Academic Historian: is that true?

Myself re-enacting a medieval academic historian or chronicler.
(C) Debra McDonnell, February 2010

Tuesday was a difficult day at work last week.  Very difficult.  I had a not-inconsiderable disappointment regarding a promotion that left me very low and then, laughably, the same day I had to attend a meeting to set my incentive targets for the coming year.  I was not in the mood.  I really wasn't.  I had spent a good part of the previous weekend in silent introspection about something that has been a major part of my personal life and was already miserable.

I had been having an internal dialogue about why I could never finish my novel.  Yes, 'that novel' to the people who know me, the one I have been writing for over 30 years.  I was wondering whether I should just bin it and declare "I am not a writer!"  I pondered why I could not create a decent story arc; especially one with a strong end.  From that it spiralled into the realisation that I had become obsessed with real history and seemingly lost the ability to weave a fictional history into the chronicled gaps.  I concluded that my shift toward academic historian had impacted everything and that started to drag me down to the low I experienced at work.

Yet, am I really an academic historian (by passion) as I have put in my "Me, me, me" profile?  I'm starting to wonder.

I began writing my magnum albatross of historical fiction in my mid-20s.  I had taken it out of the realm of medieval fantasy and crossed into the turbulent history of the 12th century.  I had already started reading historical fiction but was equally consumed by the subject of archaeology.  I discovered Current Archaeology magazine at English Heritage's Temple Manor in Strood, Kent and drank in every detail.  At the same time I started reading all of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels (20 in total) and read Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.   I loved the simple formulaic murder-mystery nature of Cadfael and how each tale drew me into Ellis Peters' vision of pastoral and secular England in the mid-12th century.  I equally loved Eco's literary, deeply academic murder-mystery tour-de-force set in the pre-Black Death 14th century.  They became my benchmark and I was determined to condense the two styles into one.

Perhaps that was my mistake:  the arrogance of believing I could condense two styles into one - whilst not writing a murder-mystery.

The general Cadfael writing formula always seemed to be weather, dirty deed, sleuthing and denouement.  That is a massive simplification but it still inspired.  In the years before the internet, I collected a year's worth of weather reports from the Independent newspaper to give me a real weather reference to work with.  I drove around the locations of my novel (except Lisbon and the Middle East) and collected ideas such as listening to the countryside, inhaling its scents and noting the quality of light.  That was the simple part.  The Name of the Rose element, however, unleashed the perfectionist researcher in me: the veritable beast upon my shoulder yearning to wag the finger and say:  "You know nothing, (Jon Snow)".

It became the enemy of my imagination.

At one stage, I enjoyed having my imagination be inspired by a side street of obscure historic detail that was infinitely more interesting and intriguing than anything I had previously contrived.  It was exciting.  Synchronicity, too, seemed to smile on me.  I got so involved with my story I once subtitled it History of a Past Life.  Yet, over time, I lost that connection and the excitement.  I took a BA (Hons) and MA in History and Medieval History to prove I knew what I was talking about and did not notice my imagination had become disengaged.  I had lost sight of what I was trying to write and, as my wife pointed out, my work was reading more like an academic paper than a novel. 

So, had I become an academic historian?

On the face of it, yes.  But actually, no, because History was not my preferred choice of study.  I have already said above that I began to be consumed by Archaeology at the same time as I became interested in the 12th century but when I searched for a part-time degree that a mature student could do, nothing existed in Kent.  Nine years later, when I was discussing my PhD ideas with my History professor, he kept repeating one word:  archaeology.  I should have taken the hint.

In conclusion then, subconsciously, I consider myself more archaeologist than historian even though I have never formally studied the subject.  Many years ago, an old friend often said I should've been an osteo-archaeologist because I like dead people.  Maybe she was right.  To that end then, here's a photo of the a dog's skull unearthed earlier this during at site of the Anglo-Saxon era Barking Abbey, Essex.  The original Barking Dog?  Who knows: he's certainly looked better.

A dog burial discovered on land that was once the wharf of Barking Abbey in the Anglo-Saxon era. 
(C) Philip McDonnell 2018