Not a lot to report on the book front, but I had an interesting e-mail last week from Christina who is translating Caligula into Italian for Newton and Compton. It was on one of those subjects that probably cause historical novelists more soul-searching than anything else: units of measurement. She'd noticed that several times I'd lapsed into using yards as a measurement of distance and the publishers were wondering if all measurements should be metric or possibly we should use the latin equivalent. We agreed that to make everything metric would make the book look a bit daft, but I didn't think it was a good idea to use terms like pedes, heminae and iugera either. They're not terribly well known and I felt I'd have to explain them as I went along. Throughout most of the book I'd talked about paces, as the equivalent of a yard or metre, because this would probably be in use at the time as an approximate estimate of distance, so we agreed on that.
I'd also used 'thousands of gallons' to emphasise something in the sewer scenes below Caligula's palace and I had to find a way of showing it rather than using a measurement. Tiny details, but the kind of stuff that either makes a book feel authentic or not. One thing it shows is the kind of care and attention is going into the Italian edition. Christina has picked up several things I'd never have noticed and I know I couldn't be in better hands. I managed to get a look at the title page the other day and Caligula will be published either as 'L'ultimo Gladiatore di Roma' which I think is The Last Gladiator in Rome, or Death to the Emperor. Can't wait to see it. I wonder what's happening in Russia, Romania, Serbia and Portugal?
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Living with Caligula
Claudius has gone. I had an e-mail from Simon in midweek with his reaction to the final rewrite. I have to confess I put off opening it just in case the news was bad, but he liked it a lot. The centrepiece of the book is the battle where the British hero Caratacus attempts to stop the invading Romans at the River Thames. It was great to write, but the scale was frighteningly large and once or twice I wondered if I'd taken on more than I could handle. So I was pretty chuffed when Simon, who doesn't go in for superlatives, described it as "brilliant and epic".
Still, it's always a strange moment to send a book on its way. It's finished/complete, but you know there's more you can do to it. It's now with the copy editor, who did a fantastic job with Caligula, and I'll be interested to see what horrors she spots this time that I failed to see the many dozens of times I've read it.
It's a year since I went through this process, but the memory is as fresh as if it was yesterday. I know I'll get the copy-editors manuscript in the post in a couple of weeks. That'll be followed by the cover art. Then the book proof, then the books themselves. Finally publication day on Thursday July 16. A huge buzz every step of the way. I'll be fascinated to see what the designers come up with for the cover. Caligula was fantastic but with Claudius the opportunities for something really special are enormous.
The Emperor's elephant has taken her next big step!
Still, it's always a strange moment to send a book on its way. It's finished/complete, but you know there's more you can do to it. It's now with the copy editor, who did a fantastic job with Caligula, and I'll be interested to see what horrors she spots this time that I failed to see the many dozens of times I've read it.
It's a year since I went through this process, but the memory is as fresh as if it was yesterday. I know I'll get the copy-editors manuscript in the post in a couple of weeks. That'll be followed by the cover art. Then the book proof, then the books themselves. Finally publication day on Thursday July 16. A huge buzz every step of the way. I'll be fascinated to see what the designers come up with for the cover. Caligula was fantastic but with Claudius the opportunities for something really special are enormous.
The Emperor's elephant has taken her next big step!
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Living with Caligula
I've just come back from a research trip to Rome and am once again left marvelling at the wonderful, vibrant city it is: the breathtaking history, stupendous architecture, the astonishing prices, the miriad opportunities to be ripped off and the generous, hospitable Romans who entirely offset the last couple of observations.
It's my third trip to the Eternal City and in the last year it seems to have changed - for better and worse. Worse is the fact that you now have to pay to walk in the Roman forum, one of the world's foremost heritage sites, a place of pilgrimage for anyone interested in Roman history. Much of the action in Caligula takes place in, around and under the forum and the two hills which dominate it; the Palatine and the Capitoline. For me, ghosts walk here; the ghosts of Emperors and senators, gladiators and animal trainers, beggars and merchants, and the fact that you now have to queue up to buy a ticket and walk through a turnstile has somehow devalued it. Sure, it makes economic sense in a country which is as big a basket case as our own to cash in on one of the planet's greatest attractions, but the romantic in me thinks it should be open to everyone and not just to those prepared to pay 12 euros and be out by 5pm.
