HILARY'S BLOG.
WEBSITES AND BLOGS YOU MAY FIND INTERESTING:
http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com
http://wordpress.mcscott.co.uk
Juky 11th.
I've done it! THE LAST HERO is now available to buy from Amazon for reading on a Kindle, Kindle Fire, or on your iPad. I hope it will give you as much pleasure to read as it has given me in the writing.
July 9th
DOMESTIC GODDESS OR CREATIVE GENIUS?
Was anyone listening to the first item in Women's Hour this morning (Tuesday July 9)? I happened to catch while making soup. It was a discussion about 'angry women' based around a novel called 'The Woman Upstairs' in which the protagonist declares that she has always been a 'good' girl obedient, good student, good mother, good daughter but she is seething inside because this has been at the expense of developing her own creativity. This brought to my mind a dilemma I frequently face myself. I once shocked Louis de Bernière by remarking that I couldn't settling to writing until I had hoovered the bedroom carpet (this being shorthand for all the various domestic chores that require time). From his reaction, and that of other women in the group, you would think I had said I could not settle to write until I had drunk the fresh blood of an innocent child!
I once read an interview with a well-known comedienne and writer who maintained that she would never stoop to cleaning a floor or ironing a shirt, the implication being that such activities would demean her creative genius. I have read of women writers who shut themselves in their office, or the garden shed, at 9 a.m. with a notice on the door warning that anyone who disturbs them does so at their peril. How do they do this?
The question that comes to my mind is, if not me, then who? Do these other
women simply allow the chaos to build up until they and all around them are
wading through the detritus up to their knees? Or do they assume that someone
else, someone less 'creative', will clear up after them? Of course, there is
always the option of paying someone to do the work, and there are plenty of
people out there who will be glad of the job. It is an option I have considered,
but then I think of all the other things the money could pay for my weekly
riding lesson, visits to the theatre, the occasional meal out and I decide
to carry one doing it myself. That is my choice, and others will choose differently.
What I object to is the hubris that implies that if you are 'creative' that
places you in a category above domestic chores, and that those who undertake
them belong to a lower order of being.
Any comments?
June 28th
This month has been devoted almost entirely to preparing for a new venture. I am going to publish a novel independently, as an e-book. It has presented a steep learning curve, partly because fellow writers tell me that marketing is as important as writing the book and social media are the channels to use. So, as some of you already know, I am now on Facebook and also trying to make sense of Goodreads and find sites which might let me do a guest blog. I have also had to find someone to design the cover. The difference in the prices I have been given is incredible, but I have now found someone whose charges are reasonable and who has produced what I think will be a very effective cover. All this has been taken care of by my publishers previously. Actually uploading the book seems to be the easiest bit I hope!
Let me tell you about the book. It has a long history, which will explain why I have decided to go it alone.
It is called THE LAST HERO and is set in Bronze Age Greece, around 1200 b.c. Many years ago I read THE KING MUST DIE by Mary Renault and was immediately fascinated by her idea that the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur might have had a foundation in fact. This led me along two complimentary research paths. One took me to Robert Graves's two volumes of interpretations of the whole cannon of Greek mythology, where he suggests that all the stories are based on misunderstandings of ancient religious rituals. The other led me to the facts uncovered by archaeological digs at Troy and Mycenae and other Greek sites of that period. I knew, sort of, that these digs had proved that the story of the Trojan War probably had some foundation in fact but my researches revealed an amazing civilisation, centred on Mycenae, the city of Agamemnon, but extending all through Greece. It was so rich that its rulers were buried with masks of beaten gold on their faces and so powerful that its cities and palaces were surrounded by massive walls. Yet two generations after the victory at Troy those cities began to be destroyed. Pylos, on the west coast, the city of King Nestor of Iliad fame, was the first to go and soon after, the archaeologist's digs revealed, Mycenae underwent extensive rebuilding to improve the defences. Yet within a hundred years it, too, had been razed to the ground. All that remained visible was the Lion Gate which had led into the city and for two thousand years Mycenae and all those who lived in it were consigned to the realm of myth. How did this happen?
