breathedout | Research flotsam & jetsam

I had today off work and spent the whole afternoon starting (or... continuing, but it's still early days) the process of taking apart my novel outline and looking at interweaving a second, home-front narrative arc. So far I can say that I really like what this does for the early section of the story; it solves some problems with events that formerly seemed overly coincidental and authorial and are now solidly character-arc-driven; and it also sets up some productive tensions for later in the book between my two POV characters. But I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed by how to target my research at this point; it's a big project and there are so many areas to explore and flesh out. Which, I knew that was true before I started the restructure—it was true even with my old high-level outline—but even more so now. As I was telling

greywash earlier today, I get so much joy out of working inside these very detailed, solid historical frameworks... but constructing said frameworks for myself is a lot of work! I'd been working inside the Unreal Cities framework for so long that I kind of forgot how much work it was to make.

Anyway, a few notes of interest that I happened across in my reading:

Did you know that "hinterland" has a technical definition? Apparently, in maritime terms, the area which brings its goods to a port for export and receives the imports processed through that port, is that port's "hinterland." (In more general economic terms the same can be said of an area outside an urban center, even if that center's not a port.) I always just thought it meant "the boonies." *themoreyouknow.gif*

Three of the four surviving issues of the Atlantic Advocate, which today I learned was Nova Scotia's first Black Canadian newsmagazine (starting publication in 1915) are available online to browse at one's leisure: January 1917; April 1917; and May 1917. I haven't had time yet to read them all in full, but skimming through, they're an interesting read: extremely moral-suason-y—the January issue promises "All the news of interest: Of the Race; Their Doings; Their Progress"—but it gives a sense of how a certain group of Black Canadians were talking about their lives & activism at the time.

You can also browse the entire run of issues of the Dalhousie Gazette, the Dalhousie University student newspaper, from its inception in 1869 right up until the present day. In case you wanted to know what Professor Martin had to say about dreams in his lecture to the medical school, or what happened on the Senior Night Walk of November 30, 1916.

Archives of mainstream Nova Scotia newspapers are, on the other hand, bizarrely difficult to find online?? Apparently I need to track down a ProQuest membership in order to look at back issues of the Halifax Chronicle(/Herald)?? My life is hard, etc. etc.

Speaking of Halifax, did you know that the Great Halifax Explosion, in which a ship laden with high explosives exploded in the harbor, was the largest man-made explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb? Now you do.