Tag Archives: Novel

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in the Middle Ages? (Medieval Mondays #2c)

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Dinner scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)

Dinner scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)

I first began this series on medieval food by questioning what sort of experience one would have if transported back in time to a 13th century dinner table.

The time has now come to take a seat at said table and finish finding out.

The very first point of difference one might encounter relates to the time of day “dinner” was actually served.  One might expect that turning up anywhere between 6:00 and 8:00pm as is common for modern dinners (particularly in North America) would also apply to the 13th century.

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Medieval Meals Made Not-So-Easy (Medieval Mondays #2b)

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Cooking scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340)

Cooking scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)

In the medieval times, our modern emphasis on easy, speedy meals would’ve been an inconceivably foreign concept to a noble family.

In my previous post on medieval food, I discussed the raw ingredients that comprised medieval cookery.

In turning now to discuss how that cookery was done and what recipes often resulted, a key point made by Margaret Wade Labarge, author of Mistress, Maids and Men: Baronial Life in the Thirteenth Century, is as follows:

The medieval baron liked a complicated and highly seasoned dish. (p.118).

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Even More Thoughts on Nearing the End

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No, I’m still not finished my WIP.

But honest to goodness, this last novel in my historical fiction trilogy is truly almost done.  I know I’ve written about being close before, but now I’m really close. Like, a two-digit number of pages remaining that starts with 2 (or maybe even one!) close.

When last I wrote about my WIP’s impending end, I discussed various insights that had occurred to me as I continued along this process.

Well, a new level of nearness to the end has engendered an all new set of realizations:

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What’s On the Menu in the Middle Ages? (Medieval Mondays #2a)

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Kitchen scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-40)

Kitchen scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)

If you were magically transported back to early 13th century England and invited to dinner in a noble household, what sort of experience would await you?

An experience so different, it will be the subject of three separate posts in this blog series, the first of which (today’s) focuses on the raw ingredients of medieval cuisine.

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Clothing Made the Medieval Man, Woman & Child (Medieval Mondays #1)

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Three versions of Maid Marion (a 13th century character), of which the fox's outfit comes closest.

Three versions of Maid Marian (a 13th century character associated with Robin Hood), of which the more authentic outfit is that of the fox.

If there’s one aspect of medieval history I love most, it’s the clothing, especially women’s clothing.

The clothing, incidentally, is one of the aspects Hollywood most often get wrong.

Typically, this occurs through clothing styles from one century being mis-attributing to another.  This despite what author Mary G. Houston writes in Medieval Costume in England and France: The 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries:

What can be more diverse than the noble simplicity of construction and natural silhouette of the thirteenth century, compared with the slender elegance of the fourteenth, and the riot of variety and exaggeration in the fifteenth century. (pp. v-vi)

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The Medieval Times Was No Fairytale

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Ever After

I often wonder if I would have enjoyed living in medieval England as much as I do writing about it.

Obviously the answer to this question depends upon a few considerations.  For example, does medieval me look the same as modern me?  There’s no reason to expect she wouldn’t, in which case, I’ll defer to comedian and social critic Louis C.K. for a response:

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There’s No Such Thing as a Writing Birthday (and how I celebrated mine)

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Sad birthdayThe morning began as most as winter workdays do, which is to say dark, and because of that, what felt far too early to me.

This year, I made a conscious effort to remember my writing birthday – to commemorate it on the actual day, or if nothing else, to at least make note of it.  February 12: in truth, an arbitrarily-chosen day meant to mark the start of my first (incomplete, shelved) novel as approximated through a forensic accounting some emails I sent to a friend around that time.

I’m an Aquarius writer.

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Thoughts on Nearing the End

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Book near the end

I should qualify this by saying I mean the end of my novel.

(Were I talking the end of my life, my thoughts would be considerably different, and if nothing else, I’d perhaps be referring back to this post about my bucket list.)

Ending a novel is hard.  The fact that I’ve done it twice thus far in my writing career hasn’t made it any easier.  Perhaps this is because only once did I consciously do so since my “two-book” series-in-progress grew to three books initially without my realizing it.

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It’s the Silence That Keeps Me Awake

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Can't sleep

What keeps you up at night?

For some reason, I have a disproportionately large number of friends who are insomniacs.

I’m not talking people who occasionally suffer bouts of sleeplessness like we all sometimes do.  Rather, I mean folk who chronically don’t sleep more than a few of hours, every night of their lives.

That must really suck.

The notion of insomnia really came to the fore of my mind due to my recent trip to Australia. From my connection at Los Angeles airport to Melbourne, Australia, the flight was about 15 hours long.

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I Never Miss a Deadline … Except When I Do (which is often)

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Deadline

So, my WIP, such as it is, is indeed still IP.

To date, despite have been writing seriously for some six years, I’ve yet to complete anything novel-length that stands as a fully completed story – a fact that haunts me continuously.

I’d originally resolved to finish my WIP last year by my birthday, which is at the end of November.

I didn’t make that deadline, but consoled myself with the fact that I had an entire other novel to write to finish the story, my previously anticipated duology in fact being a trilogy.

But there’s still something about deadlines – something definitive and binding, which I suppose is the whole point.  I almost never set deadlines.  I really don’t like them, even though my “type” is supposed to thrive on them.

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