My research into this question eventually inspired a long novel, the first I ever wrote. I was lucky enough to be given an introduction to an agent, who loved the book. For more than a year he touted round every publisher in London, but always with the same result. 'We love it. It's very well written. But we can't see a market for it at the moment.' Disillusioned, I put it aside and got on with my life. Years passed. I had three slight thrillers published, which sank with scarcely a ripple. More time passed and I almost gave up writing. Then one day I read a small item in the Writers' News. The Historical Novel Society was offering a prize for a short story. The title was to be 'The Conquerors' and the prize was two weeks on the Greek island of Kythira on a writing course, and the tutors would be Helen Carey, the author of the Lavender Hill quartet, which some of you may have read, and Louis de Berniere, then at the height of his fame after 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' . I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to win, but I couldn't think of a story. The deadline was Jan. 1st and about a week before Christmas I forced myself to sit down and think. The Greek venue gave me the clue and I remembered my old interest in the myths, so I wrote a story which retells the myth of Odysseus and Circe, using Renault's technique of interpreting it as a real event. I got it in the post just in time for the deadline and sat back to wait. Months later, when I had given up hope, I got a letter to say I had won!
Since the Greek idea had been a success, I got my novel out and started a rewrite. I took it with me to Kythira and Louis fell in love with it and encouraged me to finish it. It is, he maintains, as good as anything by Mary Renault. I finished the rewrite and began the soul destroying business of sending it round to agents. Eventually, it as taken by Vivien Green of the Sheil Land agency, who remains my agent to this day. History couldn't repeat it itself, could it? It could! The MS did the rounds, with the same results as before 'love the book, but can't see a market'. I put it away in the cupboard again.
Eventually, as you know, I found success with WE'LL MEET AGAIN, which led on to the FOLLIES quartet and then the Leonora stories. I had almost forgotten THE LAST HERO, until Richard Lee the chairman of the Historical Novel Society remembered it and suggested the possibility of e-publishing. So that is what I am going to do, and I hope and pray that all you folks out there will prove the publishers wrong and show that there is a readership for it. Please don't be put off by the distant era. It may be far away in time, but I think you will find the book has all the qualities you love about the others. It is still Love and War, after all. And I think you will find the heroes, Alkmaion and Alectryon, as real and sympathetic as Merry and Felix, or Tom and Ralph.
The book will appear on Kindle initially and then, I hope, in other digital formats. I apologise to those of you who still love the feel of a 'real' book and don't read digitally; but I do plan to have a short run printed for anyone who wants one. Perhaps if you could let me know if you would be one of those it would help me to know how many to print.
So what else have I been doing? Well, there is always the garden. The azaleas are over, but now the roses are coming into bloom and the herbaceous borders are beginning to look good. If only we could have some warm weather! I've read Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life' if you want to read my review go to my blog on the website. I am currently in the middle of 'The Emperor's Spy Rome 1' by M.C.Scott. Manda Scott is one of my favourite writers. Her Boudicaa quartet had me in an iron grip from start to finish.
June 18th
I have been watching, like many of you I'm sure, the adaptation of Philppa Gregory's 'The White Queen' on the BBC and have been irritated by inaccuracies in the production. For example, that type of side saddle was not invented until a century later, and no respectable woman would have gone out with her hair uncovered. There has been a lively exchange between writers of historical fiction, with most of them dismissing the series as romantic rubbish. But I don't think that is good enough. Some people seem to be suggesting that as it is not 'proper' historical drama but just 'historical romance' it does not matter if there are inaccuracies. This spurious distinction between historical fiction and historical romance makes my blood boil! I once asked a panel of speakers at the Historical Novel Society's conference what they thought the difference was and received two condescending responses. 'I imagine the characters spend a lot of time in bed' was one; and 'I assume it is not very well researched' was another. My publishers have chosen to shoehorn my books into the historical romance pigeon hole, for reasons best known to themselves, but those two comments do not apply to the stories I write. OK, so some of the characters fall in love - that's life, in it? But the books are about so much more than that - mainly about how war affects people and changes their lives. They are all based on extensive research and as close to the true history of the period as I can make them. My point is this. Calling something historical romance should not be an excuse for lack of research or, in the case of the Beeb, sloppy production values. Gregory's book may be closer to fantasy than historical fact, but most people watching that series will expect the setting to be more or less accurate. I think it is condescending of the producers to assume that we can't spot the mistakes.
June 12th
'LIFE AFTER LIFE' BY KATE ATKINSON
I have been a fan of Atkinson's writing for many years, both of the more 'literary' books like 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and of her excursions into crime fiction with Case Histories . I like her way with words and the dry, ironic humour. But I have to say I was disappointed in this book.
