This weekend I’ll be talking to Caroline Davies, author of CONVOY, a new collection of poems telling the stories of the men who fought to get supplies through to Malta during the Second World War, and of their families back home.
With luck we’ll have a couple of the poems right here on the blog.
Sorry it’s been a little quiet around here lately. I’m currently racing to tidy up a manuscript that’s going to the new editor tomorrow. This basically consists of tweaking things that made sense when I wrote them, and scowling at all the queries flagged up in the margin (to which I still don’t know the answers).
Never mind: there’s still 18 hours for inspiration to strike.
Great to hear that Simon Morden’s Samuil Petrovitch trilogy has won the Philip K Dick award.
As you might guess, it’s science fiction – not something we often run into here at Downie Towers. But I’m enormously grateful to Simon. Over the years I’ve sat on damp sofas, wet grass, and a collapsing camping stool to listen to him speak at the Greenbelt Festival. At the worst venue, everyone stood in several inches of mud. At the best, we were all crammed into an Inflatable Church.
No matter what the surroundings, it was always worth being there. He’s one of those writers who takes time to encourage his fellow-scribes, and he always has something thoughtful to say. Here’s my favourite – the words that encouraged me to think maybe a novice like me could dare to write about Roman Britain:
‘Never mind write what you know. Write what you love.’
Alison Flood wrote a delightful piece in the Guardian Books Blog the other day, quoting some of the complaints added to manuscripts by medieval scribes. now gathered together for our entertainment on Brain Pickings.
It put me in mind of the student copy of ’Gawain and the Green Knight’ which surfaced at Downie Towers the other day. Flipping through it to see how much I would still understand (not much), I found that the margins had been defaced by some terrifying intellectual with handwriting remarkably like my own. There was one point, though, where the intellectual seemed to have cracked.
I remember the exact moment when this particular note was written. We were reading the passage where Gawain was suffering terribly from the cold of winter, and our Middle English professor paused to explain that our medieval ancestors would have longed for Spring with especial fervour, since they had no central heating.
Now, most of the class hardly needed to be told this. We lived in student flats. We spent our winter evenings huddled round electric bar fires in rooms where damp ran down the walls and mice ran across the lino. The poem aroused our heartfelt sympathy for its shivering hero. This is my only excuse for the plaintive and ungrammatical sentence inked into the margin:
Me and Gawain are going to club together and buy a gas fire.
Today I’m delighted to welcome Jane Finnis to the blog. Jane is the author of the Aurelia Marcella mysteries set in Roman Yorkshire.
I’m always interested in the way other writers approach their work, and the first thing I wanted to ask Jane was about her choice of lead character.
Me: I once heard a writer say he wouldn’t have a woman as a lead investigator in a historical novel because it would be too restrictive – ‘men got out more’.
Is there anything you’d like to say to him?
Jane: He’s missing a trick, in my view. Of course he’s right that men had “got out more” in most past eras…in theory. Certainly under ancient Roman law, males had all the political and most of the economic power…but I repeat, that’s in theory. It wasn’t always so in practice, because then as now, you can’t keep smart women down. And that’s precisely why I decided to have a woman sleuth in Roman Britain, and show how she could work the system and be much more independent than her legal status would suggest. My Aurelia is an independent-minded innkeeper. Her brother is the legal owner of the inn, but he leaves it to her to run, because they both know she is the brains behind it.
Me: Aurelia’s inn is in Yorkshire – while this is God’s own county, does she have any plans to travel?
Jane: Her next adventure will be set in and around London; she’s going there for a wedding, which promises to be a happy, trouble-free occasion. But…
Me: What’s surprised you most in your research into Roman Britain?
Jane: How similar many details of Roman life were to our own. Like their custom of holding birthday parties and inviting all their friends. Like the way rich men flaunted their wealth so blatantly they made themselves ridiculous. Like the politicians’ habit of feathering their own nests.
Me: My copy of ‘Danger in the Wind’ is on order. Tell me what I’ve got to look forward to!
