a totally random blank in my historical knowledge
I don't know anything about late eighteenth-century and Regency bookshops. Particularly ones that would have specialized in antiquarian books (especially from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries).
I realized this because I had an idea for a story the other day, and once again hit the lack-of-historical-information wall (see also "America, late Victorian"). And I have more than enough stuff I'm actually *supposed* to be doing, so it's not like I have time to embark on a research project (and anyway, there are several infant story ideas in the research queue ahead of this one). On the other hand, this story, unlike any of the other ones, feels like it would actually be a short story, and I haven't had a proper idea for one of those in a while. What I really need is a *feel* for the place--what the bookshops would have been like, where they would have found and heard about their books, that sort of thing; it's more background than anything else, but important background.
This always happens to me--a failure of imagination. It doesn't matter how many books I read on, say, Tudor England if I don't have the right information to create the right mental picture. And that's the information it seems to be harder to find...
I realized this because I had an idea for a story the other day, and once again hit the lack-of-historical-information wall (see also "America, late Victorian"). And I have more than enough stuff I'm actually *supposed* to be doing, so it's not like I have time to embark on a research project (and anyway, there are several infant story ideas in the research queue ahead of this one). On the other hand, this story, unlike any of the other ones, feels like it would actually be a short story, and I haven't had a proper idea for one of those in a while. What I really need is a *feel* for the place--what the bookshops would have been like, where they would have found and heard about their books, that sort of thing; it's more background than anything else, but important background.
This always happens to me--a failure of imagination. It doesn't matter how many books I read on, say, Tudor England if I don't have the right information to create the right mental picture. And that's the information it seems to be harder to find...