Conn Iggulden, THE DOUBLE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS
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[0:47]Today I'm interviewing Khan Iguldin by Phone.
[0:50]Khan is a best-selling author of historical fiction, most notably the Emperor series and
[0:55]conqueror series.
[0:56]He also co-wrote the dangerous book for boys with his brother Hal, because Harry Iguldin,
[1:01]and most recently the double-dangerous book for boys with his sons Arthur and Cameron.
[1:05]It graduated of the University of London and a former English teacher and department head
[1:09]Khan currently lives in England with his wife and four children.
[1:12]So welcome Khan to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, thanks for coming on the show.
[1:16]It is a pleasure.
[1:17]So how did you come up with the idea for the dangerous book for boys and the newest double-dangerous
[1:23]book for boys?
[1:24]Newly released.
[1:25]What inspired you to write these books?
[1:27]The original book was back in 2006 and it was partly because I had a son.
[1:33]I started to look around for the sort of books I'd had in the house when I was growing
[1:37]up because my father was born in 1923 and his father was born in 1850.
[1:42]So he had my dad very late, which meant we had titles of books with things like 101
[1:46]chemical amusements for boys in the house and they would say, get magnesium or something
[1:53]like this.
[1:54]And you couldn't do it anymore.
[1:55]So I looked around for a sort of modern equivalence and one I found that weren't an effort.
[1:59]Well, before I forget it all, I'll settle down with my brother six months in a shed and
[2:04]we'll see if we can knock it all up into a book.
[2:06]I mean, we didn't expect it to be popular.
[2:09]We didn't expect anyone to enjoy it.
[2:11]He said to me, do you think it'll be a bestseller?
[2:13]And I said, honestly, Harry, no loads of books published each year and it's very hard to
[2:18]get into the top 10 and all the rest of it, but we will get complimentary copies.
[2:22]I mean, this is true.
[2:23]We will get complimentary copies from the publisher, which we can give to my kids and
[2:27]your kids when you have them.
[2:28]And you'll have these and it'll be something cool that we did together for six months.
[2:32]And that's it.
[2:33]That's it.
[2:34]That's what we're doing is these are just making decent memories.
[2:36]I mean, it turned out to sell really well.
[2:39]It turned out that a lot of people out there who cared about the same things and that remains
[2:44]one of the sort of most satisfying things that I've done was discovering that, discovering
[2:48]that connection.
[2:49]I didn't really know it before.
[2:50]I thought it was just him and me and setting things on fire.
[2:54]It's kind of fun to discover that there were so many out there who are also interested
[2:58]in stories of courage and making a bow and arrow and that was sort of joyous.
[3:07]I think that it goes back to this whole right, what you love, right?
[3:11]You're just doing something for the pure joy of it and then people respond to that versus
[3:15]if you had tried to write a bestseller.
[3:16]I mean, I know you have written any other bestsellers, but in your historical fiction genre.
[3:21]But if you had tried, maybe it wouldn't have come out so well.
[3:26]My normal writing life is to write about Julius Caesar and Ganga's car and I try and
[3:30]write exciting and interesting stories that this was literally taking six months off
[3:34]because in those days, I was 18 months ahead of publication.
[3:38]The publisher's always like you'd have a second book in the can before.
[3:41]The first one comes out so that they've got a sort of constant role.
[3:44]They know when to put it in the year and things like that.
[3:47]So I thought, well, 18 months is a long time.
[3:49]I can just get rid of six of those.
[3:50]It was right this other book and I still have a year.
[3:53]So it was literally trying to sort of squeeze in a personal project in between my main
[3:57]line.
[3:58]And that was the one that took off.
[3:59]It was a real surprise.
[4:00]It was a sort of joyous surprise, as I say.
[4:02]This second book, the double dangerous book for boys, that's after 12 years of having,
[4:07]I mean, that's that first son now is, gosh, he's 19.
[4:11]And my second son is 12 and between them and also a lot of the ideas came from them.
[4:16]They would bring home a Rubik's Cube.
[4:19]They bring home a padlock and sort of be talking about the fact that they were trying to
[4:22]pick it.