As with 'Human Croquet', she has experimented with the idea of time. It is a theme which has fascinated many writers. The idea that it might be possible to turn back time to a crucial moment and alter the course of events is one which JB Priestley played with in 'Dangerous Corner' and 'Time and the Conways' and Martin Amis reversed it completely in 'Time's Arrow'. Robert Frost touched on the idea of a casual decision that alters the course of a life in 'The Road Not Taken'. But Atkinson has gone much further. Since the days of Albert Einstein, the idea that time is not a current flowing ever onwards has interested physicists and philosophers and there is a theory that there may be parallel universes in which the same event may occur simultaneously with different outcomes. It is this concept that informs 'Life After Life'.
The protagonist, Ursula, experiences repeated reincarnations but they are simultaneous, not sequential. Each one ends with her death, by various means, but then time turns back, she chooses a different path, and her life continues. Beginning with a chapter in which she dies at birth she experiences death by drowning as a child; falls from a window; catches the deadly flu that killed so many after World War l; is raped, suffers an abortion, a miserable marriage and death at the hands of her brutal husband; avoids rape and goes on to become a senior civil servant with a lover in high circles. During the Second War she might be killed in a bombing raid, or be one of the rescuers; or she might have become a German citizen and a friend of Hitler's mistress Eva Braun. In each incarnation she retains some sense of the previous life, a feeling of deja vue or a premonition of impending doom; and this leads her in one episode to organise her life deliberately in order to become one of Hitler's circle, so that she can shoot him before he starts the war.
We all know how it feels to look back at a moment in our lives and wish we could recall an angry word or change a decision. Sometimes it is amusing to speculate about how different our lives might have been. But we know it is not possible. We choose our path and have to follow where it leads us. We expect the same to apply to our fictional heroes and heroines. It is seeing how they cope with the exigencies and traumas that their choice throws up that intrigues and excites us. If every time something goes wrong for them they can simply turn back the clock and put it right, the story loses all dramatic tension. I am afraid this was what happened for me with this novel. Each time I turned a page and found Ursula's life beginning again I mentally sighed 'Oh, here we go again!' And as the variety of outcomes became a virtual blizzard towards the end of the book that changed to 'Who cares, anyway?'
My verdict? An interesting experiment, but in the final analysis not a successful one.
June 3rd
Just back from two weeks in North Cyprus the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus to the current residents, or the 'Occupied Zone' to the Greeks in the
south. We first went there in 1990 and I was saddened to see how rampant development
has spoiled it. On our first visit we were enchanted by the sense of stepping
back in time. It felt like the Fifties, before the explosion of tourism ruined
so many places. Kyrenia, (Girne now) was a delightful little town clustered
round its harbour under the shelter of a massive castle in honey coloured stone.
The hills were dotted with quaint villages that looked as if nothing had changed
for generations. Of course, there had been massive changes. Houses once occupied
by Greeks had been taken over by the Turks; but that had not changed the physical
environment. The road that runs along the ridge of the saw-tooth range of mountains
that seals off the coastal strip from the interior was just a rutted track,
negotiable in a car, just, if you held your breath and didn't look down. For
those brave enough to try it it led to a crusader castle, Buffavento, perched
on top of an incredibly high peak; or to the little church of Antiphonitis,
forgotten and deserted in its valley, but with its interior walls still decorated
with ancient Byzantine frescoes.
Now, the countryside is covered with holiday villa developments, many unfinished,
the half-built houses grey concrete skeletons. The coast is lined with hotels
and bars. There are supermarkets were there were only village shops. And the
ridge road has been asphalted and you have to pay to get into the ancient sites.
But it is still a land redolent of history and that was the inspiration that
drew me back there. For a historical novelist it was fertile ground. When I
started researching I found I was spoilt for choice. Should I write about the
ancient civilisation where people worshipped the Great Goddess, who we now call
Aphrodite? Or about the Roman era when St Paul came to the island to preach
Christianity? Or about the Third Crusade when Richard the Lionheart was shipwrecked
on its shores and decided to make it the venue for his long delayed marriage
to Berengaria, whom he then abandoned to await his return from Jerusalem. In
the end I decided to focus on the events of the second half of the 20th century,
from the EOKA terrorist rising of the fifties, when Cyprus was still under British
control, through to the Turkish invasion (sorry, 'peace operation') of 1974
and its aftermath. The result is a story of two interlinked love affairs a generation
apart but I hope it is more than that. It is a tribute to the island's history.
