My local library and the big bookstores in the city yielded several biographies and memoirs of the Mitford sisters, first-hand accounts of the Spanish Civil War and social histories of inter-war England, as well as novels by Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Mary Wesley. Luckily, 'research' just meant 'lying on the sofa reading lots of books about a fascinating period of history'. It soon became apparent that the girl was a princess who lived in the 1930s, which meant I would have to do some research if I wanted to turn her into a novel. What was an aeroplane doing there? For that matter, where was she? Who was she? And what was she writing in her diary? I decided I had to find out more. An aeroplane appeared on the horizon and she peered at it curiously. My mind's eye was suddenly filled with the image of a teenage girl, perched on a castle wall and scribbling in her diary. A Brief History of Montmaray began one day when I was very hard at 'work' - that is, I was staring out the window of my inner-city flat, wondering what it would be like to live in a castle. One of the benefits of being a writer is that many enjoyable activities - daydreaming, for instance - can be classified as 'work'. The article was first published in Viewpoint, Volume 16 (4), 2008 Hard at work on A Brief History of Montmaray The following article discusses the process of researching, planning and writing A Brief History of Montmaray.
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