roses and research
Jun. 4th, 2010 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWent to Elizabeth Park today to look at the roses. Which are, indeed, quite impressive. And inspired philosophical musings.
This was particularly inspired by our most frequent comments -- namely, this or that rose faded badly or well. There were roses that, on first blooming, were pretty single blooms with apple blossom colors and turned a dirty white. Quickly. And there were far more of the past-their-peak blooms that new ones. Orange-yellow blooms that collapsed into messy heaps of disarrayed petals. Roses that acquired brown spots whatever their color as soon as past their prime. The really sad ones were those that faded to a color that clashed with their new blown color.
Then, there were violet roses that turned paler and paler shades of violet. A white double-rose (where you had to look closely to see the other petals beneath the first set) where the white got a little less bright. And one mixed rose of bright red and orange that faded to a pink and white swirl instead.
Which inspired the musing since you seldom see roses past their peak in a books.
'cause while our first instinct is to head to the library for research -- especially seeing as we writers are overwhelmingly bibliophiles -- and often you have to, because there is no other source of information., there's nothing like real stuff for real details. Even interviews don't do the trick because you don't know what to ask and they don't know what to tell you. I have read numerous fantasies by people who had clearly never gone hiking in the forest, or seen what happens in the field while the seasons change, or for that matter, watched the moon closely.
This was particularly inspired by our most frequent comments -- namely, this or that rose faded badly or well. There were roses that, on first blooming, were pretty single blooms with apple blossom colors and turned a dirty white. Quickly. And there were far more of the past-their-peak blooms that new ones. Orange-yellow blooms that collapsed into messy heaps of disarrayed petals. Roses that acquired brown spots whatever their color as soon as past their prime. The really sad ones were those that faded to a color that clashed with their new blown color.
Then, there were violet roses that turned paler and paler shades of violet. A white double-rose (where you had to look closely to see the other petals beneath the first set) where the white got a little less bright. And one mixed rose of bright red and orange that faded to a pink and white swirl instead.
Which inspired the musing since you seldom see roses past their peak in a books.
'cause while our first instinct is to head to the library for research -- especially seeing as we writers are overwhelmingly bibliophiles -- and often you have to, because there is no other source of information., there's nothing like real stuff for real details. Even interviews don't do the trick because you don't know what to ask and they don't know what to tell you. I have read numerous fantasies by people who had clearly never gone hiking in the forest, or seen what happens in the field while the seasons change, or for that matter, watched the moon closely.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 10:27 am (UTC):Waves across the river:
no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 07:49 pm (UTC)Can be cool.
Then, so can the other way. I once was in another venue and after some time I had posted an extract for Isaiah, and someone else commented on how odd it felt to read it in English. . . .