Book Signing Date!

I have a piece to write about another visit I made to the Temple Church last week and how it pertains to Gilbert Marshal, it's just a case of getting around to it as Christmas and approaching deadlines, begin to squeeze my time even more than it's usually squeezed.

However, I'm dropping in to say I will be signing copies of The Scarlet Lion, Daughters of the Grail, The Greatest Knight, and my other novels at W. H. Smiths Meadowhall in Sheffield on Wednesday 6th December at 1pm. If you're in the area, do come and say hi if you've got a moment!

Title Deeds

How do you go about choosing a book title? Is it there as a slow burn long before you begin? Does it come to you in a flash at the start of your project? Does it develop as you write? Do you think about titles afterwards?
Long ago, before I was published, I bought Writing Historical Fiction by Rhona Martin. She says: 'It always makes me uneasy when someone reading a story in a workshop says, 'I haven't thought of a title yet.' All too often it turns out that the writer hasn't thought about the theme either, with the consequence that quite soon he or she complains of being 'stuck' with that particular story, having run out of anything further to say.' She says that frequently writers' block comes of losing sight of your theme and that since a title should be a distillation of the theme, if you don't have a title, keeping to your theme is going to be more difficult.
I acknowledge Rhona Martin's point and agree that it might be true in some cases, but I certainly have to disagree where it applies to myself as a writer. I'm now on my sixteenth published novel and just finishing up my seventeenth for delivery sometime before March O7. Some of them have had strong titles from the start. Others have been a last minute scramble as we head to press. I have yet to suffer from writers' block. Looking at the titles of my three most recent novels about the Marshal family - one in print and a bestseller, one about to come out in hardcover and one still in progress - I find that none of them had a title at the outset.

The Greatest Knight had a working title of William Marshal - yeah, I guess that's a distillation of the theme, as is the final, but up until the last minute, The Greatest Knight wasn't carved in stone.

The Scarlet Lion - due out on 6th December was called Marshal II for most of its creation. Again it was a last minute scramble to find something more inspiring. The Red Lion of Pembroke? - Nope, too much like a pub. William and Isabelle? - too much like a drawing room.
The Countess? - no, because it's more about William than his wife, although she does feature strongly. Something, something Regent? No. You could call it a Regency novel, because William was regent of England, but of course everyone thinks of the Regency as existing in the early nineteenth century. Same problem with the word 'Marshal'. People immediately think of westerns. Then there's the problem of having a wide cross section of readers - all ages all genders, so the title needs to welcome all. The Scarlet Lion was the final decision. I like it and it does the job, but it was a tough one.

The work in progress is about William Marshal's father John: the man who told King Stephen to do as he wished with his son because he had the anvils and hammers to beget better sons. The working title has been Hammers and Anvils but the general consensus was that while the title was pertinent to the character and part of a direct quote from the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, it was perhaps a bit too in your face and masculine for the broad scope of the readership. As aforementioned the word 'Marshal' in the title wasn't a goer. We were all out of red lions. I quite liked The Forging, (as I felt it was a pun that covered a lot of ground) but no takers. A long dog walk, the inspiration of a song by Runrig called 'Only The Brave' 1 and a quote from the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal 2 finally led me to suggest 'A Place Beyond Courage'. My agent and publisher love it. I'm relieved to have what appears to be a strong title that reflects many of the themes in the story...and in place three months before I'm due to hand it in.
I thought I'd go through all of my titles and try and remember if they came to me at the beginning or the end of the writing process. I'd also be interested to know how other writers who happen by this blog come by their own titles for their work.

The Wild Hunt - last minute scramble
The Running Vixen - Decided from the start, inspired by the above title
The Leopard Unleashed - suggested by a friend half way through the writing
Children of Destiny/Daughters of the Grail - decided on half way through
Shields of Pride - known from the start - one of the easy ones
First Knight - a given by Columbia Pictures
The Conquest - known from the start
The Champion - known from the start
The Love Knot - known from the start
The Marsh King's Daughter - known from the start
Lords of the White Castle - Decided half way through. The Spanish are calling it The Outlaw, which I think is much better actually.
The Winter Mantle - Decided late on. For a long time it was The Briar Garden
The Falcons of Montabard - known from the start
Shadows and Strongholds - a scramble at the last minute

1 The relevant lines being
Not to love is not to live
Not to live is to feel no pain
So unlock this heart of stone
Teach me the ways of mystery
In the places where they say
Only the brave can walk alone

2 The brave and the valiant
are to be sought often between the hooves of horses
for never will cowards fall down there

To Market, To Market additional photo

Here's the dough trough (see post below),
and have somehow managed to post the brooch and wimple pins, although the formatting is still weird!

To Market to Market!

