I know it's past the deadline for this project, but I just wanted to post this last post, half because I felt like it, but half because I felt like I haven't finished things up here yet :D

This project was better than I expected, to be honest. I could take control of my own website, customise the way I liked and post my progress as I went. The only part of making the website I didn't like was the note-taking part. The summarising part didn't go down well, and I think a lot of people, including myself, had issues with the formatting of notes and summaries. I tried posting my notes document, but it didn't work, because it was a PDF or something. (-.-)

Anyway, the other thing I didn't like was how we had lessons at the beginning, instead of at the end (near the deadline). During the lessons at the beginning, I really couldn't do a lot because I didn't know specifically what question I wanted to answer. So that resulted in a heap of research, and then the final product which barely used any. I think the lessons should have been focused on refining the final product into a product that directly raises an issue or addresses the question, rather than wasting the first two weeks of lessons looking for a question or searching for information that might not be relevant. That happened to me...and I spent the last week freaking out over whether it answered the question or not.

The good parts: I learnt a lot about the area that I was interested in, and I feel like I have accomplished something? In a lot of projects, we don't get the freedom to choose a specific area of interest from a broad topic, let alone the life, legacy and character of a given personality. Although it took me a while to narrow it down to a specific question - Catherine's authenticity - I think that this freedom was what made this project so interesting. Everyone chose different topics, and everyone had different final products. It was really cool to see what other people have made and what ideas they had about Catherine's relationships, her character compared to other people, and her contributions. In terms of feeling like I have accomplished something - I used to never write fiction (unless you counted when the meaningless rubbish I wrote in year 7), and I actually made something that I spent a lot of time drafting. It was a process I never really gone through  - how can you draft an essay in 40 minutes during a class test? Creative writing itself and learning different writing styles from people like Felicity Pulman and books like the Royal Diaries was really interesting and I liked it. That's why I felt like the final product was something I had created from scratch and something I developed over time. 

Um, I hope you like the final product, but more importantly, I'm glad that I could show you the process of how I made it :)

Writing fiction is harder than you think. I scrapped so many drafts before I found a style of writing that I liked and suited Catherine. And that was merely the first draft. So! In my historical fiction, I'm going to portray Catherine as a witty, and clever woman, who twists everything to her advantage. She is secretive, because she has so many different 'faces' she must have for different people. The 'face' that she shows in her memoirs is mainly that of a reflective and intelligent leader, always fighting to overcome adversities. I want to show these different 'faces' that she has.

When I was writing, I found a lot of useful resources like the Royal Diaries series. I selected Anastasia the Grand Duchess and Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles because Anastasia was Russian, so I might find some cultural information and Marie Antoinette, political and social etiquette. Anastasia was a while after Catherine the Great, but the book was useful in providing Russian terms like 'moujik' which means peasant. It also taught me about Russian names - that the last names came from the person's father's name with the ending depending on their gender; 'evna' for women, 'vitch' for men. Marie Antoinette was a Princess in France, who lived just before and during the French Revolution. She was very extravagant in court and in the book, she had a rivalry with Madame du Barry and found ways to scorn her and belittle her in subtle methods. These subtle methods were what I was looking for - I didn't really know about manipulation, so I learnt from this French princess. Both the books however were of the perspective of 14-year-olds, which was disappointing, because I was writing the perspective of a 50 or 60-year-old. The level of maturity was vast, so the books were only as good as minor references. 

Other than that, I'm nearly done with the writing, but I think I need to have a 500-word explanation of how the fiction relates to my question. Bleugh. I wish I didn't have to spell it out, but I guess it's necessary.

Two weeks left, and all I have done is blog. I am incredible.
Lawl jokes, I actually did some research yesterday about Catherine's memoirs, from Mrs Colmer's link - thank you so much! It was extremely useful and also linked me to other sources that I can use for my research. The only bad thing about it was that the source basically was what I wanted to do for this project; an analysis about Catherine's authenticity in her memoirs. Now when I do get started on my work, I'll keep checking not to make my work similar to the source :/

I'm thinking that my question could be: How real is Catherine the Great in her memoirs? I think I'll explore what the memoirs talk about, what ideas they are trying to show about Catherine and what other people think of her authenticity and her memoirs. So...it looks like I won't be doing the creative option. If I was to do the creative option, though, I think I'll worry too much about it, but I can't afford to do that (next week is doom week part II where I'm going to drown in assignments and all-nighters). Shame.

Next step: I'm going to look at the source mentioned in the original source from Mrs Colmer (writing that confuses me) and scavenge for more information so I can put it into a report or something. I want it to be more of a presentation - visual sort of thing. It's easier to understand and create if I make some sort of visual representation of my findings.