[4:23]And my youngest son came back from a class and said, I've just, I learned how to use sign
[4:28]language to sign H.I. so that I could say hi to people behind the teachers back.
[4:32]And I've got brilliant.
[4:33]That's got to go in.
[4:34]You know, that's a great idea.
[4:37]So an awful lot of them were things that came from the two boys and coupled with things
[4:41]I sort of wished I had put in the first one, but you know, never got around to things like
[4:46]casting items in resin, which I've always admired learning how to do it was fun.
[4:51]I mean, you know, when we were doing it, nothing could drop dead within a mile of our
[4:54]house without immediately being put into resin and set in our perspex forever because
[4:59]it was just one of those fun things that we discovered how to do it.
[5:02]It was great.
[5:03]We were dipping coins in there and doing a dome shapes and all sorts of things.
[5:07]I mean, this was things like making perfume, for example, because everybody has that
[5:12]experience.
[5:13]And this is more common than I realized of trying to make perfume for their mother often
[5:16]on Mother's Day, where they steal a lot of flower petals from gardens nearby and then
[5:21]boil them and sort of dirty brown water that doesn't ignite a smells nice and it does not
[5:28]look nice.
[5:29]And of course, our mothers.
[5:30]I remember mine was quite a nice perfume bottle that I've got from somewhere but her expression
[5:35]had to be seen to be released.
[5:37]So discovering there was a way, an actual technique to do it properly and use white
[5:40]lard to soak up the scent.
[5:42]Oh, it's one or two of the things I want to do always to make be the bad things that
[5:46]we tried that didn't really work too well to make them better.
[5:49]You know, that has painted a lot of fun.
[5:51]I bet.
[5:52]I gave this book.
[5:53]My son is 12 and he went off to boarding school this year and I gave it to him and he
[5:56]and the boys in his dorm have been pouring over it.
[5:59]So thank you for that.
[6:01]Yes.
[6:02]I never intended it to be a sort of book that you would start at the beginning and read
[6:06]all the way through.
[6:07]I hope it's a book you dip into.
[6:09]And then my sort of, I've defied a few people to say, look, open the chapter list and see
[6:13]if there's anything that catches you right because there is always something.
[6:17]And then with any luck, they'll read onto something else because I've got loads of
[6:20]things in there, such as, I don't know, legends of ancient Greece and Rome, which are just
[6:26]interesting to know.
[6:27]It's one of my things that I'm always keen with my sons in particular that they get
[6:31]a lot of satisfaction from knowing things and being able to make things and do things
[6:36]yet, but also to have a bit of their own sort of not secret knowledge.
[6:40]That's the wrong way, but expert knowledge that makes it.
[6:42]It's a sense of control in the world.
[6:44]I think, and I would say this is a male characteristic, it seems to be more than for women
[6:49]that they seek to control the world by an uncontrollable world to some extent.
[6:54]The chaos of it, by throwing chains on it, by trying to understand and become experts
[6:58]in certain areas.
[6:59]And it seems to work for them.
[7:01]I mean, it's sort of recognisable, the male expert on a particular thing, whether
[7:05]at the ancient coins or trains or dice and vacuum cleaner, is that thing?
[7:10]It's something we do.
[7:12]You can call it train spotters or nerds or whatever it is, but it's that.
[7:16]I think it's that.
[7:17]It's trying to make the world less chaotic by understanding a part of it.
[7:21]So interesting.
[7:22]And I feel like so many of the skills that you include in the book are things that might
[7:26]get pushed aside in favor of teaching new things today, but then you miss so much.
[7:32]I mean, putting in like how to tie a wins or not and even so, you know, like some of
[7:37]of these things are, it's almost like how to build a fire, these like elemental things
[7:42]that note like why is no one teaching our kids how to do these things?
[7:46]And then they grow up and, you know, you know, scouts, they do a fantastic job in scouts,
[7:53]for example.
[7:54]But there is an awful loss of the business and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else where
[7:58]they, you know, use just a kid in front of team, Titans or Spongebob Squarepants and leave
[8:02]them alone for three or four hours.
[8:03]And the trouble with that is that everything good that I remember, all the good stories
[8:08]things for my childhood pretty much started because the television was awful.