On the plus side, there seemed to be about a tenth of the visitors this time - although most of the others appeared to be queueing up to get into St Peter's at the Vatican. I also get the feeeling there's less traffic in the city centre, though after a couple of taxi trips I have nothing but respect for anyone who takes to the roads, especially around the Piazza Venezia.
One of the most amusing pastimes in Rome is to find yourself a little pavement cafe and watch the herds - or should that be flocks - of tourists straggle by, tormented by heat and thirst and always led by a matriachal/patriachal figure waving an umberella, a rolled newspaper or one of those roses the conmen keep thrusting at you for 'the pretty lady'. If you're particularly fortunate you'll be in a very narrow street and two of them will come along at once, in opposite directions, like two trains meeting in a tunnel. At this point I have to confess that I once visited Rome from a cruise ship and followed the umberella like a love-struck sheep along with the rest. Never again.
During the trip I stumbled upon the Emperor Nero's Golden House, the Domus Aurus, but unfortunately they were conducting an archaeological dig and I couldn't get inside. Nero and his sidekick Seneca will have a fairly major part to play in book three of what I still think of as The Emperor's Elephant trilogy.
My friend Ewan has shown me the template for the website and a very classy affair it is too. It'll have an in-depth biography, synopses and background on the writing of the two books so far, a pictorial section on Caligula and Claudius's Rome, a link to this blog and many of the historical sites I used to research the books. Hopefully it will also allow me to interact more closely with my readers. I've had another couple of reviews. One on Amazon, three stars but containing a lot of positives, which ended with the soul-destroying 'this won't set the world alight, but it's a good read'. It's always good to have an objective opinion though, so if anyone is thinking about putting in a review, good, bad or indifferent, please do. The other one was, interestingly, for an e-book version of Caligula and read, in its entirety, 'a good read'.
No news yet on the latest rewrite of Claudius. Simon is off to the Frankfurt Book Fair, which caused much excitement for me last year, but didn't deliver as much as I'd hoped. Still, another year, another book. Who knows!
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Living with Caligula
One of the greatest pleasures of having a book published is when people you barely know or haven't met for twenty years come up and tell you what a fantastic read it was. It happened twice over the weekend when I was at a birthday party down in Jedburgh. A girl who was in my class at school and who I'd never have tagged as a historical fiction fan told me she loved Caligula, and couldn't wait for the follow up to come out. It was also very clear that the people in my home town are genuinely proud of what I've done, which puts the thing in some sort of perspective. I had the same thing in figures today in a story on the wires at work. Apparently six million people in Britain think they could write a book, three million have started writing one and a million have completed one that will probably never be published. It's a sobering thought.
If that sounds as if I'm getting cocky about being an author, nothing could be further from the truth. I'm still filled with the same doubts and fears that have plagued me all along the way, expect more so because there's now a weight of expectation, not least from myself. I don't worry about the words or the sentences, but I do worry about what I'm doing with them and if I'm creating the kind of story someone wants to read. I'm not a conscious writer at all, I don't sit down and think, 'what am I trying to achieve?'. All I do is write, and if I'm writing the wrong thing I don't know if I'm consciously clever enough to mould it into something appreciably different. I've just sent the rewrite of Claudius, the follow up to Caligula, to Simon at Transworld. As I've explained in past blogs, there were some fairly fundamental changes and when I was working on the book I was constantly wondering if I was doing the right thing, going in the right direction. There were passages that seemed at odds with everything I'd done before. Yet when I read it three times in the last couple of weeks the whole thing seemed to blend together as if it had only ever been meant that way. And still I had that feeling of not wanting to let go, to keep it and change a word here, or a phrase there: to keep polishing it until it glowed. What you forget is that there is probably still another nine or ten months until it's published and that you're going to get another half a dozen goes at it before it's wrenched from you for the final time.
