Martin Lake's Blog, page 19

A Labyrinth

I’ve been talking about mazes with a twitter friend recently.

I was reminded of a time a few years agowhen  I went on a training course given by Margaret Underwood, an expert in learning styles and educational Kinesiology from New Zealand.

She had brought along a huge piece of silk which on which she had traced a copy of the maze from Chartres Cathedral in Northern France.

One lunch-time she invited anyone who was interested to walk along the maze in silence.  I’m not at a religious person and not even a spiritual one but I decided to give this opportunity a go.

My friend Ross Cooper and I started off side by side.  We walked together a little space and then turned a corner.  From that point on we each trod our own individual path.

I walked on in silence, musing on how my feet were being led by a path whose end I could not see.

I turned and was astonished to see Ross at the far end of the maze, out of reach, unreachable.  I felt alone, almost bereft as he silently paced away from me.

I bent my footsteps once again and continued.  A few minutes later I looked up and saw Ross only a few steps from me, walking towards me.  I felt relieved, only to see him take a sharp turn and disappear from view.

This is like life, I thought.

I had got it.  The idea of the labyrinth.

A few minutes later I turned a corner and found myself walking side by side with Ross once again.  We reached the end together, as we had started.

I have heard that the maze was designed as a symbol of a person’s life.

I was moved by the experience, intrigued and thoughtful.

I’d like to walk it again one day.

The Common Knights of Jerusalem #SampleSunday #histnov

I am busy editing my new novel which is set in the days following the fall of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem to Saladin.  So, I thought I’d post the first few pages for today’s sample.

CHAPTER 1 THE ARMY OF JERUSALEM

John and Simon climbed up the steep track towards the city.  John felt he might die at any moment.  The sun poured out of a clear blue sky, an intense, implacable heat which seemed intent on beating him to his knees.  He uncorked his flask and sipped at the water.  It tasted of iron and gave no relief to the desert of his mouth.

‘Nearly there,’ he gasped to his cousin.

Simon gave him a blank stare.

The last mile was the worst.  John forced his eyes to peer through the glare but no matter how often he looked he appeared no closer.  It seemed the city would stay forever beyond his reach.

Could that be, he wondered?  Was Jerusalem so holy a place that those who were unworthy would never attain its bliss?

The two men lurched together.  The contact gave them renewed purpose and their pace quickened.  Finally, they reached the city and stumbled into the deep shade beneath its walls.

‘At last,’ said Simon.

‘Ten months,’ John said.  ‘Ten months.  But we’ve got here.’

Just outside the gate to the city a cistern had been placed for the relief of pilgrims and their horses.  The water was brackish and oily, strewn with wisps of straw and dead insects.  They plunged their heads into it and swallowed down great draughts.  In England it would have been too warm to drink; now it was like water from an icy stream.

Eventually they drunk their fill and slumped down before the gate.  John’s eyes filled with tears.  ‘We’ve done it, Simon,’ he said.

‘I knew we would,’ said Simon, ‘but I began to doubt.’  He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

They looked at each other and gave a weary smile.  They climbed to their feet, hoisted their packs upon their backs and took up their staffs.  Hearts hammering with excitement they strode into the city.

No sooner had they stepped through the gates than they saw crowds of people lining the road, jostling for position.  The sheer numbers pressed them back until their legs were slammed up against a stone shrine.

Two small boys had clambered onto the shrine and were shouting to each other in excitement.

‘What’s happening?’ John asked them.

‘King Guy,’ cried the youngest boy, ‘King Guy is going to war.’

Almost immediately a trumpet sounded from deep within the city.  A heavy and regular beat sounded in the distance.  It got louder and louder and soon the reverberation jarred the ground beneath their feet.

A huge cheer rose from the crowd and the children shrieked with delight.

John and Simon followed their gaze.  Riding down the cobbled street came two lines of armoured knights, pennants high, bright armour glistening in the sun.  The knights closest to them wore red surcoats with white crosses emblazoned upon them.  The knights in the far column wore white coats emblazoned with stark red crosses.

‘Who are they?’ John asked.