It is also a reflection on the perennial conflict between patriarchy and matriarchy
and the eternal cycle of birth, procreation, death and regeneration through
blood sacrifice, which has always been the province of the Great Goddess. Entitled
APHRODITE'S ISLAND it will be published by Hale early next year.
May 14th 2013
I've made a momentous decision. I am going into the business of self-publishing some of my work as e-books. First up will be a story I have been cherishing for many years. Inspired by the novels of Mary Renault I began researching the history and mythology of Bronze Age Greece. We know, now, that many of the legends, such as the conquest of Troy, had a basis in fact and that cities like Mycenae actually existed. Their ruins have been excavated and tell a fascinating story. Two generations after their triumph at Troy the great cities were attacked and burned to the ground and the wonderfully rich Mycenean civilization was consigned to the realm of mythology. How did this happen? The clues are to be found in clay tablets recovered from the ruins of Pylos, the city of legendary King Nestor. To learn the answer, you will have to wait for the publication of THE LAST HERO - coming soon, so WATCH THIS SPACE!
Meanwhile, I have been reading PILLARS OF THE EARTH by Ken Follett. Here is my review.
This book is a massive undertaking, commensurate with its subject matter, the building of a medieval cathedral. The sheer size of it is a bit daunting, but once I started reading I was gripped and very happy to absorb myself in the story.
Follett has the true story-teller's knack of building his episodes into a cliff-hanger so that you keep reading to find out how he is going to resolve yet another crisis. He also creates vivid characters whose lives and adventures draw you in. His heroes and heroines have warmth and humanity and his villains are people you love to hate. It is a truism of all good fiction that the central protagonists must suffer and strive to overcome obstacles and Follett is ingenious in creating new dangers and problems for them; and he does not pull his punches when it comes to describing some of the horrors they have to suffer. But he also creates a world in which honesty and kindness are more powerful than deceit and self-interest. It is a tribute to his ability to grip the reader that our interest even survives the sudden death of one of the main characters in the middle of the book.
There is no doubt about the extent of his research into the period and his subject matter. The book is full of fascinating insights into life in eleventh century England. He is very good on the politics and in-fighting between the church and the state at that period and weaves his story neatly into the known historical events. My one criticism is that he is too keen to let us see how much he knows. I began to think after a chapter or two that I had learned all I really wanted to know about cathedral architecture and building techniques of the period; but at the same time this serves to underline the obsession of his two main characters, Tom Builder and his step-son Jack, with their craft. He also has an annoying habit of letting his characters summarise what has been happening to them, as if he is afraid that we, the readers, will have lost the plot. But these are minor quibbles with a richly rewarding read.
April 14th 2013
I have just completed a new project, a complete change from all my previous novels. GOD'S WARRIOR is set in the First Crusade and tells the story of Ranulph, an Englishman born in the year of the Norman Conquest, who joins Bohemond of Taranto when he sets out for the Holy War proclaimed by Pope Urban. It has involved me in a great deal of fascinating research and makes a thrilling story. It has yet to find a publisher, but I live in hope!
I have been reading THE WHITE QUEEN by Philippa Gregory. here's is my review:
The White Queen is the first book in Gregory's trilogy about the Wars of the Roses. Elizabeth Woodville is already a widow with two young sons as the story opens. Her family has always supported the Lancastrian side and her husband was killed fighting for them; but when she sees the new King Edward of York riding past she falls instantly in love with him, and he with her.
This was the first event that made me feel that there was an element of unreality to Gregory's version of the story. Whatever the fairy stories say, and whatever story Elizabeth may have told in later life, I find it hard to believe that two people can fall in love so finally at first sight. Some credibility is provided by the suggestion that Edward is an attractive man who expects to have his way with any pretty woman and Elizabeth is wise enough to keep him at arms length until they are secretly married. But given the real politique of the day I wonder if it could have happened so easily.
In the history books the Woodvilles are generally portrayed as scheming parvenues whose determination to promote their own interests makes Edward unpopular and foments rebellion. Gregory's clever angle on this is to show the situation through Elizabeth's eyes. She has been brought up in a country in turmoil and both she and Edward know how shaky his hold on the throne is. So it makes sense to promote her family and their kinsfolk to high office or marry them off to powerful people, so as to surround themselves with reliable supporters. Quite subtly, Gergory shows us how Elizabeth develops from a romantic woman, a beautiful and beloved Queen, to a schemer who will stop at nothing to retain power.