The trains are on strike this week which means I couldn't have done any writing in any case, so I'm having a short break before I launch into another book. It's half written in my head and the main characters are all real to me, but it'll be a complicated beast and I think I have to do a bit more plotting - or at least place a significant number of signposts - before I get started.
I'm still working with someone on a website, but we've passed a significant hurdle and it could be less than a month before it's up and running. This blog will be linked to it. Can't wait to see what it's like.
If that sounds as if I'm getting cocky about being an author, nothing could be further from the truth. I'm still filled with the same doubts and fears that have plagued me all along the way, expect more so because there's now a weight of expectation, not least from myself. I don't worry about the words or the sentences, but I do worry about what I'm doing with them and if I'm creating the kind of story someone wants to read. I'm not a conscious writer at all, I don't sit down and think, 'what am I trying to achieve?'. All I do is write, and if I'm writing the wrong thing I don't know if I'm consciously clever enough to mould it into something appreciably different. I've just sent the rewrite of Claudius, the follow up to Caligula, to Simon at Transworld. As I've explained in past blogs, there were some fairly fundamental changes and when I was working on the book I was constantly wondering if I was doing the right thing, going in the right direction. There were passages that seemed at odds with everything I'd done before. Yet when I read it three times in the last couple of weeks the whole thing seemed to blend together as if it had only ever been meant that way. And still I had that feeling of not wanting to let go, to keep it and change a word here, or a phrase there: to keep polishing it until it glowed. What you forget is that there is probably still another nine or ten months until it's published and that you're going to get another half a dozen goes at it before it's wrenched from you for the final time.
The trains are on strike this week which means I couldn't have done any writing in any case, so I'm having a short break before I launch into another book. It's half written in my head and the main characters are all real to me, but it'll be a complicated beast and I think I have to do a bit more plotting - or at least place a significant number of signposts - before I get started.
I'm still working with someone on a website, but we've passed a significant hurdle and it could be less than a month before it's up and running. This blog will be linked to it. Can't wait to see what it's like.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Living with Caligula
Just got back from bonnie Galloway and the Wigtown Book Festival and what a great weekend it was. Wigtown's a tiny place but it comes alive for the book festival and the atmosphere was fantastic. We joined about four hundred other people to hear actor Bill Paterson talk about his childhood in the east end Glasgow enclave of Dennistoun, living in the shadow of the nuclear bomb and the characters he grew up with. Bill has a wonderful voice, huge charm and a great sense of humour and deserved the ovation he got at the end. It was a bit strange, though, to hear about the genesis of Tales from the Back Green. He cheerfully confesses that it was never intended as a book, just a series of radio scripts, and that the only reason it was published was because a firm approached him. For someone who has heard hundreds of hard-luck stories from talented writers desperate to get into print that was a bit surreal.
I had a nice chat with Stuart Kelly from Scotland on Sunday, who are media sponsors this year, and I met up with Lee Randall, the Scotsman's features supremo who was there to chair a couple of events and interview some of the authors.
One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was the house we stayed in at Newton Stewart. The Brewery Pool of the River Cree flowed as dark as Guinness about four feet below the balcony of our bedroom, full of salmon and sea trout on their way to spawn upriver. In two days I saw a kingfisher, a mink, a cormorant and was treated to an impromptu flypast by a pair of herons skidding along just above the water. Our alarm call on Saturday morning came courtesy of about twenty mallards and three geese who gathered under the window demanding breakfast. Idyllic doesn't quite describe it, glorious is closer.
Dumfries and Galloway is off the beaten track, but it's full of history and beautiful wild countryside and stunning coastal views. If you get a chance to visit it, don't miss it!
I had a nice chat with Stuart Kelly from Scotland on Sunday, who are media sponsors this year, and I met up with Lee Randall, the Scotsman's features supremo who was there to chair a couple of events and interview some of the authors.