‘Knights of the Hospital and of the Temple,’ cried the youngest boy.  ‘I am for the Templars but Claude-Yusuf is for the Hospitallers.’

‘Gerard is too young to know better,’ explained the older boy with what he thought was a condescending look.

Behind the last of the knights there was a gap of ten yards before two men on great horses rode alone, side by side.

The older man was a red-head with rough beard and close-cropped hair.  He sat forward in his saddle as if hoping by his stance to make it go faster.  His eyes were wide and shining, and he glanced about him with an exultant look.

‘Who is that?’ asked John.  He did not say but he was disturbed by the look of the knight.

‘Raynald of Châtillon,’ said an old man in the crowd.  He leaned closer.  ‘If you are wise you would make no comment about him, no matter what anyone says, good or ill.’

John and Simon exchanged wary looks.

‘And the other?’  John stared at the man who rode beside Raynald.

He was tall and slim, with thick, flowing hair and neat trimmed beard.  His face seemed carved from stone.  He was handsome and dignified, with regular features and a strong chin.  His eyes were bright and imperious and he glanced about him at the crowd and acknowledged their cheers with a courteous bow.

‘That is Guy of Lusignan,’ said the old man.

‘King Guy, King Guy,’ cried Gerard.  ‘Hooray for King Guy.’

The king, hearing the cry, searched out the owner of the voice and held out his hand.  Gerard gasped and reached up for the king’s hand.  Guy took it, shook it in a sign of triumph and smiled.

Delighted, Gerard grinned at Claude-Yusuf.  ‘King Guy has shaken my hand,’ he cried, ‘King Guy has shaken my hand.’

The king was followed by long lines of knights and foot-soldiers.  The boys became even more excited and Claude-Yusuf began to yell at the top of his voice.

One of the soldiers heard his voice and turned, searching the crowd.  His face lit up and he waved with wild enthusiasm.  He called to the boys but could not be heard.

‘Goodbye, father,’ Claude-Yusuf cried, ‘goodbye.’  But his voice was lost in the tumult.

Eventually, the last company marched through the gate and disappeared down the road that had brought John and Simon to the city.

***************

 I plan to publish the book in December.

Talking with Simon Toyne

Today I’m delighted to be talking with the thriller writer Simon Toyne, author of the Sanctus Trilogy.

Martin: When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?  Was there a specific event that made you decide?

Simon: I’d wanted to write a book for as long as I can remember. Having said that I’d wanted to do lots of things, like direct a movie and play James Bond, so it would be misleading to categorise it as a sole, burning ambition. However, the older I got the more the lack of novel on my CV rankled more than all the other – less likely – ambitions. Increasingly I felt it was the one thing I would deeply regret if I never got round to it.

In terms of a specific event, when my son was born I was producing a series for Sky TV in my previous career as a director and producer. It was a big show and I was in charge so I wasn’t allowed any time off. I knew that a few months on I wouldn’t remember the show or what I was doing on it on those days but I would remember not being around for the first few weeks of my son’s life for the rest of my life. The desire to write a book and the birth of my son sort of collided and so I quit my job and gave myself six months to try and write something, figuring if I could somehow make it work then I could work from home and never miss a single important moment of my kids’ young lives ever again.

Which authors have had the greatest influence upon you?

I could throw many names into the ring here, from Dickens to Orwell and everything in between but I think like many authors of my generation the biggest influence on me has to be Stephen King. He was the guy everybody read when I was a kid and he was the first living person I was aware of who made his living from making stuff up.

You took a sabbatical to start writing your first novel. How did this help and do you think you would have completed the novel without the sabbatical?

It helped me a lot. You often read of people writing their first novels at the same time as doing a full-time job and I have awed respect for those people. For me, I was working in a creative field and doing a lot of writing as part of that so the thought of doing more writing when I got home felt like purgatory. Working in TV is also very demanding in terms of time and energy and I didn’t want to try and write a novel in a state of almost permanent exhaustion. Also my thinking was, if I take six months off and tell everyone I’m going to write a novel I’m going to look like a total idiot if I come back with nothing. So the sabbatical was a way of painting myself into a corner so I had no choice but to give it my absolute best shot. In the end I only wrote about a third of the book in those six months, but it was enough to create some momentum that carried on through another year of doing the writing at evenings and weekends thing until it was finally finished.

