Thank you to everyone who took time to read the Blog Hop post, and especially to people who joined in and kept me entertained with some great comments and questions.
Congratulations to Russ, whose name was first out of the ‘hat’ to win a copy of the Ruso book of his choice. Russ, my email may be stuck in your spam filter, so please get in touch.
And now, a change of pace. First, a big thank-you to Caroline Davies, who tagged me for “My next big thing” longer ago than I care to admit. It’s a set of questions that one writer passes to another, giving each of us a chance to blather (sorry, tell the world) about our own current project.
Caroline is a poet. Now I have to confess that collections of poetry are rarely my thing. They tend to remind me of my efforts at wholemeal pastry - very good for you, but heavy going. Not so with Caroline’s soon-to-be published collection, CONVOY. The clue is in the title – it’s the story of one of the Allied convoys that battled across the Mediterranean to take supplies to Malta during the Second World War. I read a draft a while back and loved it. It’s vivid and exciting and humbling, and all the more impressive for being a true story. So that’s Caroline’s Next Big Thing. Here’s mine -
It’s called SEMPER FIDELIS. Thanks to my astounding ignorance, I had no idea when I chose it that this is the motto of the US Marines. I hope they aren’t going to pay me a visit and complain.
It’s the fifth in a series featuring a Roman Army medic serving in Britain. We usually see the Roman Army as full of tough highly-trained killers, but every one of them was somebody’s son. I’m at the age where my friends’ cute little babies are donning uniforms, getting tattoos and being sent to countries where other people want to shoot them. Those of us who wait at home for news trust that their commanding officers will do their best to look after them, and it occurred to me that it must have been the same for Roman families waving their sons goodbye as they went off to join the Legions. But what if some of those officers didn’t have their men’s best interests at heart? Would mistreatment be dealt with, or would it be hushed up?
The series is now at the point in history where Hadrian visited Britain, and my characters are under serious pressure to put on a good show.
Historical crime.
Someone who knows what they’re doing had better do the casting. Meanwhile I’ll be auditioning George Clooney and Daniel Craig over a long lunch.
Roman legionary medic is under pressure from his comrades to cover up a scandal, and from his wife to expose it.
It’ll be published by Bloomsbury in the USA and Canada in January 2013. The UK shouldn’t be far behind.
There are quite a few Roman crime series being published now, but as far as I know, the trend was started by Lindsey Davis and Steven Saylor.
I’m fascinated by the interplay between the occupier and the occupied in Roman Britain, and the fact that so much evidence still lies buried under our feet. I wanted to write the sort of personal stories that have slipped down the gaps of history.
Hadrian’s marriage was not made in heaven, and at about the time of the British trip, the Empress Sabina was involved in a mysterious disgrace. Only the flimsiest of details have survived in the records – but of course all is revealed in the book.
And now I’m going to tag the Mysterymakers, three writers from the north of England “who love to talk about murder”. First up is a fellow-writer of Roman mysteries who will be familiar to regular readers of the blog – Jane Finnis. Look out for Jane’s Next Big Thing in the next few days, and through her we’ll get to meet the other Mysterymakers. After that – who knows?
One of the challenges of writing a crime novel is to slip in enough clues to keep the reader - and the sleuth - guessing, while not giving away so much that there are no surprises at the end. I never really know whether I’ve got the balance right until someone else reads it. Husband, having suffered endless “what-if” conversations during the writing process, already knows Who Dun It, so the someone is usually the agent. My agent is a perceptive reader who doesn’t miss much, so on the occasion when she reached the bottom of the final page and STILL wasn’t entirely sure who the murderer was… I knew I’d erred too far on the side of caution.
At least I usually know where the clues are. Or rather, I thought I did. I’ve recently had an interesting exchange of emails with the Czech translator, Viktor Janis, who’s working on the first book. Amongst the sort of questions translators ask, which are usually technical stuff about the Romans, there was one about language. There’s a point where Priscus, the hospital administrator, refers to someone whose job title, in English, is a generic term. The character could be male or female. Not so in Czech. There isn’t a word that’s suitably vague, and as Viktor pointed out, to come down on one side or the other would give away more than either Ruso or the reader needs to know at that point.
