Degranville

a new website

2010-08-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

I have a new website! Please go to http://kmgrant.org/ . I'll see you there.

the great book resting

2010-06-10T02:55:00.000-07:00

Books are like Christmas turkeys in more respects than might immediately be apparent. They take some preparation; there's always more stuffing (in my case historical research) than will neatly fit; and once you've finished, they need to rest. My latest work in progress, currently called The One, is now at the resting stage. Sometimes I look at it, careful not to disturb. It must relax before my final attack with the carving knife. If I tell you that once it comprised 92,000 words and has been shorn to 72,000, you'll see I'm nifty with the carver. On school visits, readers never believe that the delete button is a writer's best friend. Perhaps it's one of those lessons, like avoiding harem trousers, that you have to learn for yourself.

Summer has come, and possibly gone, here in Glasgow. Abandon sun, all ye who enter here. I comfort myself that our weather is probably better for the skin.

the sun cometh

2010-05-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this in the garden. Can't believe it. The sun makes me look like a lobster but feel a million dollars. Finally, not two pairs of socks but no socks. I'm in heaven.

But gardens, eh! We want them. We claim to love them. But all those weeds. All that straggly grass. All those chores than need doing. I've decided to go wild with mine and, like Quintin Crisp with the dusting (after 5 years or so you no longer notice it) just let it do what it wants to do. I'm telling myself this is good for the environment. After all, don't butterflies like nettles?

eruptions, elections and every day stuff

2010-04-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

So what with the eruption and the UK election, there's a lot to think about at the moment. On the volcanic eruption, I think it's wonderful to see how many people who profess to be 'green' have flown away on holiday. But will the disruption make us think twice about booking more air tickets, just in case the Unpronouncable's friend decides to blow whilst we're all at the beach? I doubt it! Getting stuck abroad is a bit like having a baby: you forget the pain quite quickly and before you know it, there you are again ...

On the UK election, the TV debates are watchable only from behind the sofa. Why is it that even when alone, I still cringe and feel terribly embarrassed when our wannabe leaders say ridiculous things. Gordon Brown, for example, said that no punishment was too great for those who manipulated their expenses. Knee-capping? Hanging? Firing squad? I believe he himself had quite a bit of money to pay back. Should he go in for a bit of public flagellation?

But spring is spring here in Glasgow, and I'm on a book surge. What's not to like about today!

spring in the air yourself, archdeacon

2010-03-18T04:13:00.001-07:00

Hello to Shannon and Leesa and all the 6th graders from McCulloch Intermediate School in Dallas! Courtesy of Catherine Balkin (Catherine@balkinbuddies.com at www.balkinbuddies.com), we had a great online live webchat last week. Such a peculiar feeling, speaking from my old meatsafe of a study in Glasgow. Our upgraded modem (thanks, BT) meant that there was no echo, no delay. I was talking about historical novels Blood Red Horse, Blue Flame and How the Hangman Lost His Heart, set in 12th, 13th and 18th centuries respectively, through truly 21st century technology. Never has the past met the future so happily. And Blackberry made an unscheduled appearance. She wasn't very stellar. She needs practice.

Today spring is springing in Glasgow, but just when the worst of the cold is over, we're wondering about insulation. I know, I know. In an old house like this it won't bring the bills down (whatever the purveyors of installation say); nor will we feel any benefit, except, possibly, upstairs (although most of the heat escapes through the cupola); nor will insulation increase the value of the house. So why do it? As a family, our carbon footprint is tiny (one car, seldom used; about one flight each a year, and not every year). I suppose it feels like giving the house a nice cosy thermal jacket as a present. How mad we all are! I expect my insulation moment, like so many other moments, will pass.

www.balkinbuddies.com

the world's not an oyster, but a screen

2010-02-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

I'm just signed up for my first U.S. on-line author chats, through the incredibly enterprising Catherine Balkin. www.balkinbuddies.com This means that the world and I can get together, without either the world or I leaving our own homes. Such is the miracle of modern technology. It will be an interesting experience for all of us, and of course for our dogs, who will doubtless want a virtual walk on part in proceedings.

It's freezing here. I have on: a thermal vest; a silk vest; a long-sleeved t-shirt (thick); a jersey (thicker and hooded - hood firmly up); and a giant cardigan knitted from the wool of giant, not-even-a-blizzard-will-floor-me sheep. Why is it that legs are never as well kitted out as tops? I'm wearing two pairs of socks, naturally, and a pair of boots, but I can't say my feet are even remotely warm.