How much has your TV career influenced your writing?

TV gave me the one thing no writer can do without, and that’s discipline. I was used to producing scripts to deadline so the thought of sitting down every day to write a book didn’t fill me with the same sort of dread it does some new novelists. I wasn’t scared of the blank page or the idea that I wouldn’t produce anything, only that I might produce something that wasn’t any good. Also, writing for commercial television teaches you very good skills in terms of narrative. The books I write are thrillers and the techniques used to hook and hold a reader are exactly the same as they are to hook a viewer, so I came to the table with a few tricks up my sleeve.

If your most unpleasant character were to give you advice what would it be and would you take it?

It would probably be ‘make me the hero’ and I would, of course, ignore it.

How do you research your novels?

I generally research as I’m going along. I’ll do some specific background reading when I’m outlining a book on something pertinent like, for example, monasteries for Sanctus, lost languages for The Key and cosmology for Book 3. I spend quite a long time outlining a book so the reading and research starts to get dictated by where the story is going. This is when I might go to specific places or interview specific people to get a feeling for something you can’t get from books or the internet. When preparing The Key, for example, I went to the British Museum to look at their collection of cuneiform clay tablets and discovered something there that became a central part of the book. I even made a video about it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voEGrMKiW2c)

What would be a typical writing day for you?  Do you have set times, spaces, routines or rituals?

I use my children as a timing device. Once they’re at school and the dog has been walked I head up to my very small, very messy office at the top of the house (usually around 10) and work and play loud music until they come home again at 3. Tea breaks are allowed as well as a half hour for lunch. This of course only works during term time and when I haven’t got a pressing deadline.

What’s been your favourite moment in your writing career?

It has to be getting the call from my agent telling me she’d sold my first book for enough money so I could quit my job and write full-time.

What’s your next writing project?

I’m currently writing the third book of the Sanctus trilogy.  It’s proving to be quite a challenge as it has to answer all the big questions posed in the first two books and, if anything, be even bigger and bolder than either of them. It’s certainly ambitious. At the moment I’m in the lonely midst of it so the notion of ever finishing it seems like an impossible dream. Then again, that’s why deadlines were invented. Also Twitter and Facebook are the friends (sometimes distracting enemies) of the lonely writer. You can pop by and say Hi to me here:

www.facebook.com/Sanctus.simontoyne

https://twitter.com/sjtoyne

www.simontoyne.net

Thanks very much for talking with me, Simon.

*********

Next time, on 12 October, I’ll be talking with N. Gemini Sasson.

If you’re an author and would like to be featured in this blog please get in touch by going to the contact page on this blog, by email martinlake14@gmail.com or on Twitter @martinlake14

Also, if you’re a reader and would like to have a conversation with me about the books you love (or hate) then please get in touch the same way.

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The Norman Attack on London Bridge. #SampleSunday #histnov

The newly acclaimed young King Edgar has disobeyed orders to stay in safety and been caught up in the battle to defend London Bridge. 

Deutsch: Teppich von Bayeux (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

For the first time I had room to draw my sword.  I turned and looked about.  The ground was covered with dead and wounded.  Something caught my eye.  A horse slithered in the blood and mud in front of me.  But then it righted itself and charged towards me.  I’m dead, I thought.  Like Harold.

The horseman levelled his spear at me and I jumped aside.  As I did I spun round and slashed my sword against his leg.  It was a lucky blow.  Because of my height my sword struck beneath his mailed skirt.  I felt the impact of the blade upon his flesh and saw a spurt of blood.  He cried out and in a moment his horse had carried him past me.

I grinned in triumph and turned to see a second horseman charging down upon me.  I froze in terror.

His sword crashed down.  I cowered and raised my arms above my head in a vain attempt to protect myself.  The noise of the battle quietened, replaced by one single note, the slice of blade through air.  Then a dull clang.

The sword had been stopped in its descent by the thrust of another.  This man grabbed me by my hair and jerked me behind him, at the same time parrying the dreadful strokes of the Norman.  Then he leapt up, stabbed the soldier through the neck and landed with a thud.  He turned to me and cursed.  It was Merleswein, Harold’s friend from Lincoln.