[8:12]And so I only had three, there were three channels in those days in England and there was
[8:17]no morning television and television stopped at about midnight and went down to a white
[8:21]point on the screen after the national anthem.
[8:24]I am old enough to remember this.
[8:25]I was going to say, you're really dating yourself here.
[8:27]Well, I am.
[8:28]Well, my dad grew up in an era without before television was even invented.
[8:31]So I mean, you know, I think we do go back along with my grandfather.
[8:35]I mean, he grew up near a horse from the charge of the light brigade and he went to see
[8:39]Wild Bill Hickox, Wild West Show.
[8:41]I mean, that, that, you can talk about dating, that goes back a bit.
[8:45]But I guess the point of these things is that when we went outside, we had a vengeance and
[8:51]had memories and did things and made things and crafted things that have stayed with us
[8:55]for the rest of our life.
[8:56]Even if it was being chased across a park by a man, I'd angered.
[8:59]I mean, this sort of thing, you don't get it if you're sitting inside watching 14 episodes
[9:04]of Teen Titans or getting to a new high score across your road or becoming a famous
[9:09]screen name on their call of duty.
[9:12]It's not good for you.
[9:14]It's not good for you in the same way.
[9:16]We're not looking to supplant the internet or to replace it.
[9:19]That's it's too entrenched in many ways now.
[9:22]But I hope that these are things that will be in addition to the people who read and do
[9:27]them and want to know them and want to learn them and want to learn the skills because
[9:30]I think it's useful, I think.
[9:32]And I think people are craving it.
[9:34]I think people are so overwhelmed by technology and the prevalence of it that they're
[9:39]just longing for, you know, quote, the good old days and a book like this can help take
[9:44]you back.
[9:45]It gives you the tour guide.
[9:47]It's the tour guide, if you will.
[9:48]Yes.
[9:52]I mean, I said the TV was terrible when I was a kid, but it's not terrible now.
[9:55]The point is there is such a level of sort of there are so many thousands of episodes.
[9:59]That's it.
[10:00]find any 50 episodes of you know decent comedies to watch right now and that
[10:05]means that there's so much entertainment that I have to make a sort of
[10:07]conscious effort to step away from it whereas when I was a kid it's been her
[10:10]came on before hours of television and to your absolute amazement you'd go
[10:14]out for the day and come back and it would still be on I mean it just wasn't
[10:17]it wasn't as gripping and that meant that we did an awful lot out of sheer
[10:21]boredom and that that is a force that is almost vanishing from the world
[10:26]JK Rowling you know famously looked out of a train window for a whole hour
[10:30]and thought about Harry Potter and it came partly because she had nothing else
[10:34]to do she's now on Twitter if she was on Twitter back then then we would
[10:37]never have got the boy wizard with Australian scar I mean these are things that
[10:41]come out of not being too stimulated by constant entertainment and you know
[10:45]there's always something going on to some extent that's a problem that
[10:49]adults will have to deal with separately but for children we know it's not a
[10:52]good idea we know that the more screen time leads to wealth to you know less
[10:57]happiness I mean it's observable we know that generally the things when people
[11:02]talk about mental health and anxiety there are some things that will help
[11:05]it but none of them are being on social media or watching you know 20 more
[11:11]episodes of modern family even though modern family is brilliant I mean the
[11:15]ones that the things that will help are getting a good night's sleep and I say
[11:19]this to my kids that when your problems are overwhelming go to sleep when you
[11:23]wake up your problems will be exactly the same slightly better able to deal
[11:29]with them and honestly that might sound like trivial or try to advice but I
[11:33]didn't really understand that until I was about in my 30s I think and the
[11:37]first thing I do when there's an overwhelming problem I go to sleep I'm almost
[11:40]immediately and that's one thing we know and we know exercise is more
[11:44]important than marking anyone realize before when it comes to anxiety and your
[11:48]mental health because I know people who have literally run from depression they
[11:52]have run miles every day even though it seems unrelated if you feel down
[11:56]because of a financial problem or a relationship problem you feel better it's
[12:00]like the sleeping you feel better able to deal with it those crafts and skills
[12:06]there is something oddly calming competent and if you can make something like a
[12:14]simple elastic band gun out of scrap wood or if you can I don't know set things