We agreed a way round it, but it occurred to me that a translator who wasn’t as sharp might not have spotted the significance of the exchange. I’m grateful to Viktor for plucking out a totally unintentional and mistimed clue.
Here’s where to find the Czech edition of Ruso and Tilla’s first adventure, which will be published very soon.
I’ve been trying to think of something clever and entertaining to say about the Greenbelt Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse, but it was just… too big. Too exhuberant. Too thought-provoking, and too gloriously diverse to pull together in a few words. (Which is a poor show for someone who calls herself a writer, I know.) At times it was also too wet and too cold, but the wellies came out, the banners fluttered bravely over the tents up on the camping fields, and the atmosphere was as warm as ever.
Thank you to everyone who came to the events I was involved in. You made both sessions a pleasure and besides, it would have been very lonely without you. Especial thanks to the kind folk who chipped in with plenty of intelligent comments and questions at the end, thus saving us all from a potentially embarrassing silence. In fact halfway through the ‘Lure of Crime Fiction’ talk it was looking as though it would also be a very long silence.
Something strange happens to time when you stand up in front of people who are expecting you to say something sensible. Despite several rehearsals, the plentiful material I’d prepared shot past at fearful speed while my watch (carefully set out on the lectern so I didn’t have to consult my wrist, as if even I was wishing I was somewhere else) seemed to have stopped. Then, strangely, I slowed down and the watch went faster.
Goodness knows what the patient listeners were actually receiving on the other side of this time-warp, but as far as I could discern, nobody fell asleep despite it being the end of a very long weekend. For that, and for much else, I am enormously grateful.
Huge thanks to Hasan Niyazi over at the Three Pipe Problem, who’s created this lovely graphic showing the different book titles:
Thanks also to Juliette Harrison, who’s just posted my recent chat with Hasan over at her PopClassics blog. If you haven’t seen either of these before, Juliette’s is a lively review of the use of classics in popular culture, and Hasan’s is simply the most beautiful blog I’ve ever seen. Now is a good time to visit them both!
I’ve always been impressed - overawed, indeed - by writers who can talk. Margaret Atwood. Ian Rankin. The sort of person they invite onto Radio Four. Numerous other authors with whom I’ve shared panels. Good grief, if they can all talk that well, why do they go to the bother of sitting down and typing things?
I, on the other hand, find it is sometimes possible to speak fluently and sometimes possible to make sense, but not both at the same time. My writing is driven less by a burning urge to create, than by a burning urge to go back over the conversations I messed up in real life and re-write them the way I wish they’d gone. So heaven knows what Ian Williams of the Catskill Review of Books actually recorded earlier this week for WJFF radio. I haven’t dared to listen.
Nevertheless, it was a real pleasure to talk with a man who, despite being descended from the rebellious Welsh, really does know his Romans. The title above is his, stolen from his blog.
How to judge a book? By its cover? By what other people say? By the first few paragraphs?
There are those who advocate a different approach - reading Page 69. Or indeed, asking the author to read and comment on it themselves.
I’ve just been asked for some thoughts on Caveat Emptor - slightly alarming when it turned out that, being the start of a chapter, the page in question only offered 19 lines to work with. But it seemed a shame to cheat, and in the end I enjoyed playing the game. The results - along with those of a host of other writers - can be found over at The Page 69 Test.
Ever wondered what authors talk about when they get together?
Wonder no more. Nip across to Vicki Leon’s blog and eavesdrop on the virtual support group where Steven Saylor, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Adrienne Mayor, Caroline Lawrence, Gary Corby and I will be sharing our most embarrassing bookselling moments.
Having read the first instalment, I feel better already.
Hats off to the excellent Rogue Classicist, who’s delved a little deeper than most into the press reports of possible infanticide at a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire.
The large collection of babies’ skeletons has been known about for years, but what its existence ‘proves’ remains a matter of debate - which of course makes it all the more fascinating. BBC 2 will be running programmes on the finds in July and August, although this article doesn’t say when. If anybody knows, please share the dates with the rest of us!
It’ll be interesting to see what the latest examinations of the skeletons reveal. Can’t help hoping we’ll just be presented with more questions…
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