‘What are you doing here?’ he cried.

‘I came to see the battle.’

‘You almost saw your death.’

He grabbed me and pushed back through the crowd.  It was hard going but Merleswein was a large and powerful man and in the end he did it.   We reached the edge of the river and turned.  To my joy the shield-wall had remained intact.

Merleswein led me to where a litter had been left on the river-bank like flotsam dumped by the tide.

‘I found him,’ he said to the figure sitting rigid in the litter.  I saw that it was Asgar, the sheriff.

‘What were you thinking of?’ Asgar cried.  ‘If you had died then all our hopes would have died with you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled.  ‘I didn’t want to stay helpless at the palace with Earl Edwin.’

‘I can’t blame you for that,’ said Asgar.  ‘But you were told to stay there and it was foolish to do otherwise.’

‘But I am the king,’ I said.

‘A king sometimes performs tasks he does not want to,’ said Merleswein.  ‘You would do well to remember that.’

I nodded my head miserably.

‘Merleswein,’ said Asgar urgently.  ‘Did you see what happened at the shield wall?’

Merleswein shook his head.  ‘I was too busy rescuing this one.’

‘The shield wall has been broken three times and three times some Normans got caught inside it when the wall reformed.’

‘What of it?’

‘We should set them a trap.  The bastards did that to us at Hastings with their feigned retreats.  Let us do the same to them.  If we pretend to break we can allow as many of their horsemen in as we wish and then reform the wall.’

‘And slay them,’ said Merleswein, his eyes shining.  He glanced at the English warriors.  ‘But are they up to it?’ he asked.  ‘This will need courage and discipline.’

‘We will get that from the guards and Morcar’s men,’ said Asgar.  ‘The townsfolk can do the slaughter work.’

Merleswein nodded.  ‘I’ll tell Oswald.’

He paused and turned to me.  ‘And you stay here, Edgar.  You showed courage but running from Asgar put him in a terrible situation.  Stay with him now.’

I nodded and he raced off to spring the trap.

I looked sheepishly at Asgar who struggled out of his litter and gripped me on the shoulder.  ‘Don’t look so miserable, Edgar,’ he said.  ‘You’ve done a foolish thing but I doubt it will be your last.  Just learn from it.’

Side by side we watched the battle.  There was hard fighting and then the Normans drew off once again.

‘Merleswein’s reached Oswald,’ I cried.  I could just make out the two men in hurried conference.  Then they signalled Morcar to join them.

‘Do you think they’ll do it?’ I asked.

Asgar shrugged.  At that moment I saw Merleswein point in our direction.

Then, once again, the Norman trumpet blared and the enemy leapt down upon our men.

A huge lump was in my throat as I watched what happened.  Just as the first of the horsemen reached our line, the warriors turned and raced to either side.  The speed of their charge carried the Normans through our first three lines and into an empty space which had opened up in the middle.  About a hundred horse thundered in and then the trap was shut.

The shield-wall closed and the townsfolk turned as one and set upon the Normans.  Within minutes the horsemen were slaughtered.

The tactic was obvious from our vantage point but could not have been so from the Normans.  They charged once again and once again a hundred men were allowed into the wall and trapped.

Then, to my astonishment, they did the same again.  This time, finally, the lesson dawned upon them and they drew off and gazed down upon our men.  They had lost over three hundred men and horses, perhaps a third of their force.

‘What now you bastards?’ Asgar muttered to himself.

We watched for almost half an hour.  But the cost had been too great for the enemy and they made no further move to attack.  They had another plan.  Bonfires were set alight and then, under the guard of the horsemen, foot-soldiers carried burning brands to the nearby houses and set them on fire.

Hundreds of householders fled from their homes as the autumn winds fanned the flames.  I watched in rage as the whole of Southwark burnt.  Then the Normans turned and rode away.

‘We won,’ I cried.

‘It’s victory of a sort,’ said Asgar.

We stood together as our men trooped back to the safety of the city.  Last of all came Oswald, Merleswein and Morcar.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Oswald, ‘I did wrong in disobeying you.’