[12:18]in resin and polish it the toothpaste and all the things like glass and actually
[12:24]reminded I did a chapter on polishing shoes like the British Army and that
[12:29]came from the fact that I met a soldier who said one of the happiest times in
[12:33]his life had been sitting in a room with five or six other guys in the
[12:36]windows all steamed up and they were just working on their boots for a parade
[12:39]the following day until they were like black glass and he said it was just that
[12:43]thing just talking and working in tiny little circles on the boots and he
[12:50]said as I said that it was one of the happiest calmest times of his life or
[12:54]something he looked back on with great nostalgia and I think that kind of
[12:57]thing is important and you don't find that you really don't when you're wearing
[13:01]a headset and screaming at someone to destroy all the others totally and I
[13:06]feel like you obviously created this experience with your own sons by doing the
[13:10]book with them and you know they even said thank you like no matter what happens
[13:13]the best part was just the time that you all spent together experimenting
[13:17]and fine tuning some of the tips that you included and when came home with it
[13:27]he was the only one who can do it he claims to be able to do it 29 seconds no
[13:30]one has been able to get him below 44 in public but he claims to be able to
[13:34]and you know he would come home and then we all had to do it so he oversaw it
[13:38]he wrote out the instructions then I did it my wife did it my daughters did it
[13:42]my younger son did it so that we could be certain that absolutely anybody could
[13:46]do it who didn't know the Rubits Cube and wasn't particularly in any who
[13:49]didn't have any previous knowledge so we did this sort of thing together and
[13:53]there's a family whether it was playing you know learning playing with
[13:56]together or playing cheetah card games in general or playing daft things
[14:01]like the bowl of flour where you have a match standing up in it and each of
[14:04]these slices away a piece of the flour until the match falls over then you have
[14:07]to pick it up in your teeth which usually ends up with flour all over the
[14:10]place you know choking on great clouds of it because it's fun and we did all
[14:16]this thing all these things together because for all the book was that if we
[14:21]couldn't make it work it didn't go in so that was underpinning every chapter
[14:25]I mean there are some things I didn't put in because I just could not get them
[14:28]to function properly like that we did the blowing the lid off a tin using
[14:33]flour blowing across the candles darbonite I just didn't get it I couldn't get
[14:37]it to ignite it's kind of a famous experiment as far as you can call it for
[14:41]Bonne du Pavetta wherever we could not get it to work so therefore I couldn't
[14:44]put it in but the experience of working together quietly often you know as a
[14:49]family teaching each other stuff so that my son Arthur taught us all how to do a
[14:53]jumping paper frog and now I can do one and Cameron can do one and it's quite
[15:01]difficult to put my finger on why it's satisfying thing I can do it's a decent
[15:06]craft I can make a good paper airplane I can make a good paper frog I can make a
[15:10]little paper box that is as neat as anything you'll ever see and all those
[15:14]came from working together and that was I think I think it was a good thing to
[15:18]do so were your daughters did they feel a little left out I mean your two
[15:23]sons got to write this book with you I feel like anything I do I have four kids
[15:26]two boys and two girls too I feel like if I did not just with my sons my
[15:29]daughters would kill me yeah I did I don't know what you mean but obviously to
[15:34]some extent my daughters are one of the 16 and 13 they knew I was doing the
[15:38]sequel to the original dangers but for boys so they knew that on the whole I
[15:41]was celebrating boyish things and I mean I did the first one with my brother
[15:46]and we were looking back to our childhood and this time I was doing you know
[15:49]things with the sons they they do know that at the same time obviously
[15:52]quietly as you will know if you have the two daughters you can't keep them
[15:55]out I mean we did things like the frustration games and the suggestions that
[16:04]came from that we did actually keep the list of all the things that are involved
[16:07]in at the same time but it doesn't change the title of the book I mean the
[16:10]title of the book is intended for boys and buy boys but you know as it
[16:14]happened some of the chapters were inspired by my daughters of course they
[16:17]were and do you have plans to do more of these or how high are you going
[16:21]in a funny enough I mean I originally I said you know I hadn't got anything
