A Flying Start

I'm just back from Scotland's newest book festival at Lennoxlove  House, the home of the Duke of Hamilton near Haddington in East Lothian. Lennoxlove is the brainchild of Alistair Moffat and the team behind the successful Borders Book Festival and it got off to a brilliant start with sell-out crowds in the main marquee for writers as diverse as Rory Bremner, Martine McCutcheon, naturalist Simon King, Michael Morpurgo, Alexander McCall Smith and Kate Adie.
The house dates back to the 14th century and provides a magnificent backdrop for the festival throughout the day and night. Every room is packed with beautiful artworks and artefacts from the family's long, colourful and sometimes bloody history.
I was fortunate enough to catch Simon King's event and the affable Autumnwatch presenter provided a fascinating hour of anecdotes about his travels as a wildlife cameraman across the globe and encounters with the animals he so clearly loves, from otters to orcas. The story about his most dangerous filming experience - in Bristol City Centre - was hilarious.
The festival was held over two days but I don't think there's any doubt it will be back bigger and even better next year and I predict it will become one of the must-attend events on Scotland's literary calendar.

Sold out

The hardback of Claudius has sold out on Amazon and on the Borders website and apparently the publishers have no more supplies. I had an inkling of this over the past couple of months when the Waterstone's shop in Stirling had been waiting for six weeks for their order, and there were none at Wigtown when I was there.

So, good news and bad news, and one of those things you don't consider before you've been published. The good news is that Transworld will be happy the print run has been sold. But it leaves them with a dilemma: whether to print another 1000 and risk being left with 500 unsold, or accept that you're on budget and on target and leave it at that. I suspect in these straitened financial times it'll be the second option. There is a third option which they're talking about, which is putting the trade paperback (airport edition) into mainstream shops. Which brings me to the bad news. If that doesn't happen it means Claudius won't be available in a lot of places for another eight months and I won't sell any books. The paperback doesn't come out until July, along with my next book Hero of Rome. It seems a big gap, but again I suppose it's all part of the learning process.

I've completed the second re-write - or is it the third - of Hero of Rome, really just a few very reasonable cuts, and a couple of minor tickles. I hate to tempt fate, but I think it's the best thing I've done yet. An epic of triumph and disaster, courage, love and betrayal set against the background of one of the bloodiest contests of the Boudicann rebellion.

A new chapter

You have been found guilty of neglecting your blog!

I can't believe I haven't written anything here for a month, it's ridiculous. Anyway here's an update of what's been happening in the life of Doug Jackson, writer.

On October 3 I appeared at the Wigtown book festival with the brilliant Allan Massie (who's also the author of a book called Caligula, as well as many others), Charlotte Higgins (It's all Greek to Me) and Philip Parker, who circumnavigated the borders of the Roman Empire for his epic The Empire Stops Here. We were to discuss Why the Classics still matter. We all met very fortuitously in the Writers' Retreat about an hour before we were due to go on and discovered we had no real idea what was about to happen, or what kind of audience we would attract - it could be five or fifty. It actually turned out to be upwards of a hundred and fifty and they were still bringing in more chairs up to the kick off! I'd probably been more worried about this appearance than anything I've done so far. I enjoy history in general and the Romans in particular, but I'm no classicist. I needn't have worried, we all had a more or less equal contribution to make and the audience thoroughly enjoyed themselves. One thing it brought home to me, though, is the difference between 'knowing' and 'understanding'. I know a lot about my area of expertise, but the depth of understanding of the impact of the Classics on history and the present day my co-panellists showed was phenomenal.

The following week, I headed off to Italy for a research trip. The town of Herculaneum will have a big role to play in a forthcoming book and I wanted to get an idea of the geography of the place as well as taking a wider look at the other historical sites around the Bay of Naples. I'd been to Pompeii and we visited it again, but I enjoyed Herculaneum, which is still 75 per cent buried under a rather grubby suburb of Naples, more. We hired our own guide, Carlo, who gave us more insight than any book could and had a wonderful time walking the ancient streets and marvelling at the incredible state of preservation. On the way back to our hotel in Sorrento (The Bristol, great place, great service and some of the best views in the world) we stopped off at Torre Anunziata (another grubby Naples suburb) and the wonderful Vill Oplontis, which, though on a much smaller scale, even outdid Herculaneum. The incredible frescoes, battered but still where they were two thousand years ago, are stunning and give a real insight into the lost grandeur of this wonderful place. We also stumbled, almost by mistake, on the Greek temples at Paestum, south of Salerno, which must be Europe's best kept historical hidden secret. The three enormous temples dominate a site that rivals Pompeii for scale, if nor preservation, and are quite astonishing.

This week I've been completing the rewrite of Hero of Rome. I'd been a little nervous about it, but Simon, my editor was very complimentary. When I sent it off this morning, I had that little tingle of excitement you always get at times like these. Could this be the one?

Life in the slow lane

Ah, the trials of working from home. For the past week or so since I sent the first draft to Simon I've been doing bits and pieces, preparing for events looking at new ideas and that sort of thing - but I haven't been writing, not real hard-graft thousands of words a day writing. The problem is that if I'm not writing I don't feel as if I'm working, which I know is daft.

