I drove east to Oxford and a party to celebrate 25 years of the Felicity Bryan Agency. It took place in the beautiful, refurbished setting of the Ashmolean Museum. I overdosed on champagne and managed to be articulate enough to talk to a number of agency authors. I chatted with Peter Heather, who very modestly told me he was teacher, which he is, but he is also Professor of Medieval History at King’s College, London. His expertise is the fall of the Roman Empire, so I asked him to tell me, in one word, why the Roman Empire collapsed, he replied ‘Barbarians’ – which I think is the title of one of his books. I want to read it now, not just because I don’t know much about who the Barbarians were, but because Peter was a very amusing bloke. Lydia Syson, an author I hadn’t met before, was embarrassingly nice about my books, and Joanne Owen I discussed being Welsh, and what Wales means to us.
Battles with My Boy
Last week I took my son to start his first term at university. Saying goodbye to the first born was something I was not looking forward to. I wanted him to go, to begin his new life, but knew I’d miss him. He’s been bogged down with school subjects he was never that immersed in, and so to start studying the thing he loves most, politics, means that he is doing what he wants to do. It is such a bittersweet experience. Once upon a time I had an idea of writing a book about our travels together: Battles with My Boy. It was to be a travelogue of journeys across battlefields of Britain, and a commentary on our arguments. We used to argue all the time, about politics, education, how to make tea, where the biscuits have gone.
Cutting Tentacles
In June I went to see my agent, Catherine, who, along with Amy Waite, a new member of staff at the agency, sat with me and made some suggestions on what to do with the new book. At the moment it’s called Octopus Crush. I hope it stays that way, but you never can tell with publishers. It’ll probably end up being called Hairy Octopus or His Dank Tentacles.
Catherine wants cuts, and I can understand why. It’s because my book is far too long. One day, perhaps, I will assemble the cuts into Octopus Crush, the Author’s Cut, but it will be rambling and have too many scenes in which nothing happens.
A Plague of Ideas
I’ve been reading up on the French Revolution – Hilary Mantel’s colossal A Place of Greater Safety, and Simon Schama’s Citizens. I’m quite obsessed with the character of Robespierre, and sense the germ of an idea for a book, although I have so many germs for books I could start a plague. Ideas, as we all know, are easy. Doing something with them is a different kettle of piranhas.
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Awfully Big Blogs
I’ve been blogging for years for other people. The most popular of these is the Awfully Big Blog Blog Adventure. (http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.co.uk/). I’ve blogged about education, Wales, music, creativity. Many other authors add their thoughts, too. It’s worth a visit.
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The Big Switch
I haven’t had time to keep fiddling about with Dreamweaver and Photoshop. It’s too time consuming. I’ve decided to use WordPress and see how it goes.
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