[16:26]else to do I hadn't got anything else to add in and then 12 years went past
[16:29]and I I had more material than I just sort of shake a stick at so that's how the
[16:33]second one came about and I thought well that's got to be it and then in the in
[16:37]the month since it's been finished we've already started to put a list
[16:41]together of things because there are always more stories of courage for
[16:44]example you hear of a good one I mean from in this one the double
[16:47]dangerous I went to see a man called Victor Greg talk and he was in his
[16:52]90s and he had driven about a hundred miles to to get there and he was driving
[16:56]home afterwards and he told a story of his time during World War Two which was
[17:00]so ridiculous and extraordinary must every key battle it was
[17:06]just unheard of his his by fluke and by sheer bad luck for the most part he was
[17:11]involved in some of the major actions of World War Two
[17:14]and as a result I thought well I've got to put his story in because
[17:17]it is a terrific unknown almost story of courage there'll always be new
[17:23]material like that I mean my son off we've got to tell you this my son out
[17:27]they came back from scouts the other day and he had something it was like a
[17:30]three foot dart out of word a big stick basically or dowel and he
[17:34]sharpened the end so it's a decent sort of point and then he'd had his cardboard
[17:38]flights to it was teletakes it was really cheap it was like the serial
[17:42]packet stuff and you know we we went outside and we threw it and it didn't
[17:46]go as far as I expected it to and then he showed me that they had told him
[17:50]in scouts that if you rack a piece of string around it three or four turns
[17:53]not much more and hold the end in your hand then and then hold the dart
[17:58]in between say finger and thumb as you let go of it
[18:01]you hang on to the string so it rotates and spins through the air and it goes
[18:05]about twice as far I mean I said to him why did he come and tell me this
[18:11]when I was doing the book six months ago to put that in
[18:13]but it means eventually I suppose we will have to do a triple dangerous or
[18:16]something like that because you know there are so many good ideas out there
[18:21]well tell me also you are a super successful historical fiction author
[18:25]right with like series and tops of the charts
[18:29]how did you become so interested in writing historical fiction I know you
[18:32]you had been an English teacher how did that start
[18:36]probably the interest in history does come from having me well
[18:41]partly the grandfather who was had a link to history and my father who seemed to
[18:45]live through most of it because he was in bummer command in World War II
[18:48]and dropped everything just about everything you can drop from a plane
[18:52]so he had lots of good stories you know like the target was sent over with a
[18:55]French spy and had to try and get the man to parachute out even though he had a
[18:59]fear of parachuting and you know there are wonderful stories like that
[19:03]that gave me a connection to history and also I mean my mother grew up in
[19:07]Ireland in the 1930s and became a nun at the age of 14
[19:12]and then in a closed order so she never expected to come home again or see
[19:16]her parents again and she stayed as a nun until the age of 34
[19:21]and as it happens the Catholic Church loosened up a little bit so she was
[19:24]able to come home in the full black and white
[19:26]grimple to see her parents but when she eventually left
[19:30]the convent and the thank goodness had children from my point of view
[19:34]because she left the convent two half children she met my dad and frankly he
[19:38]had no idea what hit him I was obviously delighted by that but
[19:42]it gave me a sort of contact with a past
[19:45]it was very very different I mean you know they used to go to church in
[19:49]the on Sunday on with a pony and trap and it was a different era
[19:52]so I had a sense of history being closer I think the most people do
[19:57]but as it happens I mean don't forget I wrote a book a year
[20:00]year to be 11 to about 28 and with no success whatsoever.
[20:04]The difference, you know, they turned me down every time.
[20:07]The difference came when I was in a history classroom
[20:10]as covering someone else's lesson I was in English teacher.
[20:13]And I came across a scene of Augustus Caesar throwing
[20:17]the heads of Julius Caesar's assassins
[20:19]at the foot of his statue in Rome.
[20:22]And I thought, what sort of an extraordinary relationship
[20:24]must that have been to want to do that?
[20:27]And there are 23 assassins and not a single one of them
[20:30]died in natural death.
[20:32]And I thought, gosh, you know, everyone knows
[20:33]the end of this story.