He opened his mouth to speak but my words had the impact I wished for and his anger was blunted.  ‘Don’t do it again,’ he said.  ‘Leave the heroics to Merleswein and me.  Your job is to stay alive and to rule.’

They trudged off towards the city.  But as he passed me Merleswein gave me a wink.

This extract is from ‘The Lost King: Resistance’.  This is the first in a series of books about the Edgar Atheling, the heir to the throne of England who was proclaimed King a week after the Battle of Hastings. 

His story, one of resistance to the Normans, was suppressed by the Norman chroniclers and is still largely forgotten.  The novels are based on the little we know of the life of this forgotten hero. 

‘The Lost King: Resistance‘ and ‘Wasteland’ are available as e-books from all outlets.  I am currently writing the third ‘Warrior.’

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#TheReadersVoice An invitation to readers

I have featured a series of talks with fellow writers on this blog.  The series continues with Simon Toyne, N. Gemini Sasson, MC Scott, Harvey Black and Ben Kane.  And there are many others to follow.

Now I think it’s time for you, the readers, to have a chance to talk.

I’d love to know your views on what you read, what you like and don’t like and even, if you’re one of my readers, how you might like other books in my series to develop.  (Though I can’t guarantee not to do something dastardly to one of your favourite characters.)

So I’m inviting readers to get in touch to feature on my blog. There will be about 5 or 6 questions for each talk.

If you’d like to be involved please contact me in my Twitter nest @martinlake14 or email me on martinlake14@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from you.

This is experimental so please forgive me if there are too many responses and I can’t get back to you.

 

A new cover for ‘Artful.’

Today I decided to change the cover of my novel ‘Artful.’

It’s a shame because I liked the cover but I knew that I could improve on it. The old cover was too busy and did not immediately capture the essence of the book.

I’ve spent a frustrating time trying to get to grips with Gimp and finally, after lots of experiments, I finally got a cover I liked.  It should appear on Amazon some time tomorrow but I thought I’d give readers of the blog the first look at it.

It captures the fact that the book is about The Artful Dodger, which was not immediately clear in the earlier cover and that he has been transported to Australia.

It also captures his exuberance and sheer cheek, both of which are much in abundance in the book.

For a limited time ‘Artful’ is available for 99c or 72p.  It’s also available for free loan for Amazon Prime customers.

My goodness, just checked on Amazon and the new cover is up and running already.  I hope you like it.

 

 

 

Replacing GCSE’s with ‘more rigorous exams.’

I’m indebted to my friend and colleague Geoff Petty for the following.  I suggest it as one of the questions on Michael Gove’s ‘new style’ exam.

Please read the following extract from Jabberwocky and answer the questions using a quill pen.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

 Q1 What were the slithy toves doing?

Q2. Describe the borogroves in as few words as possible.

Q3. What did the mome raths do?

I bet you got them all correct. If you did, award yourself a Housepoint and get a job in the City.

Answers in a ministerial red box to Michael Gove MP, Lower Playground, Houses of Parliament.

The Lost King: Resistance. #SampleSunday #histnov

This sample is from the first chapter of The Lost King: Resistance.  It tells of how the Norman army, fresh from victory at Hastings, launched an attack upon London. Rallying to the cause of Edgar who had just been acclaimed king, the men of London prepared to repulse the attack.

Rip’s ears pricked up at the sound and he rose from the ground, a deep growl in his throat.  I looked down at him and he looked at me.  This is my chance, I thought.

‘Come on boy,’ I cried.

In a moment I was racing through the streets, Rip by my side.  There were less people about than normal and these were rushing madly for the safety of their houses.  I charged down the lanes and alleys, darting this way and that to avoid the hurrying folk.  Finally, as I got closer to the river, the streets became empty.  I glanced about me in surprise for I had never known this before.  The slap of my feet on the hardened pathways seemed to reverberate in my head.

I ran down the narrow lanes for a few minutes longer, nervous at the silence.  Then I turned into a wider way close to the river and the streets began to fill with people.  But these were armed men, hurrying south towards the bridge.  By this time I had run for half a mile and I was forced to slow for breath.  For the twentieth time I checked that I had both sword and dagger.  Then I slipped out of the road onto the open space beside the river.