One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was the house we stayed in at Newton Stewart. The Brewery Pool of the River Cree flowed as dark as Guinness about four feet below the balcony of our bedroom, full of salmon and sea trout on their way to spawn upriver. In two days I saw a kingfisher, a mink, a cormorant and was treated to an impromptu flypast by a pair of herons skidding along just above the water. Our alarm call on Saturday morning came courtesy of about twenty mallards and three geese who gathered under the window demanding breakfast. Idyllic doesn't quite describe it, glorious is closer.
Dumfries and Galloway is off the beaten track, but it's full of history and beautiful wild countryside and stunning coastal views. If you get a chance to visit it, don't miss it!
Friday, 26 September 2008
Living with Caligula
Off to the Wigtown Book Festival this weekend, not to appear, just to soak up the atmosphere.
We'll be staying at a holiday cottage with our friends John and Elaine and we're all booked to see Scots actor Bill Paterson talk about Tales from the Back Green his memoir of growing up in Glasgow in the 50s and 60s. I'll let you know how we got on next week.
I've been through the follow up to Caligula again this week, polishing here, cutting there, and, as always, wondering if it's as good as I can make it. It's the story of the Emperor Claudius's invasion of Britain in 43 AD seen through the eyes of Rufus, keeper of the Emperor's elephant and hero of Caligula. I had great fun writing it, especially the battle scenes, and there's some great stuff in it. Robert Graves created the popular vision of a drooling, crippled figure of fun in I, Claudius, which like most Roman novels has its origins in the works of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Suetonius throws away the Claudian invasion in a couple of lines and calls it, rather disdainfully, a minor campaign. But the fragmentary remains of a commemorative arch in Rome say Claudius fought six battles and was hailed Imperator (victorious general) by his troops 22 times, which isn't bad going considering he was only in Britain for 16 days. I tell the story of how the cripple became a conqueror with a little help from his spymaster, Narcissus, and, of course, the Emperor's elephant.
There's also been interest this week in my crime book Brothers in Arms, and I was asked to put together synopses for another three novels based around the main characters. I've always had plans to do a series so I had them pretty much to hand and they're on their way. There's a real sense of excitement when you throw your work out into the world - you never know what kind of impact it's going to make!
We'll be staying at a holiday cottage with our friends John and Elaine and we're all booked to see Scots actor Bill Paterson talk about Tales from the Back Green his memoir of growing up in Glasgow in the 50s and 60s. I'll let you know how we got on next week.
I've been through the follow up to Caligula again this week, polishing here, cutting there, and, as always, wondering if it's as good as I can make it. It's the story of the Emperor Claudius's invasion of Britain in 43 AD seen through the eyes of Rufus, keeper of the Emperor's elephant and hero of Caligula. I had great fun writing it, especially the battle scenes, and there's some great stuff in it. Robert Graves created the popular vision of a drooling, crippled figure of fun in I, Claudius, which like most Roman novels has its origins in the works of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Suetonius throws away the Claudian invasion in a couple of lines and calls it, rather disdainfully, a minor campaign. But the fragmentary remains of a commemorative arch in Rome say Claudius fought six battles and was hailed Imperator (victorious general) by his troops 22 times, which isn't bad going considering he was only in Britain for 16 days. I tell the story of how the cripple became a conqueror with a little help from his spymaster, Narcissus, and, of course, the Emperor's elephant.
There's also been interest this week in my crime book Brothers in Arms, and I was asked to put together synopses for another three novels based around the main characters. I've always had plans to do a series so I had them pretty much to hand and they're on their way. There's a real sense of excitement when you throw your work out into the world - you never know what kind of impact it's going to make!
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Living with Caligula
One of the things I enjoy most about being an author is the little suprises that arrive when you're least expecting them. On thursday night I came home to find I'd been sent four copies of the Polish version of Caligula, which has been published by Amber and was actually on the streets of Warsaw a week before it was my book was available in Britain. It's a compact soft-backed version with the same picture on the cover and it's fascinating to see your words in a different language and to think that Kaligula is being read by people in Krakow and Gdansk.