[20:34]But I'd like to have a little more.
[20:37]I was very lucky I came across a book called
[20:39]these are Christian Mayer, MEI, and that was brilliant.
[20:44]It was a great introduction.
[20:45]It told me about Julius Caesar being captured by pirates
[20:48]at the age of 18.
[20:49]And I thought which he was and has held for ransom for months.
[20:53]And I thought, there is a story here.
[20:55]And I wrote it for two years.
[20:57]Because everyone knew the Titanic sank.
[20:59]Everyone knew that Julius Caesar was assassinated.
[21:01]But not how he got to that point.
[21:03]His name was sort of general knowledge.
[21:04]But they didn't know the full beginnings.
[21:07]And it was the beginnings that made the end to make sense.
[21:10]So I sort of set out to write that.
[21:13]And that went really well.
[21:15]I was, I think I was influenced by my readers.
[21:18]Well, by gladiator the film, because it came out.
[21:21]I remember watching it in the darkness,
[21:22]thinking, oh, god, don't let it be about Julius Caesar,
[21:25]I'm a year in, this is going to kill me.
[21:28]But as it happens, it wasn't.
[21:29]It was brilliant.
[21:30]And I think it was a sort of engine for Roman fiction
[21:32]for a while, although I mean, I stayed with Julius Caesar
[21:35]for four books at that point.
[21:37]And then I went on to Genghis Khan.
[21:39]He was a much harder self.
[21:40]Because everyone's heard of him.
[21:41]But the only thing they know is he was a destroyer
[21:44]of cities and nations.
[21:45]And the fact that he was a great brother and father
[21:48]and son and grandfather.
[21:51]He was a wonderfully dulting grandfather.
[21:53]It's completely lost on them.
[21:54]And the story of Genghis Khan is a warm family story
[21:57]about family and about love.
[21:59]And the destruction of cities and nations, I mean,
[22:03]I'm not being funny, but of course that was went on.
[22:06]It's just that it gave me a chance to sort of approach it
[22:09]in a way that appealed to both sides of my character.
[22:12]I suppose a bit the like, the destruction
[22:14]and the bit that likes the stories about people.
[22:16]But yes, I've always, I've had a lot of access
[22:18]to history through my relatives, I suppose.
[22:20]But at the end of the day, it's all good stories.
[22:22]We just like those stories, really.
[22:25]The only creature on the planet that ever
[22:27]gamblers around and listens to someone
[22:28]talk about history or books or people.
[22:32]At the end of the day, we're just interested in people,
[22:33]which is very true.
[22:37]You have written so many books.
[22:39]You've obviously stuck with it despite a lot of rejection.
[22:43]How do you do this?
[22:44]How do you sort of beef yourself up to say,
[22:47]I'm going to keep doing it.
[22:48]And I'm not going to be discouraged by what people say.
[22:52]And how do you maintain that positivity?
[22:57]After year after year, I used to put hairs
[23:01]from my head in between the pages
[23:02]to see if the publishers were even reading them.
[23:05]That's actually very often the hairs would still be there.
[23:08]And I thought, ah, and then years later I said to an editor
[23:12]of I used to do this and he said, oh, yes, lots of people
[23:14]do that.
[23:15]We always make sure the hairs go back in the same place,
[23:18]which is pretty cruel.
[23:19]I saw that.
[23:21]But the point is, I suppose, that I liked right
[23:26]in many ways it was my hobby.
[23:27]So even if I finished a book and I sent it off,
[23:30]and I photocopied it 20 times and sent it to 20 publishers
[23:33]or 20 Asians, and nobody picked it up.
[23:35]And everyone said, no, and sent it back
[23:36]with enormous enthusiasm.
[23:37]So that it would arrive on my doorstep
[23:40]some thump thump over the next few days.
[23:42]Even then, I didn't mind too much, because it just meant
[23:45]I had a chance to write another one.
[23:47]And the only difference I suppose with the Julius Caesar
[23:50]one was that I liked it so much that I took two years.
[23:54]I've read rather than usually a time on that.
[23:59]And I said to my wife at the end, and I think this is the best
[24:02]I can do, if this doesn't go, I have been doing this
[24:06]since I was a very small kid.