My husband emails: why not turn the heating on?
I email back: your study has heating, but my study's the one with no heating, remember?
He: bad luck.

Even the dogs have deserted me. They're staring hopefully at the boiler. I think when it clicks on and that blue flame leaps, they may, literally, shout 'thank God!'.

and something else

2010-01-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

An unexpected joy this week has been reading a very good book about a very bad place. I recommend The Badness of Ballydog by a glorious Irishman called Garrett Carr. Mr. Carr knows a thing or two about fish finger factories, taxidermy and the quare ways of folk. I'd like to meet him one day. I think he is a man possessed of secret things, with whom it would be good to share a bottle of something smooth and peaty.

Well, my dears, said old Mrs. Rabbit

2010-01-21T05:39:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Camille and Lois, for your comments. It's hard to believe there's snow in Texas, but then it's hard to believe that even I, who am pretty hardy, am this winter conducting a secret love affair with a new electric blanket. Sometimes I don't even switch it on. Just lying on top if it, knowing I could, is enough of a joy. It has an automatic turn off, too, so you don't even have to worry about falling asleep and being fried, like bacon.

Now - Twitter. It's so kind when people say they would follow me if I tweeted. But I'm concerned about being a bore. On a minute by minute basis, my life is just a life. If I have any great thoughts, I try and keep them for my books and I don't think you'd really want to know about my laundry or shopping. I mean, even I don't want to know about them. And when I do want to shout something for all the world to hear, it's usually rude - like 'what's with people who feed other people's dogs in the park? They should be walloped!' or 'why don't people waiting in queues to pay GET THEIR BEASTLY PURSES OUT BEFORE THEY REACH THE TILL?' So, until I can be sure I won't tweet in rabid capitals, I'm resisting.

Off into the town now, to pick up my poor MacBook pro. It produced the dreaded screen of death last Saturday. My rejected iBook G4 was very smug. 'That'll teach you,' it said, as it sturdily cranked into action. I've been very nice to it. Porridge for both of us for lunch today.

the northern front

2010-01-08T02:12:00.000-08:00

What a joy this frizzen frozen weather is for those of us who live in a town and don't have to get anywhere. I haven't even looked at the car since the week before Christmas. Outside activity is walking the dogs either in the sparkly fog, greeting other dog-walkers looming ghostly through the gloam, or shuffling up to Waitrose under the momentary magic of a ice-blue sky. Waitrose, by the way, is itself still magic in Glasgow. It probably costs more, but it's a bit of a joy! Having spent much of my childhood waiting outside the greengrocer for my mother (several obligatory tons of conversation before the purchase of several tons of vegetables), only to hear her say 'I've just got to nip into the chemist' (for a medicine cabinet of chitter-chatter before emerging with small bottle of Milk of Magnesia) I'm a fan of supermarkets. In my view, shopping in the UK should be quick and painless, as opposed to shopping in France, which should be lengthy and leave all British people feeling faintly inadequate.

I've been deep into Victorian fashion for my new book. I love all those chemisettes of snowy lace and tippets of swansdown. I also learned, from the introduction to Nancy Bradfield's lovely costume book (1968), that in the undercroft of Westminster Abbey, there are wax effigies of dead grandees, life-sized and fully dressed in their own clothes. She writes: 'For hundreds of years it was customary for these life-sized, fully robed figures of wood or wax to be borne through the streets, on the coffin, at the funeral of kings or queens or other great persons ... The last effigy to be actually so carried was that of Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, in 1743'. I suppose it was to reassure the dead blue-bloods that heaven wasn't entirely full of riff-raff ...

Horses, Christmas, resolutions and mysterious hackers

2009-12-20T03:19:00.000-08:00

This is our drawing room on Christmas morning. The picture was taken in 2006, but as we do the same thing every year, safe to say it will look the same in 2009!

Writing-wise, I'm in 1861 and back at Hartslove. So many people ask what happened to the de Granvilles that I began to wonder too. The other night, in a rare moment of sleep, I found myself dreaming about them, and my dream got muddled up with this horse, who won the Derby for my family in 1861. As it happens, in 1861 the de Granvilles are facing a crisis: Charles Granville (they felt it wise to lose the 'de' during the French Revolution) has returned from war in the east with a taste for brandy, and his children are faced with the loss of their home. Hartslove itself is falling apart. But in the midst of it all, Charles buys a horse - this horse. Isn't he a dear! He looks so surprised by life. I have him as on my desktop as I write. He's called The One, because everybody who buys a racehorse hopes it's The One ...