Staying on the theme of re-enactment for this next post, I went to two re-enactor's markets in Warwick and Coventry last weekend and returned with all sorts of gauds! The rather alarming piece of pottery on the left is a replica of a mid thirteenth century jug from Kingston on Thames. It's made by 'Jim the Pot' of Trinity Court Potteries, whose wares may also be seen gracing the trestles of the film A Knight's Tale. Here's the url to his site. www.trinitycourtpotteries.co.uk
I've now added it to my mantlepiece collection of 'authentic' medieval pottery, much of which I use at shows, and of course as an inspiration to my writing.
As well as the chappy on the left, I also returned with:

A 12th century replica brooch
Four wimple pins
Two cookery booklets titled: The Recipe Book of Gareth The Baker and And We Must Eat of the Yellow Wobbly Bits - being a sundry and diverse collection of notes on the arcane art of offal cookery.
A rather beautiful deep wooden trough for kneading bread dough
A trug for my husband who had his last one stolen at the village
show.
A Venetian glass pen as a Christmas present
I ordered a pair of shoes from www.anaperiodshoes.co.uk They're in the High Medieval section and they're the twelfth century laced ankle shoe.
Not content with that, I have also ordered a late period kite shield (mid twelfth century) from
www.shieldsandshoes.co.uk
It's going to be blazoned for John Marshal, the father of the great William. Not that anyone knows his blazon and heraldry was only just beginning at that time, but I am having it done half green half yellow like William's, but with the green and yellow reversed, and the famous rampant lion in the foreground.
I think that's about all I bought - indeed, I would have needed a mortgage if I'd come home with anything else, but pennies are now being saved for a nice firebox on which to do my cooking instead of having to use the group's firebox. This will give me leeway to experiment at home. And I did find myself rather longingly eying up the rivet mail hauberks and late 12thC helms at the Get Dressed for Battle stand....Hmmmm. www.getdressedforbattle.co.uk

Robin Hood, Robin Hood!

Last weekend Nottingham held its fourteenth annual Robin Hood Pageant in the castle grounds. It was business as usual for my re-enactment society Regia Anglorum who were employed to provide part of the living history exhibit and acts of derring do in the main arena.
The photo to the left features members of the Nottingham branch of Regia, the Conroi de Vey.
I am on the far left of the photo and dressed down in my 'cooking frock'. Just before the photo was taken (by Sarah, also known as the Lady Nicolaa and the mum of the two little boys in the picture) I remembered to remove my by then disreputable apron!
De Vey has performed at most of the pageants, aided and abetted by other groups within Regia Anglorum's framework - Cestrefeld, de Bec, Deoraby to name but three, together with guests from other societies who share Regia's ethic for 'getting it right.' Not that the Robin Hood Pageant is an event calling for white-hot authenticity. It's a fun show where anything vaguely Medieval goes. Costumes range from Viking to fifteenth Century. Purple velvet, wench corsets, black leather and fantasy gear are well represented. Regia's dateline for this event was late 12thC and we dressed to suit.
Numerous traders have booths and stalls on the site and it's a great opportunity to do some early Christmas shopping. I picked up some Fraoch beer for my sons. www.heatherale.co.uk
Also a medieval drinking cup from www.themerchantventurer.co.uk
A while ago I blogged that I was considering what sort of food to dish up to the Regia members at the pageant, given that I'd be cooking outdoors, using a firebox and cauldrons and catering for approximately thirty people, including some vegetarians. I finally decided on a spicy beef stew for the Saturday, containing (as well as beef!) onions, ginger, cumin and black pepper. I'd tried this out before at Castleton and it had worked very well. Also it's a fairly generic, authentic medieval dish. Being as it was the Robin Hood Pageant, I could always claim that we'd stolen the spices off the sheriff's baggage cart! The vegetarians dined on a leek and onion pottage. People returned for seconds, so it was evidently a success! Sunday's main course was sweet and sour chicken (authentic Medieval again. The Museum of London cookbook has it in the Norman section, although more academic works put it later, but I assume it comes from a long tradition). Actually, when I say authentic, the meat should have been goat or rabbit, but chicken is more readily available today and user friendly. For smaller quantities I'd have used the original suggested meat. The sweet and sour was obtained using wine, wine vinegar, honey and currants. There were also onions in the dish and garlic.
We also had nibbles, including parsnip cakes - mash cooked parsnip with flour and salt and fry on the griddle in a little butter in the manner of a potato cake. Excellent! We had pear tarts and leche lumbard among other things. The latter is an interesting medieval dessert for which there are as many recipes as days in the year. My adaptation is this: Empty a bag of dates into a saucepan. Cover with white wine. Add a couple of teaspoons of mixed spice and one of ginger. A few screws of ground black pepper. Cook until it makes a squidgy mush. Then stir in breadcrumbs until you have a stiff but still moist mixture. When cool, mould into an oblong shape. It will look like a plate of poo (ahem!). People at shows who've never encountered it before will look at it askance, but once they've tried it, if they like dates, they can't stop eating it.
As always, when attending a show in kit, there was a lot to learn just by being around re-enactors and enthusiasts for a couple of days. I had a go with a hand quern (hard work, but wonderful to see grains gradually emerge after several grindings onto the boult cloth as flour.
Fun too to learn that a pine cone makes a marvellous brillo pad for a scummy cauldron!

