Hi. I found your LJ from the Elisabeth message board where I log on as Der Tod. I have not been there in awhile... I am writer and editing my ms got in the way. (I have a trilogy that expands upon Leroux's Phantom under consideration with an agency in NYC)
Seems like we have that in common as well as writing and Elisabeth! My 4th ms is going to be set in the Austrian Empire and will be based off the Haupsburgs quite a bit (with a fictional twist!)
I have flisted you and hope you will do the same. My LJ is locked friends only due to publishing and if you would like to see the publishing journey let me know and I will add you to that filter.
Sure, I'll add you! Seems like we've got a quite a bit in common here. I envy you for being published, I still need to actually finish a manuscript and then getting it published will be a quite different thing since Finnish publishing houses mostly seem keen on rather different things than what I write it.
I plan to eventually write a historical novel set in the Habsburg Empire, too, but I haven't yet decided what I'd most like to focus on - Elisabeth, Rudolf, or something else with them just making an appearance in one way or another. Well, I must do much more research first, anyway.
And sure, I'd love to be on the publishing filter, I'm very curious to know how things like that go with other writers!
I am not pubbed yet--I have an agent in New York considering my manuscript... and Penguin Books is reading a partial of it now. Pubbing takes a long time. But there are a ton of options!
So cool that you are going to write a historical set in the same time period. I have my ms all laid out, my dear Archduke is known around my LJ as Klaus--folks love to pick on him. I have my Goals, Motivations and conflicts created--the love triangle laid out and all the icky bits of murder and mystery. I am itching to start it, but my Leroux based work (which is what is being considered now) takes the forefront.
Research on the time period for this empire is hard. Not many historical are set in Austria. Currently I am reading "Twilight of the Haupsburgs: The life and Times of Emperor Francis Josef." Very detailed about history--hard to understand, but it gave me my plot! I'd reccommend it. If you have suggestions as well, I would love to hear them
I am not pubbed yet--I have an agent in New York considering my manuscript... and Penguin Books is reading a partial of it now.
Ah, sorry, I'm tired right now and I tend to forget exactly how complicatedly publishing works in the US. :P We haven't got any literary agents here in Finland so I forget about their existence in other countries.
Your planned novel sounds so cool. :-) I haven't yet gotten very far in planning anything because there are several ideas that interest me and I need to do more research, but it's definitely something I must do later on. Thanks for the book rec; so far I've just been reading biographies of Elisabeth and Rudolf because that's all I've been able to find. I'll have to see if I come across that book some time. I can recommend some biographies of Sisi and Rudolf if you need...
The best Elisabeth biography I've found so far is Hamann's The Reluctant Empress, on which the libretto of the musical is apparently based. In addition, if you can't find that or want a different point of view, Count Corti's Elisabeth biography and Joan Haslip's The Lonely Empress are fairly informative (though Haslip has an annoying tendency to make up what she thinks the people are feeling).
For Rudolf, I've so far found only Richard Barkeley's The Road to Mayerling in English. It's pretty good, but written in the 1950s which leads to a certain whitewashing of Rudolf's character since the author likes him. But he tends to lay his arguments very clearly in the open so it's easy to decide for yourself if you agree with him. I haven't yet found other biographies in English, though I've got a biography in French I'm planning to read and Hamann's Rudolf biography which is unfortunately only available in German.
Thanks for the list. I do read German as well--but am so rusty (Nothing like a writer tackling a manuscript where there will be lots of German going around... makes you polish the old language skills very quickly!)
I have heard of The Reluctant Empress and will make a note to pick it up!
You're welcome. I wish I had more books to recommend, but finding good ones in English keeps being rather hard. I read a little German, but not very well yet, so I've given some intimidated looks at my copy of Brigitte Hamann's Rudolf biography but decided I'd better read the French book first (Jean-Paul Bled's Rodolphe et Mayerling), because French I at least read fairly fluently. A good thing her Sisi biography at least is available in English, because it's awesome. Being able to buy an English translation can be a bit of trouble, though - in Viennese museums they abound, but in Amazon and such they seem to only be around occasionally on the Marketplace. Good luck, though, it's definitely worth some searching for.
Seems like we have that in common as well as writing and Elisabeth! My 4th ms is going to be set in the Austrian Empire and will be based off the Haupsburgs quite a bit (with a fictional twist!)
I have flisted you and hope you will do the same. My LJ is locked friends only due to publishing and if you would like to see the publishing journey let me know and I will add you to that filter.
Vielen Dank
Mav (aka Der Tod)
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I plan to eventually write a historical novel set in the Habsburg Empire, too, but I haven't yet decided what I'd most like to focus on - Elisabeth, Rudolf, or something else with them just making an appearance in one way or another. Well, I must do much more research first, anyway.
And sure, I'd love to be on the publishing filter, I'm very curious to know how things like that go with other writers!
Reply
So cool that you are going to write a historical set in the same time period. I have my ms all laid out, my dear Archduke is known around my LJ as Klaus--folks love to pick on him. I have my Goals, Motivations and conflicts created--the love triangle laid out and all the icky bits of murder and mystery. I am itching to start it, but my Leroux based work (which is what is being considered now) takes the forefront.
Research on the time period for this empire is hard. Not many historical are set in Austria. Currently I am reading "Twilight of the Haupsburgs: The life and Times of Emperor Francis Josef." Very detailed about history--hard to understand, but it gave me my plot! I'd reccommend it. If you have suggestions as well, I would love to hear them
I will add you to my filter!
Reply
Ah, sorry, I'm tired right now and I tend to forget exactly how complicatedly publishing works in the US. :P We haven't got any literary agents here in Finland so I forget about their existence in other countries.
Your planned novel sounds so cool. :-) I haven't yet gotten very far in planning anything because there are several ideas that interest me and I need to do more research, but it's definitely something I must do later on. Thanks for the book rec; so far I've just been reading biographies of Elisabeth and Rudolf because that's all I've been able to find. I'll have to see if I come across that book some time. I can recommend some biographies of Sisi and Rudolf if you need...
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For Rudolf, I've so far found only Richard Barkeley's The Road to Mayerling in English. It's pretty good, but written in the 1950s which leads to a certain whitewashing of Rudolf's character since the author likes him. But he tends to lay his arguments very clearly in the open so it's easy to decide for yourself if you agree with him. I haven't yet found other biographies in English, though I've got a biography in French I'm planning to read and Hamann's Rudolf biography which is unfortunately only available in German.
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I have heard of The Reluctant Empress and will make a note to pick it up!
Thanks
Mav
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