Jane: A cracking good read, of course…sorry, that isn’t what you mean, is it? Well then: Aurelia is invited to a birthday party by her cousin Jovina, who lives at a quiet, rather dull fort north of York. Jovina’s invitation includes a warning of danger in the wind, and the day it reaches Aurelia, a soldier is murdered at her inn, carrying a coded message indicating some impending threat will disturb the fort’s peace. Aurelia goes to the party with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The trepidation is well founded; the excitement turns to nightmare.Jane: I start with a setting, a basic idea for a murder or several, and whodunit. Those don’t change. Then I try to work out the plot in more detail, and I write a lovely synopsis, but I’m incapable of sticking to it in practice. I must be free to include ideas that come to me as I’m writing, adding twists of plot or following up a character’s reaction. This keeps things fresh for me. I’d be bored if I had to stick to a prearranged plan, and if a writer is bored, then the gods help the poor reader!
Me: You had a career as a radio presenter before becoming a novelist. Do you think that experience has influenced the way you write, and if so, how?
Jane: It’s helped me to write first-person narration, and dialogue. I hear words in my head as I pound the keyboard, as I did when preparing radio scripts, and alarm bells usually ring if something doesn’t “sound right”.
Me: Any top tips for mystery writers?
Jane: Never get hung up on “rules” for any sort of writing. There’s some wonderful advice around for mystery authors; use it if it helps, and some of it will. But even the tips that come presented as “Ten Rules for…” or “Ten ways to…” are only guidelines, not rigid laws. Write how you want to write.
Me: Finally – What question do you wish interviewers would ask you but they never do? And what’s the answer?
Jane: I’ve always wanted someone to ask me what dishes I’d serve at a Roman banquet. I’m assuming money was no object, and I could prepare a wonderful variety of foods and wines from all over the Empire, with plenty of time to savour them; Roman feasts could go on all night, with cabaret acts between courses. (I’m sure everyone knows by now the untruth of the myth that guests deliberately made themselves sick during banquets in order to eat more.) There isn’t room for a full menu here, but any banquet I gave would have to feature these three dishes: seafood rissoles (could be lobster, squid, cuttlefish,) with cumin sauce which included other spices plus honey and vinegar; roast duck with hazelnuts (the nuts were combined with herbs and spices into a kind of crunchy coating;) and finally patina of pears, a puree with an interesting sweet-sour flavour involving honey and sweet wine, pepper and the famous (or notorious) Roman fish sauce. Hmmm…I’m feeling hungry already.
DANGER IN THE WIND is now available in America and is published in the UK this month.
Other books in the series, SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT (formerly GET OUT OR DIE,) A BITTER CHILL, and BURIED TOO DEEP, are being re-issued, so now is a good time to catch up.
Find out more at Jane’s website and blog - www.janefinnis.com, http://janefinnisblog.wordpress.com
Those were the words used by Paul Theroux to describe the writing of fiction in, er – was it ‘My Secret History’? Wherever it comes from, it’s a phrase that’s both true and reassuring.
More cheering advice from Geoff Dyer on the Guardian’s ‘how to write fiction‘ thread yesterday:
“…you don’t have to know what kind of book you are writing until you have written a good deal of it, maybe not until you’ve finished it – maybe not even then.”
Some of us have never quite got to grips with Twitter, but if you have, here’s a chance to write alongside some top authors:
Launching on 14 September 2011 for 5 consecutive weeks, Simon Brett, Neil Gaiman, Joanne Harris, Ian Rankin and Sarah Waters will lead a short story tweetathon in which authors and tweeters will collaborate to write a short story in 670 characters.
This is the brainchild of the Society of Authors, and it’s part of their campaign to mark (and if possible, reverse) the decline in broadcast time the BBC are giving to short stories. You can find out more here. Meanwhile I’m off to my very underused Twitter account, to see if I can work out how to spread the word.
