All posts filed under: Historical posts

A new widget has appeared…

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You may notice that a new widget has popped up to the side of my blog.  This is my Goodreads bookshelf that shows a few of the books I’ve been reading recently.  Goodreads is like a Facebook for book readers, where readers can compare the books they read, write reviews, and join discussion groups.  As an author I get an author page so others can follow me, and this blog now feeds directly into my Goodreads page – so if you’re reading this there, welcome!   I am new to Goodreads and to be honest I’m a bit lost navigating my way around it, but it looks to have lots of features I’m looking forward to exploring in the coming weeks.   Being so new, I don’t have many followers or friends on it yet, so if you’re on Goodreads already come find me, or if you want to join make sure you add me as a friend as soon as you do as I could do with some company on the site!  However, I already have …

How to avoid writer’s block whilst writing your novel #writing #writingtips

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Writer’s block can come in many different forms.  For some it will mean they literately cannot write a word and stare at the screen, for others it means they can write but hate everything they do.  Others will get stuck coming up with ideas, whilst some will never finish a story as they don’t like the direction it is heading.  So what can we do about this? Well, there are no hard and fast rules here, and no cure-all fixes.  Each writer is different and they may have their own way of tackling this issue.  I’m not saying mine is any better or worse than theirs – this is just what has worked for me when I wrote my two novels. Firstly, let’s think about our writing environment.  If the only time you think about writing is when you sit yourself in front of your PC or typewriter you might be making life hard for yourself.  People often ask me how long I spend writing – as if it is a quantifiable amount of work that …

2 books on Roman cookery to give away!

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Today I have two copies of Mark Grant’s book on Roman cookery to give-away.   I used this excellent book on researching the food eaten by my characters in my novel Roman Mask.  Roman cookery is so intriguing because it is both so similar to our modern palettes, but also subtlety different.  The Romans were of course famous for lavish banquets, but Mark Grant focuses on what the normal people ate, rather than the over-indulgence of the few.  His recipes come from ancient writings and he attributes each source for each of the dishes.  The Romans used herbs and strong flavours and you can see the origins of the Mediterranean diet that we know today.    Having an authentic meal in a book is a great way to set a scene and instill a particular mood, and I found this book incredibly useful in my research.  It also comes in handy if you want to host a dinner party that has a unusual edge.  All his recipes can be compiled by gathering commonly bought ingredient’s today – …

Borderlands and frontiers part 2: Historical

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Last week I looked at the borderlands in the fantasy genre, the contested boundaries that have been immortalised by writers.  This week I want to look at the borderlands in our own world, and look back into history to find the lands along borders that can be a great place to set a historical novel. picture: thewardrobedoor.com Greece – Asia Minor. 1200 BC to AD 334 Some of the most famous settings for the great scenes of classical world took place on Greece’s border with her neighbour.  Agamemnon’s siege of Troy, when the King of Kings led all the nations of Greece against the great city to its ultimate downfall.  Then a few hundred years later, you have the Persians being held up at the pass of Thermopylae by Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, before Xerses can lay ruin to the Greek mainland.  Finally you have Alexander the Great going back the other way and landing in Asia Minor and defeating the Persian Satraps at the battle of Granicus.  Literally thousands of books have been …

A final walk along the Wall and then home…

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Just a short post today, as I’ll be driving back from Northumberland today as it’s the end of my holiday.  It’s been a fantastic trip, staying in my old cottage, surrounded by history and the beautiful countryside of the area.  I even made it back to Hadrian’s Wall on Friday, after my first trip needed to be aborted due a heavy downpour of rain.  This time the weather was much kinder I had a fantastic walk between Steel Rigg and Housesteads. This section of the Wall shows the remains of a few of the mile-castles that were evenly spaced along the Wall, and each housed around thirty men.  I know it doesn’t appear that that much is left of the mile-castle in the picture, but when the Wall was in active use it would have stood at fifteen feet high, with battlements and a walkway all along the Wall, with three turrets or watchtowers interspersed between each mile-castle.  As you can see from the rocky and craggy countryside, that was no small building achievement along …

