Research ... well, you asked for it!

I have, at last, introduced you to the novel. And  I've been asked to write about how I researched it.

Oh Val, do you have any idea what you've asked for? I love research, the general digging about and discovering all sorts of unnecessary detail. It's one reason this book has taken forever.

I had four different settings to uncover, and so kept them in very distinct folders. I shall tell you about each one in the order I worked on them. (And have no doubt this will spread over several blogs - that's how much fun I had!) What I'm not going to tell you is how much of this is in the novel!

I began with New Zealand - because that's where I 'found' her. (If you've no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down to the last post.) I had the notes from my own stay there, and so know just how the wind blows from the mountains, and how cold the sea is (the current flows up from the Antarctic - I paddled for three whole waves before retreating to the beach with blue feet). And I'd seen pictures and stories from the gold rush days, and so had some idea of the chaos - and how difficult life was for the few women who lived there.

Once back in the UK I contacted the curator of the museum in Hokitika, to see if she could tell me any more about Barbara Weldon than I already knew. She couldn't, but she was kind and encouraging, which was good enough for me. Next, I accessed court records from the time (available online) - and could see just how often my heroine had been before the magistrates, and - given that these were rough times - the efforts that were made to support her. Her fines were often significantly lower than other offenders, and her prison terms shorter. Her offences - pilfering, drunkenness, and trying to kill herself by walking into the sea. (Some poor policeman had to wade in after her and pull her out, then bring her to court as attempting suicide was illegal. Prostitution, however, was not.)

From there, it was a question of reading as much background stuff as I could and piecing together details about transport, dress, etc to give me enough to make fill in the blanks.

And then I wrote the chapter set in New Zealand. But she died there - where did she come from? My next blog will take us to Ireland.

I've written a novel!!

I've written a novel.

There, I've admitted it. I've not talked about it here before - partly because the whole process has been so tortuous that only someone mildly obsessed with it (as I have been) could have stuck with it. But - as it won't be long before it sees the light of day - I'll tell you a bit of its story.

Some of you may have read Over the Hill. Some of you may recall me driving round New Zealand in a campervan as big as a bungalow with good-to-know-Cath. We spent one night in Hokitika - which is one of the bleakest places I've ever been. Once a gold town, the streets are still lined with banks and jewellers, but there's almost nobody there. I can't blame them: the wind blows from the Antarctic and the sea is wild and dangerous.

We went to the museum to get out of the cold, and found memorabilia from the gold rush days. There, among the vignettes (almost all about burly men who had come to find treasure) was the story of Barbara Weldon. She had been born in Ireland in the 1830s, made her way to Liverpool and from there to Australia. She was deported from Melbourne to New Zealand for 'obscene language in a public place' and ended up here. She was, from all accounts, quite a character - well known in the Courts (she had countless fines and short terms of imprisonment) but was also hugely popular. She died tragically (I've not fictionalises the way she died so I'll not give you details).

She intrigued me. I had chosen to come to the other side of the world. I'd already had an adventure or two, even though I had the privileges of modern transport and communications. What had brought her here, on her own, to the (being brutal about it) arse end of nowhere - in the nineteenth century? What adventures had she had along the way? Did she have lovers? Children?

I couldn't let go of her. And so, slowly, I have made up her story. This novel is fiction: so little is known about her that her biography would be little more than two hundred words. I've changed her first name (but kept the Weldon - it's a Protestant name, which gave me clues as to her origins in Ireland). I've wallowed in research, and in writing, and editing, and rewriting - and it has taken forever. But the time has come to send her on her way.

Watch this space. The Planter's Daughter is almost ready for take off.