This first person view point has its strengths in that it allows us to share in the heroine's emotions and understand her state of mind; but it has its drawbacks. Since everything has to be seen through Elizabeth's eyes, many of the important events such as battles can only be reported at second hand. Gregory counteracts this by suggesting that she is gifted with second sight. Her mother, Jacquetta, believes herself descended from Melusina, a mythical goddess half-woman half-fish, and thinks that she has inherited her magical powers. She does not insist on their efficacy, only that they might, perhaps, work. To begin with, Elizabeth is also sceptical but as the story progresses it relies more and more on this element. Elizabeth 'sees' the outcome of battles; sees her husband take flight by boat after a defeat. She and her daughter breath a fog that will roll up the Thames valley to conceal Edward's army from their foes; they call up a storm to prevent Warwick from landing in France; and they call up a flood to prevent enemy forces from reaching London. Finally, she puts a curse on Richard, Edward's brother who has usurped the throne in the place of their young son, tying a thread round her own arm till it goes numb so that his sword arm will weaken in the crucial battle; and when she believes her son has been murdered she curses whoever has done it that he will lose his own first born son and pass on the curse to his descendants so that in the end his line will die out. With the benefit of our knowledge of history, we can see that this is indeed the fate of both Richard and his rival Henry Tudor. We also know that Richard comes to his end in exactly the way Elizabeth foresees. What Elizabeth does not understand, however, until too late is that her magical powers are a two-edged sword. The storms she conjures up prevent potential rescuers from reaching her; and her own daughter is likely to be married to either Richard or Henry, the two most likely candidates for the murder of her son.
Richard 111 receives a more sympathetic portrayal then he gets in Shakespeare's tragedy. He is not a hunchback, just smaller and darker than his brothers, and the question of whether he is responsible for the deaths of the princes in the Tower is left open. Here, incidentally, Gregory goes along with the legend that one of the princes did not die but was smuggled away to Flanders, whence he will one day return as the Pretender, Perkyn Warbeck.
This is an ingenious story and one that involves the reader from the start. If you are prepared to go along with the magical element it is a satisfying and enjoyable read.
February 4th 2013
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Just back from a trip to Dubai and Jordan. Dubai is fine for a day or two, but I thoroughly recommend a visit to Jordan. A fascinating country full of friendly people. Don't be put off by unrest in neighbouring countries. I felt completely safe.
Just finished reading 'Life Class' and 'Toby's Room' by Pat Barker. I really can't get over the correspondences between those two books and my Leonora trilogy. Here is my review.
I have admired Pat Barker's work since reading her Regeneration trilogy but
I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed by these novels. Set, like
the Regeneration stories, in World War l, they are obviously the product of
extensive and detailed research and, like the earlier books, are built around
fictionalised versions of real characters, in this case Henry Tonks, the artist
and professor at the Slade Institute and Harold Gillies, the pioneering plastic
surgeon who did so much to reconstruct the faces of soldiers terribly wounded
during the war. All this is fascinating and Barker conjures up the horror of
the trenches and the suffering endured by the men with spine chilling effectiveness.
My sense of disappointment stems from her fictional characters, none of who
seem to be able to fully engage with life, and therefore make it hard for the
reader to fully engage with them. Elinor is a young woman determined to carve
out a career for herself as an artist. She admits to being self-centred in her
ambition and to that end refuses to commit herself emotionally to a lover or
even to acknowledge the ravages of the war. She justifies this by insisting
that to involve herself in it makes her in some way complicit in the madness.
Paul, the other principal character, also with ambitions as an artist, seems
equally unable to give himself up whole heartedly to any other person. He and
Elinor become lovers but then drift apart and both seem to be carried along
by events, rather than having any driving purpose.
Toby's Room was written some time after Life Class and I could not escape the
impression that Barker herself had felt that she had not sufficiently justified
Elinor's emotional detachment and had been forced to invent a psychological
reason for it, hence the incestuous affair with her brother Toby. Elinor does
redeem herself towards the end of the book by agreeing to assist Tonks in his
gruesome but necessary task of recording the injuries being dealt with by Gillies
and the results of his work; but even this is done in a conditional and rather
grudging manner. All in all, I found all the principal characters too self obsessed
to be sympathetic.
