New York Public Library now has 20,000 maps online which are free to download and use. A few are of the Roman Empire”.
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On a Monday Bank Holiday in 1988 Rosemary Sutcliff was solving problems with the plot of her historical novel The Shining Company.
On a Bank Holiday Monday in 1988 Rosemary Sutcliff wrote in her diary a rare comment about the progress of the book she was then writing.
Another Bank Holiday! Yesterday’s wind got up again. The pups have spent the whole day yelling to be let out & chasing squirrels. … Think I see my way out of the immediate Catraeth problem, though there are still plenty ahead.
The “Catraeth problem” first surfaced in Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary on 28/8/88. It relates to a battle which features in her novel The Shining Company.
How did Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels emerge? | “I start with an idea, never a plot” | “Discovery Trumps Planning, So Plan to Discover” (Bill Barnett)
Academic Bill Barnett, from Stanford University Business School, has posted about his view that most successsful business strategies emerge, they are not carefully planned in advance—”Discovery trumps planning”. This accords with the views I have peddled for many years, first at Leicester Management Centre and then Warwick Business School, and latterly as a CEO in the not-for-financial-profit sector in the UK.
But it also made me think of parallels with something Rosemary Sutcliff said once to an interviewer about how she went about writing her novels:
I start with an idea; never a plot. I’m not very strong on plots, but I start from a theme, which grows from the idea. I do have a certain amount of framework: I’ve got to know how I’m going to get from the beginning to the end, and a few ports of call on the way.
I do not write to a standard length. I do not know how long a book’s going to be. I find that a book takes its own time and gets to its own proper ending place.
- Source: Blog post by Bill Barnett Discovery Trumps Planning, So Plan to Discover
- Source: Full interview with Rosemary Sutcliff on BBC Radio’s ‘Desert Island Discs
- More on this blog, by Rosemary Sutcliff, about her approach to writing
Arthurian story by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Sword and the Circle | Republished with 19 other children’s classics by Puffin
Puffin books have redesigned 20 classic books, covering 80 years of children’s fiction — bringing together fairy tales and fantasies, historical adventures and comic mis-adventures, in A Puffin Book list 20 classics.
All covers here
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 