All in all a great weekend. Good friends, good food, loads of research and a medieval atmosphere. What more could anyone want....apart from a bit less rain on the Sunday afternoon!

Covered up!

Every year the All About Romance website http://www.likesbooks.com/
runs a contest for the best book covers published in romance industry in the USA during the previous year - romance in this sense covering a broad church. So large and popular has this particular contest become that it now has its own dedicated site at Cover cafe. www.covercafe.com/contest/2005/coverintro2005.shtml
I am delighted to announce that the cover for Shadows And Strongholds (St Martins Press) has made the final ten in the historical section as adjudged by the panel. If anyone would care to vote for it in the final placings, then please do! I am thrilled not only on my own behalf, but on Larry Rostant's. He's the illustrator of my new look covers and when I told him Shadows and Strongholds had made the final, he was touched and really pleased because this is the first award of any kind he's been up for.
'Shadows and Strongholds' belongs to the genre of 'headless bodice' covers of which there have admittedly been a plethora since The Other Boleyn Girl brought them to the fore. Some readers say they have become tired of them, but they still seem to be doing very well across the board and personally I love mine (and not only because I have seen sales more than quadruple since their inception!) Of course there are abominations - there are in any style of cover, but done well, the 'headless bodice' and its variations 'bodyless feet' for e.g. The Time Traveller's Wife, can be dead certs for getting readers to at least notice and pick up the novel in the first place. To judge from the finalists in the historical section of the 2005 Cover contest, the 'headless bodice' has had strong appeal to the judging panel with five of the ten being of this type. I also notice from glancing around that heroines with their hands behind their backs appear to be a key feature! Here's the url to the historical section. http://www.covercafe.com/contest/2005/HST.html
When Larry first designed Shadows and Strongholds, the heroine's gown was blue velvet. I sent in an example photo of a typical gown of the period that a re-enactor friend had made using orange and gold brocade from a bolt of cloth especially woven for English Heritage. That fabric design and the colours have been morphed onto the Shadows and Strongholds gown. It's not strictly accurate in style, but the fabric is! I have been told that the cover was the hit of the Frankfurt Bookfair last year and that foreign publishers who had given Shadows and Strongholds a miss in the old hardback cover, were coming back to reconsider buying purely because of the cover art. That might not be what one wants to hear as a wordsmith, but as a commercial author, one gets down on one's knees and says thank you!

A Folk Tale - Amalthea

I probably receive about a dozen e-mails a week from readers. It's always lovely to hear from people, as well as interesting to know a little bit about them. It helps with the demographic of who my audience is, but I'm also generally a curious person about life, the world and everything, so it's good too to have some feedback and interraction.
Back in August Deborah Peake (on the right in the photo) wrote to me saying she'd enjoyed the novels and was interested to notice that I'd mentioned I used musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and Runrig for inspiration when writing. Deborah herself is a great fan of these artists and as a musician herself in a two-woman folk band has appeared supporting Runrig at the Skaagen folk festival. She asked if I'd like to hear the kind of music that she and her partner Helen Andrews composed and played. Of course I did! Deborah was kind enough to send me a couple of CDs (Dancing a Different Dream and Blame it on the Stars.) and over the past few weeks I've been listening to Amalthea. What a treat. http://www.amaltheamusic.com/
They have their own unique sound, but I would say that if you like artists such as All About Eve, Sarah Maclachlan, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Seth Lakeman, Show of Hands, the Corrs, the Dixie Chicks or Enya, you will probably love Amalthea. It's modern folk, looking both forwards and back for its inspiration. Helen's voice is just beautiful and Deborah's violin accompaniments and solos have the ability to make you ache. What's more they compose most of their material themselves. You can hear a sample at their myspace site. http://www.myspace.com/amaltheauk
They're not paying me to post this accolade - honest!
I find music a hugely influential muse to my writing. Every scene I write owes something to the singer and the song. Although I have only recently come to Amalthea, I suspect they'll be appearing on one of my novel soundtracks some time in the future!
Oh, and while I'm on the subject of music and just to pinch a moment from Helen and Deborah,
My Emo/rock orientated son has just introduced me to a band called Alter Bridge. Their album One Day Remains and particularly the track Down to My Last have been great inspiration for the siege of Newbury I've recently been working on!