What did strike me with great force were the remarkable parallels between these
books and my own 'Leonora' trilogy. Both start in 1912; both feature as a leading
character a young woman striking out against the constraints of conventional
society; both have as a leading male character a young painter who becomes a
war artist; and both deal with the work of ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers
on the Western front. And to reinforce the coincidence, where Barker introduces
Gillies and his work with soldiers in the First War, in my 'Follies' quartet
I feature the work of his cousin and pupil, Archibald McIndoe, with airmen in
the Second. Great minds
.?
August 25th
I've been pondering a question and I'd like to know what other people think.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of historical fiction. The first kind
is when an author sets his/her story against a well-researched historical background
but the characters and events are entirely the work of imagination; the second
is when a writer takes as a central character a real person, whose life and
fate are well-documented, and invents conversations, motives and emotions to
enhance the story.
In the latter case the general trajectory of the story is pre-determined by
the historical facts, not requiring the author to create a cycle of suspense,
climax and denouement as someone writing about purely fictional events must
do. It seems to me that the second kind of writing is more novelised biography
than true fiction. So the question is, where is the boundary between fiction
and non-fiction? Can this re-telling of already well-known events properly be
classed as historical fiction? I should be interested to have other people's
take on this.
July 6th
I have just finished reading 'Dreaming the Eagle' by Manda Scott. A really super book! Here is my review.
'Dreaming the Eagle' is set in Britain in the years between the initial invasion of Julius Caesar and the final conquest under the Emperor Claudius. It is an era concerning which there are very few written records, and those that do exist were written by Roman historians (ie 'the enemy') and often many years after the events. Our knowledge of the period is largely based on myth and legend, from which a few names stand out Boudicca (known to earlier generations as Boadicea), whose chariot born statue stands at the end of Westminster Bridge, facing the Houses of Parliament; Caractacus, Cartimandua names vaguely remembered but whose stories we do not know.
On this apparently unpromising basis, Scott has created characters and a society which instantly capture the imagination. It is a society of 'dreamers' who commune with the dead and foretell the future and warriors, male and female, whose greatest honour is to kill in battle. It is to her credit that, in spite of modern sensibilities regarding warfare, she makes these people not only believable but sympathetic. We care deeply for her heroine, Breaca, who will eventually be know as Boudicca, the Bringer of Victory, and for her half-brother Ban who, captured and enslaved, and believing his family and his home have been wiped out, accepts the offer of love and freedom from a Roman officer and finds himself fighting against his own people.
The Britain Scott portrays is divided into warring tribes and based on subsistence farming, but it is not primitive. It is a highly moral society in which respect for the elders and the sanctity of oaths is paramount. It is also deeply imbued with a sense of magic, of the inter-connection of human life and the natural world and the divine powers that govern both. It is Scott's great achievement to bring to life and immerse us in these ancient beliefs and their power.
'Dreaming the Eagle' is full of excitement with twists and turns to the plot that keep us turning the pages. It ends with the invasion of the Roman armies at the behest of Claudius and leaves us panting for the next episodes in the trilogy, 'Dreaming the Bull' and 'Dreaming the Hound'.
June 26th
Just got back from our summer holiday. Have you ever had a holiday which left
you wondering if you had just experienced a run of bad luck, or been extremely
fortunate? We were heading for Croatia, which involved flying from Manchester
to Heathrow and then catching a connecting flight to Zagreb. In pouring rain
we missed the turn to the car park and found ourselves back on the M56 and had
to drive miles before we could turn back. I thought we were going to miss our
flight but then we had our first stroke of luck. The flight was delayed and
the connection was not scheduled to depart until 16.40. 16.40 came and went
with no sign of our flight. At around 18.00 we heard an announcement over the
tannoy telling passengers on that flight to go to the Croatia Airline desk for
refreshment vouchers. NOT good news! It seems the plane was struck by lightning
leaving Zagreb. What are the chances of that? We finally reached Zagreb at midnight,
too late to catch the shuttle bus to the hotel. After a frantic phone call and
a taxi ride we arrived and heaved a sigh of relief.