Lots of good things happening in Lichfield in the first week of October. The lineup for this year’s literature festival is here and includes Adam Hart-Davis, Sophie Hannah, Douglas Hurd, Val McDermid, Eleanor Bron, Lionel Blue, and Colin Dexter. There is also, in the lower right-hand corner of the webpage, a writer of mysteries set in Roman Britain. I’m looking forward to visiting Lichfield Library on the afternoon of Saturday 8th October to talk about writing historical fiction.
I’m also hoping to slip into a talk earlier in the day about the language of the much-loved King James Bible. In preparation I’ve been enjoying a delightful diversion from the many things on today’s ‘urgent’ list - an online ’Shakespeare or Bible’ quiz. Since procrastination loves company, here‘s the link.
No blogs for a fortnight, then two in two days – but this one’s just a quick reminder.
All over the country, re-enactors are brushing their uniforms, polishing their armour and praying for fine weather for the English Heritage Festival of History on 16/17 July. Here’s a link to the on-site Festival of Historical Literature , where a great selection of well-known historical writers and their books will be safely under the cover of a marquee.
The whole thing’s happening at Kelmarsh Hall, which is between Northampton and Market Harborough. I’m told there can be queues for the car park, so if you have a specific event in mind, it’s best to turn up early.
Meanwhile there’s a rather fine introductory video that springs into life when you click on the English Heritage Festival web page. Well it does on my computer, anyway.
Sarah:
Ruth, thanks so much for inviting me to share my thoughts on the Borgias and other mysteries of the novelist’s world with you and your readers. It’s some years now since our first encounter and a lot of bodies have flowed under a lot of bridges since then.
Me: You did a creative writing MA, which I’m guessing involves opening your work up for feedback. Are you naturally someone who likes to discuss what they’re working on, trying out passages on friends and bouncing ideas off people, or do you find putting together a novel is a very private affair?I found the MA an amazing experience. I had wonderful tutors, including the then Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and Michele Roberts, and masterclasses with Melvyn Bragg and Nell Dunn, among others. I also met some very talented writers and made my best writing buddy, with whom I go away most years to write a lot and drink not a little! That said, it was also very tough and, when my turn came round to be workshopped, I was usually terrified! Although I was part of several lively and creative writing groups when I started out, and am still nominally part of a group called Writers Without Walls which arose out of my time at UEA, I find I’m less inclined now to share work in progress than I used to be. I think this is because, the more you go on, the more self-critical you become so you dread anyone seeing anything unfinished except your agent or editor with whom you share the sanctity of the ‘confessional’. The one exception I would make is that I love discussing plot mechanics with people, my own and theirs. I find I can usually see how other writers can resolve difficulties with plot and vice versa. As a writer, you sometimes can’t see the wood for the trees in that respect and a fresh perspective is welcome.
How do you feel when your novel goes public?
By that stage, I feel the book has ceased to be mine. Once cover designers, blurb writers and marketing people get in on the act, they transform your baby into a commodity for sale and, for me, that’s the best way to think about it, with a good dose of self-preserving detachment. I am, of course, also very proud. Only this morning, a friend who’s currently on holiday in New York posted on my Facebook wall to say she’d seen SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA on display in Barnes and Noble and I got very excited about that as I haven’t been published in the States before.
Do you read reviews? If so, do you ever feel tempted to respond to them?This is quite a topical question as I write, as there has been a lot of chatter on social networking sites surrounding an author I shan’t name who has seen fit to come back at a critical review with all guns blazing. This hasn’t made her popular but may, I suppose, sell more books. It wouldn’t be my way. I do read reviews, particularly those done by reviewers whose opinions I respect because I feel their criticism will help me to improve my craft. I do try to respond to good reviews that appear in blogs because blogs are more like a conversation than a magazine review, whether online or print, and I like to thank people for the kind things they say and the effort they’re making on my behalf.