London Bridge straggled across the river directly in front of me.   I could see, part way across, a dozen men chopping furiously at the timbers of the bridge.  Behind them others were manhandling huge faggots into place.  Armed men streamed past them, joining with a large company on the far side of the river.

I took a deep breath and hurried across the bridge.  A few men, seeing my youth, called to me to stop but others must have taken me for a messenger.  Most took no notice at all of a lone boy running with his dog.

I was half way across the bridge when a mighty roar sounded in front of me.

The Normans were here.

I bent my head and made a dash for it, joining the groups of men who were now racing across the bridge at redoubled speed.  I was across in what seemed no time and stopped to look about me.

Directly in front of me were about three hundred men with Oswald, Morcar and their warriors at the front.  It was the three hundred who had made the clamour and even now they were yelling defiance and shaking their fists in the air.  I looked beyond them and saw, at about a furlong’s distance, the advance troops of the enemy.

There were huge numbers of Norman horsemen.  The messenger had said a thousand but I had no way of counting them.  They drew rein on the fields beyond Southwark, quieting their panting horses and forming up into ordered companies.  My heart sank.  How could any man on foot dare to face such huge horses and the mail-clad warrior astride them?

Yet this was what the men around me were going to do.  Their numbers were growing by the moment.  I heard Oswald’s voice crying out for them to form a shield wall.  Most of the men were not seasoned warriors but townsfolk who bore arms only rarely and were not used to obeying commands.  There was such confusion that had the Normans charged at that moment they would have sliced through us and over the bridge.  Yet within a few minutes the wall had been formed and our warriors were striding out to extend it in an ever widening arc around the head of the bridge.  The townsfolk still racing across the bridge packed the wall ever more firmly.

Despite the crush I was able to squeeze my way steadily towards the front.  I was about three lines behind Oswald and Morcar when a distant horn blared.  The Normans roared a battle-cry and charged down upon us.

‘King Edgar,’ I heard Oswald cry, ‘King Edgar and England.’

Half a thousand throats roared out the words.  Tears filled my eyes at the sound and I had to shake my head to clear them.

At that moment a strange whistling filled the air and I glanced up to see hundreds of javelins hurtling through the sky.  Our men hoisted their shields above their heads and most of the javelins thudded harmlessly into the toughened hide.  But these shields were now useless and the men cast them aside, cursing angrily.  Then they bent their legs and braced themselves.

The Normans’ usual tactic was to ride up, throw their javelins and then hurtle along their enemy’s line and back to safety.  Now they were risking a direct charge.  They must have thought the shield wall too weak to resist them.  They were almost right.

A dull boom sounded as the Normans crashed onto the shields.  I gasped in horror as the front row crumbled beneath the onslaught.  Some men fell beneath the hammering hooves, some were speared by the Normans, others were crushed into the men behind them.  Huge battle swords flailed in the sky, cutting down the men who tried to guard against them.  I sensed a terrible panic begin to grip our men.

But at the front was a line of toughened warriors; my guards and Morcar’s thegns.  They held.  Swiftly they reformed the wall.  It was like a gate clanging shut on sheep.  A dozen Normans were trapped within the wall and our men cut them down with dreadful savagery.  Within moments men and beasts were like butchered meat in the market-place.

But hoarse voices cried out in terror as a second charge thudded against the wall and it buckled even further.  Again the horsemen broke through and again they slaughtered scores of our men before they too were cut down.  A huge cheer of triumph sounded from our men.

I glanced around at the shield-wall and shuddered.  Another charge like this and it would surely collapse.  Rip growled and pressed himself close to me legs.

A third charge beat upon us and this time fifty horsemen broke through.  Behind me I felt the pressure of bodies slacken as some men died and others broke and fled.

For the first time I had room to draw my sword.  I turned and looked about.  The ground was covered with dead and wounded.  Something caught my eye.  A horse slithered in the blood and mud in front of me.  But then it righted itself and charged towards me.  I’m dead, I thought.  Like Harold.

