Justin Hill on Hastings, Sequels and How to Find an Agent part i & ii

Halloween, Fancy Dress, Bonfire Night, and thier Ancient Roots

On this day in 1605, a man named Guy Fawkes was found in an undercroft, in a house belonging to John Whynniard, Keeper of the King's Wardrobe, with twenty barrels of gunpowder.  His plan had been to blow up King James when he came to the House of Lords for the opening of Parliament and in England we still celebrate the failure of his plot by lighting bonfires, shooting off fireworks and eating toffee apples.  But we’re also celebrating something much older; a comforting fact for me as I’ve never quite had a simple relationship with the burning of the ‘Guy’, or the celebration of Protestantism over Catholicism.    

For one, like Fawkes, I come from an old Northern Catholic family, but more than that, we went to the same school: St Peter’s, in York.  He was and remains our most famous old boy: an odd example for young boys trying to emulate our famous alumni. 

At our school we didn’t burn a Guy on our bonfires, but we did light bonfires because it is the perfect way of fighting back the gathering gloom of northern climes.  This festival makes sense because it’s a celebration much older than 1605, and owes its origins to a festival that marked the end of the Harvest, and the onset of winter.

Bonfires were originally lit five nights earlier, at Halloween.  Halloween was the beginning of Hallowmas: (from the Old English halig, which meant ‘Holy’ or ‘saint’; and mas) - a Christian festival where the souls of the dead were honoured on the festivals of All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween); All (Hallow’s) Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day.

But that too had older, deeper roots.

The Celts called it Samhain: a three night festival which marked ‘Summer’s End.’  It was a time when the boundaries between this world and the other were at their thinnest.  Bonfires were lit to hold back the darkness; people dressed up (mummers); and the Wild Hunt was rumoured to ride through the skies terrifying children.  How little things change….!

Yes, we still dress up, still feel night spirits in the darkness; still scare ourselves with ‘ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night’.   What we’re really celebrating is something much more integral: the onset of the dark, and our innate reaction against it.  And that I find very comforting. 

Call it Bonfire Night, Halloween, whatever you like: it’s a festival with many names that marks the same half-way point between Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice.  We celebrate it the same way they did, dressing up, scaring ourselves and lighting fires.  It is a tangible link us to our unknown ancestors who have disappeared into the dark before us. 

How novels are like girlfriends: my personal relationship with writing...

I found this old print of the only photo of my office circa 2000.  Some things haven't changed: though the 1995 Toshiba Satellite sadly gave up the ghost.

I’ve often thought that my relationship to my novels is similar to that with various women in my life. 

 

Other novels were those that needed working at.  Some that just hit you out of the blue, and some that were never really working out and were doomed from the start.  And then there are some which come like a bolt of lightning.  DDTH was like that.The Drink and Dream Teahouse (I've always called it DDTH for short) was my first novel, and so it has a very special place for me: it was my first love. 

It was as incredible a time for me as being a teenager and falling in love for the first time.  Writing it was an intense, all-consuming love affair.  It was like the story had been bottled inside me and suddenly burst out.  I could barely keep up. 

It took me six months from first line to putting the mss in an envelope, already sold for what was then a record breaking amount for an unfinished novel.

I had spent my twenties working abroad with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and I had already written two books about my experiences in rural China and Eritrea, East Africa.  But I found travel writing a little stilted.  Travel writing is an odd business, and it turns all the locals into foreigners in their own country.  I was dying to break into fiction.  I said 'graduate into fiction' then, and I still feel that fiction is a higher art form than Creative Non Fiction. 

What fiction gave me though, was a freedom to not have 'me' in the story, and this was so liberating.  I found, oddly, that I could be much more honest in fiction than in nonfiction.  And I could get much closer to the truth as well.

I came back to England from a last stint in China at the age of 29, to do an MA in Creative Writing in Lancaster.  As the leaves began to turn (autumn still seems like the best time to start a novel) I sat down to write a story that I wanted to put all my feelings about modern China into. 

