The Things I do for Research

Jun 24, 2014 16:58

For the sake of research have I taken a thorny whip to my own bottom. I have read entire books and websites about special forces in order to write a single scene, which I feel is still wrong. But I'll never know how badly I have insulted the elite military services of the world until I wake up -- or, more likely, fail to wake up -- with piano wire around my neck.

But I've been going even further than that this last week or so, because I've begun learning Old Irish for a novel I'm planning to start writing before the end of the year.



I expected it to be hard, and in some ways it is: the final boss of Celtic languages. But what I didn't expect, was how emotional I would feel going through it. This is what it must be like for our American cousins when they finally see the green, green valleys their ancestors emigrated from. I'm learning words here, and brain-twisting constructions that Kings Brian Boru and Robert the Bruce would have understood easily.

But as somebody who has learned bits and pieces of languages from the Celtic, Germanic, Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European family, it is INCREDIBLE, and I mean that! Incredible to follow one of them back in time, to see it becoming more and more like its siblings. I mean, everybody knows these languages are related, but this is an experience akin to watching Africa and South America splitting apart and going their separate ways. Or the reverse that. Or something.

Writing

The first draft of my current WIP, which I'm thinking of calling The Orphan Continent, has just breached 80,000 words. 10K more to go, I would expect. Fun times!

I hope you're all well and up to no good!

the orphan continent, irish, writing

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