Someone pointed out to me the other day that the YA novel I’m working on, called Planchette, is set contiguously – timewise, that is – with the world of Under the Poppy; she wanted to know if I was hot for the Victorians, or proto-Edwardians, or just deeply into top hats or what.  And that question made me examine for a moment what is so seductive about writing of a time not your own.

It’s never a conscious choice to step out of the contemporary frame: each story takes place where it does, not where it might be fun to write about chronologically.  And research, while a juicy joy to begin with, can turn into quicksand, you can start obsessing over each and every buttonhook and curlicue and spandyjack until you’re not feathering your nest, a la Flaubert, you’re building one of those Lego sets where every block needs to go in a particular place, which destroys the aspect of play entirely, or it would to me anyway.

What I’ve found about operating in this imaginative Victoriana is that it’s a strange and comfortable period to examine, it’s horseshit and corsets and broken glass and la vie moderne, cold-eyed and hysterical both.  Change is constant.  Death is less the emotional insult that it is to, say, certain 21st century subsets of society; yet no less terrible or mourned when it appears.  Sex is what it always is, restricted and ubiquitous. And desire cuts its path through human flesh, scattering the fat jet beads and lover’s eyes as it goes.

And all the fun I’ve had there makes me want to have some more.