I'm glad DDTH only took six months to write, because like your first love affair it was an unguarded and complete fall for me.  I would be out in the pub, thinking of my characters rather than listening to what anyone was saying.  They would wake me in the middle of the night.  I became a little obsessed.  The lives and challenges of the characters felt real.  They still feel real.  When I look at China now, the book is as relevant as it was ten years ago.

It's flawed of course.  It was my first novel and I had no idea what I was doing.  But there is a freshness and an honesty and a ballsyness to the writing that now I look back and admire. And I wonder if I still write that confidently, and fear that I dont.  Much in the way that after the first cut, you're never quite so open to others again.  I wonder if other writers have the same feeling?

DDTH won prizes I had never heard of, and was banned by the government in China, which in turns infuriated and delighted me, and I'm very fond of this book, and am delighted to have it out in the world again. If you'd like to get it then there are some links below, and if you like it, or not, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

DDTH ebook is up on Amazon on a special 48 hour sale: $1.99  £1.28

 

On this Day: Classical Legends and the Perseid Meteors

In 30BC, on this day, the last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt, committed suicide.  Her name was Cleopatra VII Philopator, who famously ended her life with the bite of an asp.  It is also the first day of the Perseid Meteor Shower, which happens – obviously - in the constellation of Perseus.  Perseus was the killer of the Gorgon, Medusa, who had snakes instead of hair, and it was said that asps came from the drops of blood that rained down as Perseus carried her head to Olympus.

When I think of the Greek myths, I think of my prep school Classics teacher, Mr. Field.  He was an Old Peterite, and had come back after retirement to help out with the teaching.  He was supposed to have fought in the First World War, and to have a wooden foot.  School myth had it that some boys had crawled under his desk while he was talking, and untied his laces. 

His lesson usually started with him asking us where we had got up to in the particular story: the Peloponnesian War, the Punic Wars, Alexander’s campaigns, Romulus and Remus.  Someone told him, and then he would stand unsteadily, and draw a map on the blackboard with white chalk.  He seemed to draw almost from touch rather than sight.  The he would sit and would not stand up again.

In year two, we started with the birth of the gods, and moved slowly forward as you graduated from up to fifth form: Greek Myths, Greek histories, then onto the birth of Rome, and the history of the Republic right up to the invasion of Britain.

Whenever I think of Mr. Field, he is drawing the map of Greece, but he could do Asia Minor, Sicily, Rome, and even Gaul as well.  His lesson was pure storytelling: and there was something timeless about it.  We were snotty little boys in the early 1980s, and he was an old man with gummy eyes and few teeth all sitting in a Victorian era classroom, with sash windows, and rugby fields outside.  But we could have been in a Victorian parlour, lit with gas lamps, or even a thegn’s hall with the light of the fire on our faces.  Those lessons were magical, and of course would never be allowed now!  But there’s something to be said for story-telling to be crow-barred into the curriculum.

Although it seems something of a shame that these classes talked of Mediterranean blue skies, rather than our own Northern ones, and the legends of Beowulf or Ingeld, or the adventures of Harald Hardrada.    

What is wrong with the Publishing Industry II: The Author Strikes Back!

A few months ago I wrote a post 'What is wrong with the publishing industry' -  in which I lamented the fact that I was unable to convince my current publishers to put my first novel back into print: even though it was won prestigious prizes, sold 12,000 copies in hardback, and 35,000 in paperback before my editor left, and I switched publishers and that novel went out of print.

Rather than going back over the facts of that particular case, I want to share how I responded to this case, and where, as an author, it has led me. 

But first of all - if you're at all like me - which means that you have stories that are publishable - but which remain unpublished, then read on.

Most important advice first... I don't know David Gaughran, he's not a friend, but if you're tempted - and you should be - then first of all you should go out and get this book:

It's an ebook, so in fact you don't even have to go out and read it.  But I don't have a kindle, I hear people calling.  Don't worry: you just need a computer and an Internet connection, and then you can download this program which allows you to read the book on your pc, or ipad or however you commune with the world wide web.

