In which she just might tear out her hair
Apr. 12th, 2010 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zeborahO hai thar Internets, I need vital informations! Imagine a pictorial stained glass window for a church, about 1x2 metres. How long would it, in Denmark in the 16th century, have taken to do each of:
a) source coloured glass (or might one have it lying around)?
b) cut said glass into appropriately shaped bitties?
c) join the bitties together and have a glorious window?
I'm grasping at straws in my chronology and if I get inconvenient answers I'll have to rewrite this scene again from scratch.
I mean, I already have to write it again from scratch, because the conversations started in the wrong order, but I'll have to write it again from scratch without a stained glass window, and that stained glass window was going to merge a couple of plot strands, a couple of theme strands, and a whole heap of OMG PRETTY.
Just so you know why I'm going to be bald in a day or two when my artist friend comes back from her glass class with informations for me.
Update #1: Thanks all, I'm growing increasingly resigned to Plan A being the stuff of deals with the devil and, on the upside, increasingly optimistic about my new shiny Plan C potentially working. (Plan B was unsatisfactory.)
Update #2: (written at the same time as update #1) Semi-related revelations force me to admit that I now need to rewrite part of the penultimate scene. "One step forward, two steps back" strikes again!
a) source coloured glass (or might one have it lying around)?
b) cut said glass into appropriately shaped bitties?
c) join the bitties together and have a glorious window?
I'm grasping at straws in my chronology and if I get inconvenient answers I'll have to rewrite this scene again from scratch.
I mean, I already have to write it again from scratch, because the conversations started in the wrong order, but I'll have to write it again from scratch without a stained glass window, and that stained glass window was going to merge a couple of plot strands, a couple of theme strands, and a whole heap of OMG PRETTY.
Just so you know why I'm going to be bald in a day or two when my artist friend comes back from her glass class with informations for me.
Update #1: Thanks all, I'm growing increasingly resigned to Plan A being the stuff of deals with the devil and, on the upside, increasingly optimistic about my new shiny Plan C potentially working. (Plan B was unsatisfactory.)
Update #2: (written at the same time as update #1) Semi-related revelations force me to admit that I now need to rewrite part of the penultimate scene. "One step forward, two steps back" strikes again!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 06:52 am (UTC)My sense, in no way substantiated by research, is that generally such things were done by groups of people in the 16th century. But it is highly probable that you already knew that :-)
I'm dying to know, what is depicted in said stained glass window? Or would that be a spoiler?!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 08:28 am (UTC)--
Yeah, I'm getting increasingly sure that the whole idea of having a completed stained glass window in time for my final scene is a no-goer. Which is a shame: it was going to be the Crucifixion above the Last Supper, with Jesus-at-the-table holding the Chalice up so that it catches the blood of Jesus-on-the-Cross. --I don't know if that was an existing motif at the time, I don't recall ever seeing such a thing, but the book calls for "something new" at that moment anyway, so I wasn't too worried.
Fortunately I'm starting to get a new idea which is
(MINOR SPOILER FOR MY BETA-READER - WARNING - DANGER WILL ROBINSON!)
(Well, context first: the book hinges on the symbolism-made-manifest of a glass chalice (symbolising the main character, mostly, and also peace and the way things ought to be) that was, in the book to which this is a sequel, broken into shards. So plot ensues.)
So my new idea is that the glass-maker dude actually solders the shards back into chalice form -- stained glass technique but, well, 3D; and his idea is to embed this entire 3D chalice into the rest of the stained glass window in due course. With a glass lid on top to keep the wind and rain out or something.
...This may be a stretch in terms of "Even if it did come to him in a dream, would anyone actually let him try it in the cold hard light of day?" department. But having just the soldered-up chalice present does fix all my chronology problems without breaking my final scene.
At least not more than it was already broken.
(But this book has been like that, it's been an uphill battle both ways in bare feet in the snow, so my complaining is by now mostly just fond resignation.)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 09:54 am (UTC)<awed silence>
As I said, wow.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 10:50 am (UTC)I'm frankly a little unnerved. Unnerved and delighted! Thank you once again, Dreamwidth!
As for your book, I will have to echo the previous commenter and say "Wow ... just wow." I'm pretty sure I DO know a window with a Last Supper under a Crucifixion, but not with the wonderful lining up of the chalice and all that symbolism. Because surely I would have noticed that. SURELY?! It is about two hours drive away but now I have a yearning for a road-trip (Reality is bound to hit and I can find a parishioner to tell me!)
As to if they would let him try this, I don't think it is so far beyond the pale. I guess it depends somewhat on if he is a "master craftsman" (ie must he answer to anyone on the making side of things) and his relationship with the bishop or whatever ecclesiastical authority has commissioned/authorised the window. But surely they would go "WOW, yeah!" too! :-)
And this is a sequel you say? *trots off to figure out how to get paws on first book*
no subject
Date: 2010-04-12 03:05 pm (UTC)Er, ask zeborah and she'll send you the MS for beta-reading?
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Date: 2010-04-12 07:50 pm (UTC)Oh yeah. <makes mental note to add into the scene the parish priest - what's-his-name, I've got his name somewhere, anyway that guy - and the Bishop of Roskilde too, he'd probably still be hanging around town>
I should, um, really get back to submitting that book to publishers and agents. I did to a couple but they didn't want it, and then life's kept me busy enough it's been enough trouble just writing; and between writing and submitting, it's the writing that keeps me sane, so... :-)
But in the meantime I'd be happy to email you the manuscript - just on condition that you tell me anything confusing/boring/annoying about it, and/or any way I could tweak it to make it better. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 04:32 am (UTC)http://www.stjamesanglicanchurchmorpeth.com.au/files/3093240/uploaded/Window.jpg
I can't begin to imagine the hassle it would be persuading people to publish a book. Let alone that heart and soul have been poured into it, so rejection is not so easy to shrug off. But I would love to read it :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 10:56 pm (UTC)I'm actually okay with rejection. Though it's easier with short stories, where I know there's dozens of potential markets and have got a semi-routine about submit-get rejection-resubmit, than with novels where... it's mostly that I'm not as familiar and practised with what markets there are, so I have to think more, so procrastination sets in.
Anyway, I shall send it to you. Just let me know what email address to use? (I'm at zeborah (at) gmail.com)