The horseman levelled his spear at me and I jumped aside.  As I did I spun round and slashed my sword against his leg.  It was a lucky blow.  Because of my height my sword struck beneath his mailed skirt.  I felt the impact of the blade upon his flesh and saw a spurt of blood.  He cried out and in a moment his horse had carried him past me.

I grinned in triumph and turned to see a second horseman charging down upon me.  I froze in terror.

************

‘The Lost King: Resistance’ is the first in a series of books about the life of Edgar Atheling, the last native King of England.  His story was erased from history by the Normans and is now virtually forgotten.  But in his life-time he was the focus of English resistance to the conquerors and their last hope against the Normans.

The first two books, ‘Resistance’ and ‘Wasteland’ are available as ebooks from all outlets.  I am currently writing the third book: ‘The Lost King: Warrior.’

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Talking with Douglas Jackson #histnov

Today’s talk is with Douglas Jackson.

Martin: Thanks for talking with me, Douglas.  Before we focus on your books I’d like to know which authors have had the greatest influence upon you?

Doug: I think Robert Louis Stevenson would be the first. Kidnapped is a wonderful, simple story with captivating characters that takes you on a helter-skelter ride through the grandeur of the Scottish landscape. Alan Breck Stewart is the perfect flawed hero as the Jacobite who’s fallen on hard times and you can tell that Stevenson has visited every location and sketched it with words. I’ve always been drawn to thriller writers: Alistair McLean and Jack Higgins gave me the itch to write, because they have such a straightforward style. And the late, great George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman books taught me more about history than I ever learned at school. The fact that he wrote the first Flashman while he was still working at the Glasgow Herald was an inspiration to me.

 

 

 

 

You mention that when young you spent time restoring a Roman marching camp and the next 36 years dreaming of Romans.  What interests you about the Romans and the era you write about in particular?

It’s true that the first job I had when I left school at 16 was restoring the legionary marching camp at Pennymuir in the Cheviot hills. The Forestry Commission had ploughed it up to plant trees – this was in the 70s when panacea was a land covered from coast to coast in Norway spruce – until someone pointed out they were destroying a scheduled historic monument. We used mattocks and shovels to turn four feet wide slabs of peat turf back into the holes they’d come from.

It could be an eerie place, full of grouse and curlews and adders, but there was a gap in the hills where Dere Street entered the valley and in the quiet of the evening you could imagine the legions marching through it and the impact they had on the local population. I think that’s what draws me to the Romans in particular. Two thousand years ago they laid their stamp on the known world and almost everywhere you go the signs are still there. That said, it’s an exaggeration to say I dreamed of Romans for 36 years. I was brought up to respect the past in a town filled with history and it’s history that fascinates me, not just the Romans.

You were a journalist for many years.  How helpful has that been to your work as a novelist?

Hugely helpful. I spent 36 years in newspapers and twenty of those in high pressure positions on major nationals. Standards were immensely high and we were taught never to waste a word and that has carried on into my fiction writing. I tend to write clean and right and my grammar and spelling tends not to need a lot of editing. Most of that time I’d be working in an open plan office amid mayhem (screaming confrontations, people throwing things, death threats: the normal atmosphere of a daily newspaper) and I learned to focus despite what was happening around me. That made it much easier when I decided that the only way I was ever going to finish a book was by working on the train between Bridge of Allan and Edinburgh. Previously I’d managed 500 words a day. Now I was doing 1200 or 1500 and the maths of producing a book started to add up.

How do you research your novels?

I’d love to say that, like Stevenson or the great western writer Louis L’Amour (“When I write about a spring, that spring is there, and the water is good to drink.”), I’ve visited every place I’ve written about. Unfortunately that’s not the case. I hate the internet. I’m of the firm opinion that it is a black hole that will eventually devour the world. But without the internet I could never have written a book. I have about two dozen bookmark files filled with several hundred web links. I could build a Roman flower mill or make a pair of caliga sandals. I know the range and power of a scorpio, the catapult the Romans called the shield splitter. I have the translated works of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio and Plutarch. I know the rudiments of manufacturing a bomb, the sound of a Kalishnikov and how to fire it. All without leaving my desk.

