Last week I was in London to meet friends AND use libraries without having to buy books and doing some research “on the field” for the historical novel. I came back with a cold, thanks to the British weather, and Sunday afternoon/night my server (Telecom Italia) was so very slow that I had to quit reading the Six Sentence Sunday participants and continue on Monday. Considering the overwhelming number of participants and that barely a third of them actually tours all the entries, I think I’m going to do like the other two thirds from now on: sign up and just wait for the others to visit me… Lazy, I know, but time’s flying! 😦

But back to my short British vacation! I spent two mornings at Westminster Reference Library, Tuesday working on 12th century clothes (and tattoos, so I had to modify SKYBAND again, haha!), Thursday on Norman castles, Westminster Hall and other 12th century buildings in London and Lincolnshire.

Wednesday I took the DLR to the Tower of London – with SEVERE DELAYS of… 15 minutes! I’m Italian, for me a “severe delay” is one hour or two! 😉 – and then walked to Westminster (that’s when I caught the cold, the wind was quite chilly along the Tames and I had to cover my ears with… my hair!) like my characters are supposed to do. I knew in the 12th century London and Westminster were two separate cities, but I couldn’t figure out how long it would take: one hour of fast walking. Therefore I believe my characters will go by boat! They can’t show up at Westminster Hall all sweaty and stinky, it’s a court! 😀 (And for those of you still wondering, YES, they DID BATHE in the Middle Ages, especially the nobles at this time of courtly love. There are plenty of mentions of baths and washing hands and changing clothes in the chansons de geste).

I didn’t pay to get inside the Tower of London nor Westminster Abbey because I’ve already been there in the past. The white tower (built by William the Conqueror) can be seen also from the outside, and Westminster Abbey was rebuilt after Richard’s coronation (the only one featured in my story, my characters aren’t too fond of John, therefore carefully avoid HIS coronation).

Tuesday I met a friend at the British Museum and had a look at the few medieval things they have there, while Thursday I met a friend at Charing Cross and we discussed my sci-fi novella.

Now I’m back, still catching up on blogs, finishing short stories and sending out guest posts and interviews, so you might see me somewhere out there in the future. AND I have to edit and finish the damn historical, or I won’t be able to move forward with the fantasy stories. But now I have a clearer idea, so I think I can do it and nail the first draft by the end of May.

By the way, if you enjoyed last week’s short story The Sect in spite of it being very dramatic, I can put more here, pre-editing, before I upload them on Smashwords and Kindle… I have a couple more almost ready (but one is a sequel to Air, and a spoiler for the novel, so don’t read it, haha!). I might start doing Story Sunday instead of Six Sentence Sunday! 😉