But I don't like reading books on a screen.... well - devote yourself the hour or so to read through this.  It's well written, practical and clear, and won't take long to go through.  And it tells you why and most importantly how to epublish your own material.

Now, I have to be honest.  I spent five years nagging my editor about putting The Drink and Dream Teahouse back into print because the last thing I wanted to do was to get involved with self-publishing.  Heck!  I barely had enough time to write my new stories, feed my kids, see my wife and then relax at the end of a day never mind dealing with cover designers, picking covers, prices, and places to market the book. 

But as Publishing companies become more profit orientated, and the number of places they sell books reduces in number (Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smith...and - how many of us still buy books from our local in dependant bookstore?) the pressure they're under from book sellers increases.  The market is driven by new, new, new!  My editor is a great guy.  He likes the novel and wanted to buy it first time round.  But - as a Chinese saying goes -  it's a used shoe.  Who wants to wear it?!  Publishing wants an increasingly marketable books.  Square eggs, if you see what i mean, and if not all your eggs are square then you're stuck.

Publishing is great when you have a new book out.  You buy the Sunday papers to read your reviews, watch the first responses on Amazon, do the tour of bookshops, sit at a table stacked high with your book, and sign your way through them.  And then nothing happens for a year - if you're a prolific author - or if you're like me, then there's radio silence for a year or two, or more probably, with 9 month lead times - three years till the next novel comes out.

Which - in the world of instant publishing - this all seems ponderous as a way of communicating with readers, and supplying them with stories.

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As a published author with a number of prizes to my name, you might be asking 'Why should I be worrying about self-publishing?' 

I want to be clear: I still see publishing novels through mainstream publishers as my primary activity, but there are ways I can support my novels in a number of ways.

The principal reason is that there are things I've written which are unpublishable in the current book world.  I'm working on a series of novels covering the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and there's a lot of fabulous material there.  Some of it fits well into the novel format.  Some of it doesn't.  So what do I do with the 5,000 word pieces.  Or the 20,000 word novellas which won't fly far in the pitch to the marketing pips, never mind to the Waterstones buyers.  Until now there's been no way to get these stories out.  No magazine published short historical fiction. 

So this is what self-publishing means for me.  Being in control and being able to write what I like and want to write about, as well as providing my readers with the things they like to read.

What does it mean for you?  Are you writing something that has no obvious audience, or an audience that might not necessarily best be reached through mainstream publishing.  Well, go read David Gaughran's book and see how easy this can be. 

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I meant to get onto the whole topic of how I've gone about self-publishing today - but will come back to that soon....!  Just to say that - like me - you can be a complete newb, and in a matter of days you can take a mss and turn it into a book that you can put up on Amazon with minimal effort. 

Literary Heroine returns to China

You know how wierd it is when different groups of friends meet each other.... well I have the same feeling with characters in books.  The Conquest Series starts within living memory of the end of my second novel, Passing Under Heaven when Hastings was just a twinkle in the author's imagination.   

Its a lovely idea that the main characters - Godwin and Orchid, as I called her in my novel - might have met up.  She would have been an old lady then, so perhaps it would have been better if she met Wulfnoth, or Godwin's grandfather, whoever he was...  A story there perhaps?!  It would of course be much more interesting if they met as youngsters.  In fact, Kendra and Orchid would have a lot in common - though Orchid seemed to tend towards the self-destructive so it might have all ended messily with jade wine cups getting thrown.   

One thing I can be sure of - these characters would certainly have enjoyed a night of wine and poetry.  They also have a lot in common.  None of them know it but they all come at the end of an epoch in thier respective countries: Orchid in the Tang Dynasty, and Godwin at the end of Anglo Saxon England.

Anyway!  Digressions aside.  I'm delighted to announce that Passing Under Heaven has come home and is coming out in Chinese, published by the Anhui Literature & Art Press.  It's been translated by Professor Zhang Xihua, Dean of the School of Applied English, Beijing International Studies University and as soon as I get my hands on a copy I'll post the cover up here.

A English book about a Chinese poetess, translated back into Chinese: now I wonder what that looks like?!

