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#HistFicThursdays - Time, time, time...

This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least  the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
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#HistFicThursdays - Take a Letter

Welcome back to the #HistFicThursdays blog, Writers and Readers! This year is already shaping up to be a fabulous one.

I am not one to make New Year Resolutions - they are inevitably broken by the end of January - but I am looking forward to getting more writing done this year. I'll be sharing my progress on these blogs, along with any fascinating research rabbit holes I happen to stumble across! I'm also delighted to be sharing a monthly post from fellow Crowvus author, Judith Crow, as she discusses her gothic horror short stories which will be released on 13th October 2025 - her first post will be here next week!

I am always happy to review historical fiction, but please remember I can only review physical copies as I do not possess an eReader, and my eyes are not up to reading a full book on the computer!

Currently, I am deciphering a set of 19th Century letters I got for Christmas. Will these ever make it into stories? Certainly! It is so wonderful to experience the true language with which these were written. As historical fiction writers, we tend to get a bit hung up on what words and phrases would have been used in various periods, but these letters are providing me with a few eye-opening moments in terms of language! I have already picked a few favourites amongst them: an actress politely refusing a play because it does not end happily ever after; a failing editor lamenting how badly his magazine is doing with over-the-top moroseness; a lawyer's patient response to someone who expected to be named as receiving more than they got in a will... The list goes on! I am researching as much as I can about the senders and recipients, but the frustrating beauty of everyday letters is that many of these people are now lost to history. These moments, which were so important to them, are now the only window we have onto their lives.

Of course, as a writer, this partial anonymity is priceless. But, as a historian, I can't help but question who they were, what their lives were, or - in the case of this letter - what on earth they are talking about!



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