Research After the Fact
For the last ten years, give or take a little, I
worked on a historical novel about Chicago. It was my “big” project, often set
aside for shorter, less puzzling work. But I’m a believer in letting things
simmer in the back of your mind—and I was convinced this was simmering. In
between other projects, I’d go back and fiddle with the manuscript I then
called “Potter’s Wife.” I’d change the point of view—Potter Palmer, Cissy
Palmer, omniscient third-person, Most of all I’d research.
I ordered books on interlibrary loan as if there
were a desperate hurry and the service would not be available the next day. I
read everything I could find about Chicago history, Potter and Bertha (Cissy)
Honoré Potter, the Columbian Exposition, the Great Fire of Chicago,
architecture. I spent hours online.
I’d write, put it aside, rewrite, go on to a mystery,
etc. One of my big breakthroughs came when a first line popped into my head.
“The smell. He’d never forget the smell.” I had the tone I wanted, and the
actual writing came fairly easily. Satisfied that I had followed all loose
threads and tied them up, I sent “Potter’s Wife” to my editor. Somewhere along
the way it became “The Gilded Cage.” I sent it to a formatter and hired a dear
friend to do the jacket design (original art now hangs, framed, in my cottage).
Mid-May last spring, the book went live on
Amazon in trade paper and ebook, garnering mostly five-star reviews, sales that
for me were good, and flattering comments from those who read it immediately.
Then I discovered a whole new research source I had no idea about and now
wonder how I missed.
Author Bio
An award-winning novelist, Judy Alter is the author of
several fictional biographies of women of the American West. In The Gilded Cage
she has turned her attention to the late nineteenth century in her home town,
Chicago, to tell the story of the lives of Potter and Cissy Palmer, a high
society couple with differing views on philanthropy and workers’ right. She is
also the author of six books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries series. With the
2014 publication of The Perfect Coed, she introduced the Oak Grove Mysteries.
Her work has been recognized with awards from the Western
Writers of America, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the National Cowboy
Museum and Hall of Fame. She has been honored with the Owen Wister Award for
Lifetime Achievement by WWA and inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame
and the WWA Hall of Fame. http://judyalter.com/
Blog URL: http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com
Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/judy.alter
Skype: juju1938
Buy link for The Gilded Cage
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