The English version has already ended up in some surprising places. I discovered on the net that it's out on loan from two libraries in Tasmania and half a dozen in New Zealand. It's stocked in a big bookshop in Singapore, available in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and you can buy it on line on Amazon Japan, Germany and France. That's not to mention the editions that will soon be published in Italian, Russian, Serb, Portuguese and Romanian.
Obviously I'd been waiting to see if it would be picked up by a US publisher, but that hasn't happened. It is going to be published in America though, simultaneously in the United States and Canada on January 27. And the mass-market paperback version comes out in this country on February 12. So there's plenty to look forward to!
I completed the latest version of the follow up to Caligula on the train on Thursday night and I'm polishing it at the moment before I send it to Simon next week or the week after. It's amazing the buzz you get when you finally reach those two lovely words .........'The End'......... even though you know that there will be more revisions to come. There are a couple of things I'm not certain about - I've made some pretty radical changes - but it's a much better book. The beauty of rewriting is that small changes, a word here and there, can make such a big difference. You'd think you'd get bored of reading the same thing twenty times over, but I love it because I know that every time I'll find something to improve.
Caligula continues to do well on the Amazon historical fiction charts, jockeying for position with another couple of Roman books by first-time authors, and sitting at about seventh among the historical hardbacks, behind Conn Iggulden, Philipa Gregory and Bernard Cornwell. So I'm in pretty good company. It's interesting to compare the reviews each book has. The other debutants have about five or six times more reviews than I have, but a stange pattern has developed in one of them. It started out with a host of five-stars right after publication, but just lately there have been half a dozen one and two stars. The latest one complains he didn't even finish the book and he's been conned into buying it by the earlier reviews, which are very obviously by friends and family. Looking back over them, I think he's right and that the Amazon review system is pretty flawed. When someone puts a title on their review saying Buy this Book you can be pretty certain they're not coming at it objectively! Naturally all of mine are completely kosher. :-)
The English version has already ended up in some surprising places. I discovered on the net that it's out on loan from two libraries in Tasmania and half a dozen in New Zealand. It's stocked in a big bookshop in Singapore, available in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and you can buy it on line on Amazon Japan, Germany and France. That's not to mention the editions that will soon be published in Italian, Russian, Serb, Portuguese and Romanian.
Obviously I'd been waiting to see if it would be picked up by a US publisher, but that hasn't happened. It is going to be published in America though, simultaneously in the United States and Canada on January 27. And the mass-market paperback version comes out in this country on February 12. So there's plenty to look forward to!
I completed the latest version of the follow up to Caligula on the train on Thursday night and I'm polishing it at the moment before I send it to Simon next week or the week after. It's amazing the buzz you get when you finally reach those two lovely words .........'The End'......... even though you know that there will be more revisions to come. There are a couple of things I'm not certain about - I've made some pretty radical changes - but it's a much better book. The beauty of rewriting is that small changes, a word here and there, can make such a big difference. You'd think you'd get bored of reading the same thing twenty times over, but I love it because I know that every time I'll find something to improve.
Caligula continues to do well on the Amazon historical fiction charts, jockeying for position with another couple of Roman books by first-time authors, and sitting at about seventh among the historical hardbacks, behind Conn Iggulden, Philipa Gregory and Bernard Cornwell. So I'm in pretty good company. It's interesting to compare the reviews each book has. The other debutants have about five or six times more reviews than I have, but a stange pattern has developed in one of them. It started out with a host of five-stars right after publication, but just lately there have been half a dozen one and two stars. The latest one complains he didn't even finish the book and he's been conned into buying it by the earlier reviews, which are very obviously by friends and family. Looking back over them, I think he's right and that the Amazon review system is pretty flawed. When someone puts a title on their review saying Buy this Book you can be pretty certain they're not coming at it objectively! Naturally all of mine are completely kosher. :-)
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