Yesterday, we had a workshop with Felicity Pulman, author of various bestsellers, who had the kindness to grace us with her guidance in writing historical fiction. I found it helpful in terms of the research needed to write historical fiction. What also intrigued me was how she thought about writing her novels - she saw it as an entire journey spread over six books; she knew what she wanted as the beginning and the end, and she had an idea of what sort of change that occurred in the character in the middle. This was very different from what I think of, when I write. We also did some character creating, but I didn't really do much there (sorry, Ms. Pulman) - well, except for creating a Russian 17yo boy called Alexei, who has brown hair and brown eyes, plus a freckle under his left eye, and is a manservant whose parents are a cook and a seamstress working in Catherine the Great's Winter Palace. Historical fiction sounds okay; I just am stuck on how I can work my question into a short story, etc.

Speaking of which, I have finally narrowed my topic down a little! Yay :D My question will basically be about how real Catherine the Great is through her memoirs and letters. A possible development of this question is 'How is she different from her letters to her memoirs?' or something like that. Why I am choosing this subtopic from 'Memoirs and Letters'? Because I assume that a large amount of information about Catherine is obtained from her memoirs and letters (mainly because from the films that we watched, there was a significant number of references to Catherine's letters and memoirs), and I am skeptical that her writings can be used as  reliable sources. I'll be probably addressing issues like identity and genuineness...which may be difficult without a well-rounded knowledge of Catherine's life, relationships, policies, etc. I have already been searching for letters and particularly, memoirs, that are in readable English. I think I'll do a little more research since the deadline's still a considerable while away. I will also try to come up with a way that I can incorporate 'How real Catherine is in her memoirs and letters' into historical fiction...

If you haven't checked the Notebook section yet, I'm glad. It's depressing seeing how the Summary Notes section is longer and more paragraph-filled than the Raw Notes section.

Other than that, I have discovered that there are actually a few useful websites out there for my topic! Applause. I will look into that a little later, but I am a bit proud that I have briefly recounted (of sorts) Catherine's life in a little more than several paragraphs. I'm thinking that I should look at videos, since I haven't been having much luck with websites...so, look forward to a video (hopefully) :) Also, my blog posts probably won't be so long anymore. I think my Journal will end up being more of an update-book than a legit 'write a two-page entry daily' diary. I think that's better for you (mr/ms reader) and moi. Less junk-reading for you, and less junk-writing for me, win-win.

On a side note, a lot of exchange students have arrived! Very exciting. Unfortunately, more so than scavenging the web for good websites on my topic. I've met a lot of lovely Germans and I'm looking forward to meeting some lovely Frenchpeople and Kiwis. I'm heading for Europe in the coming holidays, so I should probably learn as much as I can from them. Or stun them by my outstanding knowledge on a certain Enlightened autocrat, whichever suits. Have a nice weekend everyone :)

Back to school and we've received 2 assessment notifications and continuing an assessment task. Yay. I didn't do anything but sleep and eat in the holidays so I have made zero progress on this project :D Life is good.

A historical fiction incursion is heading our way which I'm looking forward to. I haven't decided yet on what medium I'm doing this project with, but historical fiction is a possibility. Maybe I'll write a Memoir? Does that fit into historical fiction?

Another topic that I just thought up a second ago is how Catherine the Great is portrayed. I noticed that she has a lot of variations in her appearance as well as the way she looks. For example, in one painting she looks like a really nice grandma and other times she's a beautiful stern empress. This also applied to the different films that we watched in class. I find this interesting, but I really hate analysing images and film, since we went bananas in doing that in English.

I will research a little more tomorrow about my initial topic - Memoirs and Letters. I have already made some notes, so I will post them up soon in my Notebook :)

I'm not sure if I will enjoy this project. I like Weebly's because they're cool to look at, and once you're finished, you feel pretty proud of yourself, but if you're a perfectionist like me, then during the process of making a Weebly, you will tear your hair out. Anyway, I'll make it through :)

I am currently deciding on my topic and question. A topic I have developed at interest in how we know about Catherine the Great's life. This was because lately we have been looking at a lot of videos on Catherine's life. What I noticed was that almost all of them were extremely dramatic, had very similar information and paid a good deal of attention on her love life. I wondered why - and thought about what sources these films would have used. This leads to my topic of interest - Catherine's Memoirs and Letters.

Personally, the memoirs sound more interesting than the letters, because I think her reflections would be interesting to read - deducing her character and perspective on events and ideas. I have searched her Memoirs up, and read a little bit - and she sounds very knowledgeable and contemplative, BUT she uses words with phrasing much like Latin: sentences that are paragraphs long with fancy words everywhere. That will be fun to decipher (sarcasm here.)

Not sure where the question will go, yet, but looking forward to finding something that will be fun. But - on a side note, today's the second last day of school! Wooot~ Maybe I'll watch a Catherine the Great movie later or a book, if Ms Colmer seriously insists.