A great review for Roman Mask in the Daily Mail

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I’m writing this from a small cottage, nestled in the Cheviot Hills in Northumberland, and even though it is late July, the weather has been disappointing and chilly, so I have a fire blazing in the fireplace.  It is a beautiful part of the world and I was hoping on showing you some great pictures of Hadrian’s Wall that runs through this county, unfortunately when I visited the Wall yesterday it was absolutely pouring with rain and I had to halt the exhibition – even the dog wasn’t too keen on going out in it as it was so heavy.  Still, never mind, I’m up here for another week, so there should be ample opportunity to re-visit the Wall. The week hasn’t been a total loss anyway, because I received my first review in a national newspaper (The Daily Mail) for my novel Roman Mask. Unfortunately, I had no idea the review was coming out in the newspaper and because I was in the wild hills of Northumberland, by the time I heard about in the late …

Ancient Roman sites to inspire you…

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Whilst writing my novel Roman Mask, I was inspired by many of the great ancient sites that can be found all around Europe and the Mediterranean basin.  This is by no means a complete list of all the wonderful sites that are in existence, but here are a few that inspired me… Rome, Italy.  How could I start anywhere else?  The ancient city that was at the heart of her Empire has to be on everyone’s list of places to visit if they are interested in Ancient Rome.  So much still remains and is easily accessible in this fantastic city.  The Colosseum was incredible, but as it was built later than my novel was set I couldn’t use it for research, but it still gives an amazing perspective on the sheer power and dominance that Rome held over the world at the time.  The Augustan palace on the top of the Palatine Hill nearby was very useful for me, and stretches all the way to the ancient forum at the centre of Ancient Rome.  But …

C J Sansom, Sovereign

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I don’t often read crime novels, I’m not sure why, my grandmother used to love them, but I could never generate the necessary enthusiasm for finding out whodunit.  Maybe my mind just doesn’t work that way, or I have too much sympathy for the bad guys, either way, I’d have made a terrible detective. So it’s an unusual choice of novel this week that I write about – C J Sansom’s Sovereign that features her sleuth Matthew Shardlake.  I was drawn to it because of the period of history, Tudor England in all its pomp and splendour; a court full of intrigue and danger, the land in a flux of great change and upheaval, yet beginning to erect the pillars of society that we now identify with as forever English. As this is a crime novel I don’t want to give away the plot by discussing the characters too much, because as with any crime novel, they are key to the storyline.  I’ll just say that Shardlake is an interesting and unusual investigator, hunchbacked and often …

Five types of Battle!

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There are many different ways to write a fantasy or a historical novel, but if you’re looking for a climatic finish, a great battle at the end is hard to beat, and it fits in nicely to both genres.  Here are five types… The Siege.  I love castles, great fortresses of stone with arrow slits and murder holes, battlements festooned with banners.  A great setting for a defiant group of defenders to hold out against overwhelming odds – and for an added bonus you can arm your attackers with a whole arsenal of siege engines: Huge trebuchets, deadly bolt throwers, fearsome battering rams, crafty siege towers. The Set-piece. Rows of soldiers, resplendent in their burnished armour, lined up rank upon rank, the pride of a nations strength standing proudly in the sun awaiting the enemy to approach.  Only for them all to lie dead by the end of that same day – the tragic loss that comes from man’s ambition.  To successfully describe a set-piece well will require the author to have a grasp of …

Walking along the Wall and through History…

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This may be my last Sunday update for a while, as I will be driving up to Northumberland next Sunday so I doubt I’ll be able to write my normal Sunday post.  I am very fortunate that my family own a small cottage up in the Nortumbrian hills, somewhere I can go to write, relax, and a be inspired. Anyone familiar with this beautiful part of England will know that Hadrian ’s Wall runs through the county.  It one of Rome’s most famous engineering projects and not only divided the British Isles but also continued to shape its history long after the Roman’s left our shores.  Would England and Scotland have developed separately without the Romans dividing their lands before either nation existed?  Who knows, but I doubt it.  Either way, it is an amazing example of their ambition, as well as their military and engineering might. George R R Martin says it was whilst visiting Hadrian’ Wall that he started to form the idea for the Wall that divided Westeros in his magnificent Game …