Next day we went back to the airport to collect our hire car. All was well until
the man behind the desk looked at my husband's driving licence and pointed out
that it was out of date. I don't usually drive when we are abroad but at the
last minute I had brought my licence,' just in case'. Lucky again? So
now I was the accredited driver of a strange left hand drive car! .
We made it to our first destination, the Plitvice Lakes National Park, without
further incident and it seemed our troubles were over. The lakes are spectacularly
beautiful and the accomodation in the tiny village of Poljanak above them was
excellent Then we decided to take one of the nature trail hikes. It looked easy,
a mere five miles. It didn't say it was two miles straight up! The stress upset
an old problem with my husband's knee and by the time we reached the island
of Hvar he couldn't walk without discomfort. Hvar is beautiful but there isn't
a lot to do apart from walk, swim and sunbathe. Walking was out; the beaches
are pretty but stoney, painful for bare feet; and my husband doesn't like sunbathing.
Then came the journey back to Zagreb 458 kilometres up the motorway. We were
doing fine at about midday, when the traffic ground to a halt and we were directed
off the motorway onto minor roads. The sat. nav. was having a nervous breadown
but every time we tried to return to the motorway we were turned back. Finally
we came to a sign pointing to Zagreb and the motorway . The route took us over
the mountain range, up and up round one hairpin bend after another, with a drop
of thousands of feet on my right and oncoming traffic on my left. By the time
we reached the other side the sat. nav. wasn't the only one having a nervous
breakdown!
The coup de grace came in an e-mail from our son, who had been round to check
the house. 'Arrived to find a window smashed on the upstairs landing, but don't
panic. No sign of forced entry, all the doors shut and the alarm still set -
and a large dead pheasant on the landing carpet.' You might imagine all sorts
of problems occurring during your absence. Fire, flood, burglary ... but kamikaze
pheasants?
Next morning there was a photograph on the front of the newspaper on the hotel
desk, showing a smashed coach.' Was this yesterday, on the mtorway,' we asked.
'Yes,' came the reply. 'Nine dead.' Five minutes earlier and we might have been
in the middle of that. Lucky or unlucky? You decide.
May 17th
I recently joined the Historical Writers Association and last Saturday six of us met in York to exchange ideas. Present were Elizabeth Wein, who writes mainly for young adults, Karen Maitland, Cassandra Clark and Ann Swinfen and her husband, plus myself. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time, with a lot of laughs; but we were also able to share some of the frustrations and annoyances that beset all writers. Elizabeth, Karen and Cassandra are all going to attend the big historical festival at Kelmarsh. It sounds very exciting but Karen made us laugh with her comments about the danger of going to one of these events in period dress. There will be a lot of re-enactors there, dressed as anything from medieval peasants to First World War soldiers and it seems they are very fierce about every detail of costume being authentic. Blows can be exchanged over the correct number of buttons on a tunic!
I am currently reading Karen's book 'The Gallows Curse' and have just finished Cassandra's 'A Parliament of Spies'. If you like your history spiced with a good measure of the supernatural, in the form of ancient spells and potions, I recommend Karen's book, while those of you who like a medieval mystery will enjoy meeting Cassandra's feisty nun, Hildegarde. (For full reviews visit my page on the Goodreads site.)
Meanwhile, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we intend to repeat the experience in six months time in Chester.
April 25th
Do you ever feel as if your life is somehow tied to certain roads or areas?
For me, it used to be the A41 which runs from London to Birkenhead on the Mersey
estuary. When I was first married I lived in Princes Risborough, in Buckinghamshire,
and we used to travel down to Kent to see my husband's family. The road we took
south was the A41. Then we crossed the Thames and drove past the high walls
of the Oval cricket ground and I often thought what a forbidding and gloomy
area it seemed. A year later I found myself teaching in a school which was split
onto two campuses. To get from one to the other it was necessary to walk past
those very walls. Of course, it was not forbidding or gloomy at all, but a vibrant
London community.
While I worked there we lived in Clapham, just down the road. We left before
either of my children were born but now, forty-odd years later, my younger son
lives in a flat two streets away from where we were.
And, as I said, if you follow the A41 north you end up in Birkenhead, about
three miles from my current abode.