This week I'm preparing a plot line for the next book and doing some reading and I promise to try not to feel guilty about it.

I also have a great new 'aviator' chair, so hopefully no more sore backs!

But its not all highs: Amazon has come back to haunt me. A couple of weeks ago Claudius was up in the top two or three thousand books and in the top 100 historical novels, in the past few days it has fluctuated between 10,000th and 60,000th for no apparent reason. On the other hand Caligula is selling pretty well. Time to give up watching the numbers again.

Booktalk

I've had a really good week. Last night I gave a talk on writing and books up at Dunblane Public Library, about four miles from here, for Off the Page, the Stirling Book Festival. I'd been mildly stressed out about it for a couple of days beforehand because I knew I couldn't read a script for an hour and a bit. You always know there's a possibility you might freeze, but I decided to go with a few prompts and just wing it and it worked really well.

We had an audience of about twenty five or thirty and I'm pleased to say they loved it. It seems most writers just plug their books and read from them and it was refreshing to hear someone talk about the nuts and bolts of writing and being published. It was also another indication that the books have a growing fan base because quite a few of the people there had read either of both and were very complimentary about them. Altogether a very successful evening.

A week ago I was in Milngavie talking to a group there and again I got a wonderful reception from people who were obviously interested in the subject and who asked some incredibly perceptive questions, which I love, even when they're challenging.

Hero of Rome went off to Simon on Monday and I'll hear quite soon what he thinks of it. I've a feeling it will need a fair bit of work this time, but I'm up for it. I have a growing sense of obligation to the people who read my books coupled with a real determination to improve as a writer. When you first start writing you more or less only have to please yourself but when people start paying for your work it raises the stakes, you have to be a real professional.

Speaking of which, life away from the hamster wheel of daily journalism is fantastic. I've been putting in the hours at the computer and preparing for my appearances, but today the sun shone lunchtime and I downed tools and set off for walk up to a loch in the Ochil Hills behind Bridge of Allan. It takes you up through some fantastic woods and the views when you reach there are glorious. Huge dragon flies in red, blue and black hovered over the water and the trout were feeding on them. A buzzard soared overhead and I spotted a large hawk that wasn't a kestrel. A few deer were feeding in a faraway field near the little Iron Age hillfort I've developed a fascination for. Sheer magic!

Another first

Claudius has finally won its first foreign deal. Amber, the Warsaw publishing house which published Caligula before it was out in Britain has also brought Claudius, which presumably is a sign that Caligula has been a success in Poland. Let's hope its the first of many! I've also had word of another foreign deal for Caligula, from Hungary, which brings the number of languages to nine.

I had the chance to read Hero of Rome through from start to finish for the first time last week and I'll spend next week polishing it before I send it to Simon at Transworld. You're never certain when you're writing it, but I think the book has turned out really well. Strong characters, a beautiful love interest and a story worth telling. The central battle scene is on an epic scale, chock full of savagery, heroism and sacrifice and several thousand dead bodies, just the way I like them.

I should also take this chance to say thanks to Samantha, my publicist, who has done a fantastic job over the last year. She's off to work for another publisher and I wish her all the best for the future

Went for a run this afternoon in the rain, across the river and out onto the Carse of Lecropt. There's a mill lade on the way and I spotted a kingfisher flying along it. They really are the most beautiful birds and if I could find a way to properly describe that glorious flash of azure blue on its back I'd be a writer.

I'm off to Milngavie on Monday, the event starts at 2.30 if you can get along.

Claudius

Confession time - I've been back looking at the numbers on Amazon again. My excuse is that its the only way to find out how Claudius is doing and the good news is that it seems to be doing pretty well. It still has a fair way to go to catch up with the authors I think of as my 'rivals', people like Simon Scarrow, Conn Iggulden, Ben Kane and Harry Sidebottom, but Claudius is up there in the top 75 historical novels. The launch of Claudius has also given sales of the paperback of Caligula a boost, which is really encouraging.

I'm continuing to work on my next book, Hero of Rome, which will be out next July. The story's almost there but the writing needs a bit of polishing. You're always conscious that this book has to be better than the ones which have gone before, but I also now have a huge sense of responsibility to the people who've read Claudius and Caligula and enjoyed them. That and the fact that I'm now doing this for a living adds an extra bit of pressure.

This post is being written on the fancy new i-Mac which I bought on Friday and I'm sitting at a new desk, well not new, just better, and pinched from my daughter who's now living elsewhere. It's great because all my research books are stacked in shelves and within reach, instead of scattered around like confetti. As well as writing, I have to prepare for three public appearances over the next month. I'm at Milngavie Library a week tomorrow ((Sept 7) for a meet the author event, then on the 15th I'll be doing a talk and readings at Dunblane Library for the Stirling Book Festival, and finally on October 3, the Wigtown Book Festival, where I'll be appearing with Alan Massie, Philip Parker and Charlotte Higgins to talk about why the classics still matter. If you're in a position to make any of them please come along and introduce yourself, it would be great to see you.