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I've had something of a chequered history with my books and China.  My first novel was banned by the Chinese censors back in 2002, so this is a moment of small personal triumph over the book burners and men with black pens. 

A Tribute to Mick Aston

It's rather sad today, as a long time fan of Time Team to read that the former presenter, Mick Aston has died at the much-too-young age of 66.  (announcement here)

This compounds the sadness at the end of Time Team itself, which Mick left in February 2012 - which seems to me one of the more baffling decisions on the part of TV execs.  Time Team was educational, informative, amusing and sat firmly at the quality end of reality TV.  But this is more a personal account of my relationship with Time Team, as something of a tribute to Mick and his work.

I was living in China when the series started in 1994, but when I came back to the UK it quickly became the Sunday afternoon slot that I had to get home and turn on the TV for.  What can I say, I love history, and the subject matter of the second series was like soul-food: it nourished that fascination like nothing else.  Lord of the Isles; The Saxon Graves; The Lost Villa; The Archbishop's Back Garden; Medieval Dining Hall: these were local stories, small, intimate looks inside Iron Age huts, a Saxon graveyard, a Roman fort resettled and rebuilt by a Saxon lord, the slow decay of a Roman villa on the South Downs as the social structure that supported them began to decline with the loss of the Roman legions.

These were historical stories you never found in books.  They were stories not grand enough to make it into histories.  But through the intimate and everyday details, through them you could find the universal. 

My relationship with Time Team has been an odd one.  I had a friend who worked on the set, and whenever she appeared in the pub or kneeling in a wet trench uncovering a bit of pot and handing it over to one of the period experts, I would think: huh, I know her!  Small world!

I was back in York when the York dig happened, and here I learnt that the place where I had locked my bike up, at the Museum Gardens, was inches from St Leonard's Hospice.  That the lawn around the Station Hotel was the site of a great Roman palace. I stood at the fence and peered down at the archaeologists working, and nothing much happened, and I moved on.

But most of the time I was abroad and had to work hard to get my fill of Time Team episodes.  At one point they were videoed and sent to me in a parcel.  Thirteen episodes on a single disc, with all the random quality home videoed tapes had: starting half way through the title music, half way through Tony Robinson's introduction, or half way through the program, when the dig is already going pear shaped on day 2.


Since broadband, I've taken to streaming Time Team episodes, and catching up on series I missed.  When the first kids stopped napping, I would watch one each lunchtime and we would sit in a hot flat on the twentieth floor of a Hong Kong skyrise and watch people knee deep in mud battle with the English weather.  I took notes, and called it research for novels.

We still watch them, though now it's usually on a Saturday afternoon, when the youngest is asleep and the rest of us pile onto the sofa and watch what is called in our house, 'Daddy TV'.  It is probably how my children, now 9, 7, 4 and 2 imagine England: pock marked by archaeologists and holes in people's lawns.  Not a bad way to think of their homeland.

I suppose the important think Time Team,and Mick Aston did was to show us how you need only dig a hole and find history.  A story, I like to think - and that we are surrounded with stories are all about us.  The past lives on in the landscape we live in, the lay-out of our streets, the location of villages, churches, the width of Edwardian terrace houses in York, which retain the Viking property boundaries a thousand years on. 

Mick will be missed, by all those who knew him, but also by those, like me, who never met him.  I hope he has a beer and a hole to dig somewhere in the hereafter.  The greatest compliment is that he made a difference. 


UPDATE: there's an internet campaign to get a special one-off dig in honour of Mick.  Check out the fan page here

Mick himself, in this interview said that ''My favourites are usually sites in the Middle Ages (1066-1540) or even better, the post-Roman, 'Dark Age' and Anglo-Saxon sites, though it is usually very difficult to work on sites of this period.  It may be surprising to some but my all time favourite site of the 200 programmes was the Llygadwy site in Brecon (broadcast in January 2001). Viewers may remember this as a Celtic spring site which seemed to be spurious: it had a dodgy collection of material from the spring; and a spurious burial chamber and castle.'