What do you hope readers will especially enjoy about SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA?I hope different readers will find different things in it. It’s a love story, but not a conventional one – as you can imagine, given how the Borgias led you into mixing up your Christmas and Halloween lanterns! It’s also very much a book about motherhood, which determines the lives of its central characters in quite forceful ways. I have included a certain amount of lurid Borgia mythology, especially the famous Chestnut Orgy, which really set a new standard for parties, I feel. Most of the novel, however, is set after Lucrezia Borgia’s third marriage, to Alfonso d’Este, when she put the scandals of her early life in Rome behind her. When thinking about how I wanted to approach the Borgias, I felt very strongly that a lot of other writers had covered that ground and done it so well I didn’t want to try to compete but find a different way into the story.
Readers who know you in the UK will have met the book under its British title, THE BOOK OF LOVE. What’s the thinking behind the change of title and cover for US readers, and is it exactly the same text inside, or did the American publisher suggest changes?
As Ian McEwan is reputed to have said when asked how he liked the movie version of Enduring Love, ‘I took the cheque. That’s all I have to say.’ Being a short story writer also, I know the value of titles when they contribute something to the understanding of a text of which they form a significant proportion. A novel title, however, is to my mind more of a marketing tool. It helps to categorise the work and give readers some idea what they’re getting. The title had already been changed by my German publisher to DAS SIEGEL DER BORGIA. So, while I wouldn’t have chosen the title myself, I’m prepared to admit that Sourcebooks’ very sharp and energetic publicity people know their market better than I do. There was also, I gather, some confusion with a novel already in circulation in the States called The Book of Love. I did wonder if readers might be disappointed when they looked between the luscious and lascivious covers and failed to find an orgy on every page, but so far I’ve been delighted by the response.
The text is almost exactly the same. The only editing I was asked to do was around certain grammatical usages and again, that was more to do with American convention than the sense of my original constructions. And the spelling has been changed, of course. I wasn’t asked to undertake any substantial edits, which was a relief.
The US publication coincides with the television series THE BORGIAS. Was that good luck, or good timing on the part of the publisher? Any views you’d like to share on screen representations of the Borgias?The coincidence with the new Fantasy TV series is mostly luck. I’ve had nothing to do with the making of that and it isn’t based on my novel. However, Sourcebooks had bought both my novels and quickly switched their publishing schedule when they heard about the TV show. They had planned to publish THE NEEDLE IN THE BLOOD this year and SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA in 2012 but now it’s going to be the other way round.
I’m looking forward hugely to seeing the TV show when it comes to the UK in July, though I’m also slightly apprehensive because I, too, remember the serial the BBC did in the 80s which has, justifiably, become a benchmark for everything you don’t do in period drama. It was impossible to take seriously and I feel the Borgias themselves, who all had great senses of humour, would have been rolling around in their graves clutching their sides with mirth. The trailers I’ve seen for the new one look much, much better. Apart from the gorgeous sets and costumes, and Jeremy Irons reprising his sinister inquisitor from the late, great Heath Ledger’s Casanova, the makers seem to have really captured the soap opera aspects of the Borgias’ lives. I remember when Gianni Versace died, watching Donatella in her very public grief and thinking, these two are just like a latterday Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. When you read about Borgia parties, it’s not difficult to bring to mind, for example, the Beckham wedding – or an afternoon by the pool with Charlie Sheen. This is a huge part of the Borgias’ attraction for modern audiences and I’m looking forward to seeing it played to the hilt.
What’s one thing you’ve learned that you’d like to pass on to aspiring novelists?Persevere, and never get complacent. If you ever think anything you write is good enough, then it won’t be. Writing a novel is very hard work and, as Michele Roberts famously said, only to be undertaken if everything else fails.
What’s the question you wish somebody would ask but nobody ever does?Are the film rights available?
What’s the answer?Yes!!
That seems a good place to finish! Thank you, Sarah. SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA is available from all good bookshops in the USA and as THE BOOK OF LOVE in the UK. Sarah is one of the authors featured on the British Babes Book Brigade page on Facebook.You are currently browsing the archives for the Writing category.