[24:07]And if this doesn't go, then honestly, I think that's it.
[24:10]I'm just going to try and stop.
[24:12]And she said, she's always said, since she didn't believe
[24:15]I was capable of stopping that I would have kept,
[24:20]not because that was the one that was picked up.
[24:23]But for me, it was the best I could possibly do.
[24:25]At the time, I learned something I was better now.
[24:27]I mean, it's 20 years later.
[24:29]It's showing me if I hadn't learned a few things.
[24:31]It was something I felt almost compelled to do.
[24:33]I like telling stories, I always have.
[24:35]And that's the pleasure of it is something I'm thankful for every day.
[24:41]And where do you like to write?
[24:42]Do you have a special place?
[24:43]You go, you like to get a coffee shop, so where do you like to write?
[24:46]I'm talking, I always regret that, because I liked the idea of it.
[24:52]It always looked really cool.
[24:54]But no, I said, sadly, mine is always with the PC, up in the attic,
[24:58]tapping away.
[24:59]I mean, it is a fairly isolated business.
[25:01]But at the same time, my mind is full of pictures
[25:03]and exciting stories.
[25:04]And I'm delighted reading my own scenes back to myself.
[25:06]So it doesn't feel too isolated at the time.
[25:09]But it's nice to get out of the house, occasionally.
[25:10]I'll be like, I mean, it's one of the things
[25:13]that publishers arrange to go and speak at literary festivals and things like that.
[25:17]And it's always a pleasure because, you know,
[25:18]usually I'm just on my own.
[25:19]Do you work during the day, get up fairly early
[25:23]and work during the day until the kids come home from school,
[25:25]and then I irritate them?
[25:27]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[25:32]Well, I know it sounds ridiculous.
[25:35]And again, my advice always seems a little too basic
[25:38]to actually give to anybody.
[25:40]But I would say to plan, to plan your work,
[25:43]that one of the big differences between the book
[25:45]that was successful my first and previous efforts
[25:48]was that I wrote to the previous efforts
[25:50]in a frenzy of creativity without much planning.
[25:53]So they tended to ramble a bit.
[25:56]It was not unheard of for me to get to the end of the book
[25:58]and think, oh, last, what happened to John?
[26:00]And then I realized I'd forgotten John.
[26:02]And I would try and put John back in.
[26:04]And I'd add John cleared his throat.
[26:06]John walked quickly out of the room all the way through the book
[26:10]so that I, because he'd started as an important character.
[26:12]And then I'd just forgotten him.
[26:14]So that sort of thing, you know, where I actually planned the book
[26:17]and I, with the Julius Caesar one, the first book,
[26:19]I knew the last line been a huge difference.
[26:25]I had worried that it would steal the creativity away from me,
[26:28]that it wouldn't feel quite so wild and chaotic and wonderful.
[26:32]Actually, it didn't at all.
[26:33]It just rained it in a little,
[26:35]so that it was, ah, so that it was still creative.
[26:38]It still felt wonderful, but it wasn't quite so rambling.
[26:42]And that matters.
[26:43]And can I just ask what you're working on now?
[26:44]Yeah, I mean, ancient Greece, the moment, not literally,
[26:47]but not long back from Athens and Sparta
[26:51]where I was wandering around ruins
[26:53]to try and get a sense of the geography and the sense
[26:56]and sounds and things like that.
[26:57]Yes, I'm dealing with the, it's going to be parakellies
[27:00]and Battle of Marathon, his father
[27:02]and going into the Peloponnesian War.
[27:04]It's an incredibly rich sort of part of history
[27:07]and the Persian invasion with Xerxes and Darius
[27:09]and all sorts of good stuff.
[27:11]So I just say history is full of good stories
[27:13]that you don't have to look too far,
[27:15]but this is a particularly rich bit.
[27:16]Well, well, thank you so much for sharing all of your thoughts
[27:20]with me today and with the listeners of Mom's
[27:22]and I have to read books.
[27:23]I really, really appreciate it.
[27:27]Okay, thank you, bye.
[27:28]Cheers, bye.
[27:30]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books,
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