More importantly, thanks to Google Earth I can travel to the remotest places in the world, check out the terrain, the temperature, look at photographs and then link to blogs to get the first hand experiences of people who’ve been there. That said, there is nothing to beat being there in person. I’ve travelled to Rome, Madrid, Dresden and Berlin on research trips and it’s a lot easier to soak up the atmosphere than trying to evaluate what you see on a computer screen. Oh, and I have books, hundreds upon hundreds of books that cover my study like a sea.

If your most unpleasant character were to give you advice what would it be and would you take it?

Well, my most unpleasant character is probably the Emperor Caligula and his advice would probably be that if anybody stands in your way, get rid of them in the most painful and unpleasant manner you can think of. It’s sometimes tempting, but I don’t think I’d ever act on it.

What would be a typical writing day for you?  Do you have set times, spaces, routines or rituals?

I don’t have any rituals, but I do have set times and routines. I set myself a target of 3,000 words a day and I sit down at my desk around 9am. I don’t get started immediately, because there are generally e-mails to deal with, but I’ll spend three hours at the computer, take a break for lunch, then back for another two or three hours. I don’t always hit the target, but I’ll happily work to 10 or 11 at night, so I do more often than not. I work in a spare bedroom/study that generally looks like a bookshop that’s been hit by a hurricane.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

Persevere. Anyone with an imagination and a working knowledge of English is capable of writing a book. The people who do it are the ones who don’t give up when they hit a seemingly impossible situation, or their characters won’t behave. You can write your way through any problem.

Apart from writing, how do you like to spend your time?

Preferably in the fresh air. I love to go fishing, but less for the thrill of the catch than the simple act of standing in the middle of the river and watching the world go by. I’ve seen otters, kingfishers, ospreys … and a very occasional trout.

What’s been your favourite moment in your writing career?

It has to be the moment in May 2007 when Stan, my agent, called me up at The Scotsman and said: ‘Are you sitting down.’ What was then ‘Whom the Gods Destroy’, (I think) had been out to publishers for about a week and he said that one of them, Transworld, had offered a six-figure advance for the world rights to two books. It changed my life.

Dusk or Dawn? 

Dusk. I take a while to warm up in the morning and I spent half a lifetime doing late shifts.

Moorland or Forest? 

Forest, as long as it’s a hardwood one. I love that feeling of anticipation on a sunny summer’s day as you walk through a pillared cathedral of oaks with a ceiling made of sparkling emeralds, never knowing what’s going to appear next.

Horse, dog or camel?

 Horse. My roots are deep in the wilds of the Border country where mounted raiding was a way of life for centuries and we still celebrate our heritage during the Common Riding season.

What is your next writing project?

My life is just one big writing project. I’m currently working on the final stages of he first draft of Sword of Rome, the fourth Gaius Valerius Verrens adventure, when I finish that it’s straight on to The Excalibur Codex, which is due for delivery in February 2013, then it’s back into the sandals again for Da-de-dah (possibly Torment) of Rome. I’m committed to write five novels in the next three years, so there truly is no rest for the wicked.

Thanks very much for talking with me Doug.

You can find out more about Douglas’ books by clicking on the links below.

On 28 September I’m talking with Simon Toyne.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Avenger-Rome-Gaius-Valerius-Verrens/dp/0593065166

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hero-Rome-Gaius-Valerius-Verrens/dp/0552161330/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Defender-Rome-Gaius-Valerius-Verrens/dp/0552161349/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caligula-Roman-Trilogy-Douglas-Jackson/dp/0552156949

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Claudius-Roman-Trilogy-Douglas-Jackson/dp/0552162493/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doomsday-Testament-James-Douglas/dp/0552164801

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Isis-Covenant-James-Douglas/dp/0552164828

http://www.douglas-jackson.net/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Doug-Jackson-author/245467143762

 

My talks with fellow authors #histnov

I’ve got some fascinating talks with fellow authors in the weeks ahead.

Richard Lee of the Historical Novel Society has kindly agreed to include the schedule in the excellent Historical Fiction Daily.

Here are the next four talks.

Douglas Jackson
14 September


Simon Toyne
28 Sept


N. Gemini Sasson
12 October


Manda Scott
26 October