena, my sister, flying from San Francisco on Wednesday, and me flying from Santa Barbara on Wednesday as well. But we’re relaxing at my grandfather’s gorgeously wonderful retirement house, and although the heat is more than our thin-skinned, Pacific Coast-selves can handle, it’s fun for everyone to be together.
On the writing front: On Wednesday night I hammered out 594 words of a new scene for Strange Bedfellows, along with 1379 words worth of brainstorming. I also started drafting a blog post (currently at 704 words) for Sunday’s ROW80 check-in, since I’ll be on the road to Vegas and potentially without internet access until next Wednesday morning. And then yesterday I suffered through a migraine and forced myself to edit twenty pages worth of thesis. I’m not finished with rewrites, sadly, but I abandoned ship to head off and catch the midnight showing of Harry Potter (infinitely more important that limping through edits, I think). Hopefully I can pull things together by tomorrow morning so I can send it off to my advisor.
Anyway, the family is slowly dressing (one thing that I always forget — how long it takes to get four people showered, dressed, and out of the house) so we can drive into Utah for breakfast, and then onwards to Zion National Park to poke around at nature.
Hope everyone has had a grand week! Any exciting developments? Who saw Harry Potter?
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