So much for reality. Fiction seems to have the same propensity. Much of the
action in my book HARVEST OF WAR, published tomorrow, takes place around the
town of Bitola in Macedonia. I did not know the area, so I thought I had better
check it out. We took a holiday in the beautiful town of Ohrid, on the lake
of the same name, and drove to Bitola. I found, not the back-water I was expecting
but a vibrant and fascinating city. On one side of the river the Turkish quarter
has mosques and a covered market and a warren of tiny streets. On the other,
there are broad boulevards lined with elegant neo-classical houses, many of
which carry plaques proclaiming that they once housed the embassy of one European
power or other. Why? Because Bitola lay on the junction between the Roman Via
Egnatia, which connected Rome to Constantinople, the Empire's second city, and
the main road north from the port of Thessalonika into northern Europe; and
right into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it remained a vital trading
centre.
I looked up the Via Egnatia on Wikipedia and this is what I found. Starting
at Dyrrachium (now Durrës) on the Adriatic Sea, the road followed a difficult
route along the river Genusus (Shkumbin), over the Candaviae mountains and thence
to the highlands around Lake Ohrid. It then turned south, following several
high mountain passes to reach the northern coastline of the Aegean Sea at Thessalonica.
From there it ran through Thrace, via Adrianople (modern Edirne) to the city
of Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul).[1] It covered a total distance
of about 1,120 km (696 miles / 746 Roman miles).
In my book DAUGHTERS OF WAR the heroine spends time at the siege of Adrianople,
and in PASSIONS OF WAR she follows it through the Albanian mountains to Durres
as part of the terrible retreat of the Serbian army. So the Via connects many
events in that trilogy of books.
Now I am researching a book on the First Crusade and to my delight I discover
that one of my main characters, Bohemond of Taranto, took his army along exactly
that route to reach Constantinople.
Is this just coincidence - or is there something in the ley lines theory?
April 23rd
When I had my first book published I naively assumed that promoting it was the publisher's business, not mine. I have since learned otherwise! It seems now that any struggling author must blog and tweet and join in forums and generally trawl the web for opportunities to publicize his/her work. But all this takes time, time which should be spent on research and writing. How do other writers balance these two demands on their time? These last few weeks have been almost exclusively taken up with this process and as a result the research for my new project, a novel about the First Crusade, has been abandoned. I must get back to it!
April 22nd
Creative Artist v. Domestic Goddess.
Does anyone else suffer as I do from the 'protestant work ethic'
that insists that you must do at least one boring chore before you can get down
to the things you really want to do? How do other people balance the requirements
of running a home against the demands of the writer's life? I once told Louis
de Berniere that I felt I could never start writing until I had hoovered the
bedroom carpet (ie done some housework of some sort). He was horrified at my
skewed priorities. But what is a woman supposed to do? I have read comments
by feminist writers implying that they would not dream of lowering themselves
to wash a dish or iron a shirt, but my reaction is 'if not you, then who?' Do
you employ someone, presumably less artistically or intellectually endowed,
to do it for you (assuming you can afford to do that)? Or do you ignore the
chaos until the dirt rises up to choke you?
I would really like to hear how other people manage this work/life balance.
April 8th 2012
Oh dear! I have been remiss in not keeping this up-to-date. But life is difficult at the moment, writing-wise. Severn turned down my canal escape story on the grounds that they could not guarantee sufficiently large sales in the USA. With libraries cutting back on purchases and fiction sales in general decreasing they rely increasingly on the US market. So I am left in limbo. The only way forward seems to be via self-publishing but that is a very tricky business. At the moment I am trying to drum up sales for HARVEST OF WAR which comes out this month. I have also joined the Goodreads website, so anyone interested can follow various discussion threads there and I plan to link my blog there to this one.
If anyone is reading this, please get in touch! I feel very isolated at the moment.
October 3rd 2012
Terrific review in Booklist for harvest of War!
Green brings to a resoundingly satisfying end her Leonora Trilogy
of meticulously researched historical novels encompassing the run-up to WWI
and its finish. Volunteer health worker and translator Leonora has evolved steadily
after leaving her privileged London home to aid British troops and their allies
on repeat trips to the war-torn countries along the Adriatic and Aegean Seas.
She falls in love with the married colonel she once deceived. She survives her
lovers death but is shocked into premature labor by the news only to be separated
from her baby by yet more cruel twists of war. The horrors of trench warfare,
occasionally recalling the movie Saving Private Ryan, come stirringly to
life, as does the resolve with which the recuperating Leo leaves London to bring
needed provisions to impoverished soldiers in the front. This final novel will
inspire Greens audience to be sure to read all three.