When I'm not in 1861, I find it's Christmas again, and through the magnificent Spotify I can listen to whatever carols I want, with the advertisements reminding me that consumerism (and complaining about it) has become as traditional as the manger. I had better get cracking on the shopping. Today, the day of the annual church carol concert, we have snow in Glasgow. Blackberry, now 2, and Crumble (picture is rather old, must take another, but I do love this one) are in heaven.

Paradise Red, the last of the Perfect Fire trilogy, has had lovely reviews and I've finished Spy's Song, about a girl who finds herself caught up in an adventure with a squire hiding a secret, an alchemist who's made a promise and Geoffrey Chaucer, whose history is surprising.

My kmgrant.net website appears to have been hacked into by Iranians. I've nothing at all against Iranians, so I don't quite know what they've got against me. Hey, hacker, if you're reading this, can I have my site back?

I've resolved in the past to be a better blogger. I'm resolving again. I Shall Be a Better Blogger.

Happy Christmas!

empty nest

2009-10-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well, we're alone - that is my husband and I, with the dogs and of course the budgie. The last child has gone off to university and the house feels like a house does when the party's over. I don't mind admitting, I've got empty nest syndrome pretty badly, though I do comfort myself with the hoover. Those dust-bunnies must think the end of the world has come. Well, it has, for them.

For us, it's the end of a certain world too: the world of multitudinous socks and 'are you up yet?', the world of mountains of Shreddies and 'is the heating really on?' So, I'm in mourning. Why does the university term have to start when the light is vanishing as fast as the children? Now I must go and cook the dinner and after that, to cheer myself up, I'm going to watch Six Feet Under.

online chats

2009-09-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

While my old iBook is looking the other way, I'll tell you that my Macbook Pro means I'm now available for online author chats through balkin buddies, whose link should appear in this blog. Online chats really seem the way to go and if you'd like to sign up for one, please do go to the balkin buddies website, and see how they work. If the link doesn't link, then try http://www.balkinbuddies.com/authorsavailableonline.html

My dogs, having seen themselves on the screen, are very keen and will doubtless play a part in proceedings ...

is it that time already

2009-09-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

Just when I resolve to blog more often, life gets in the way. What life, you may ask. New life, I answer. Well, not really new. It's just that I have a job, yes, a real job, though part time, at the university. I'm part of a small team setting up an online literacy resource, so I have to Wear Clothes and Go To An Office. Quite a shock for a writer. I mean, what clothes to wear?

And then my little iBook grew poorly. It's still poorly, but as is the way of these things, in order not to lose anything, I had to get a new one before it actually died. Now it sits beside me, my discarded faithful friend, closed and mournful. Who could possibly imagine I'd feel a heel about abandoning a computer? But it was so sweet, and had helped me through so many books, and here I am, zooping along on my new Macbook pro, and my little iBook knows it could never keep up, and isn't nearly so whizzy and on and on and on. I wonder if anybody ever read a book called 'Little Black, a Pony'. He was usurped by Big Red when his boy rider got too big for him. The boy felt rotten. I do too. But then Big Red fell through the ice and Little Black had to rescue him, so who knows: my iBook may yet have to be resurrected ...

pressing the button

2009-07-27T03:53:00.001-07:00

Today I sent off the first draft of a new book. Then, as usual, I bolted out of the house with the dogs. If I don't do that, I go back into the book, see one word I want to change and have to email my editor and say 'delete, delete - I'll send again!' That way leads to the madhouse ...

what do you call ... ?

2009-07-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

What do you call a gathering of medieval historians? A mustiness? A crustiness? A fustiness? Not after you've met them.

I've just had the honour of being part of a heresy panel at the Leeds Medieval Congress, not as a heretic but as a historical novelist. I was in eminent company: Kate Mosse (of Labyrinth fame), Rene Weiss (of The Yellow Cross fame) and myself. It's a nervous moment, addressing academics on a subject they've spent years dissecting. The academics delivered papers of magisterial complexity: Pascua draconum et cubile strutiorum might sound like Potter-speak, but it's a real subject, as is Visual and Rhetorical Means in Religious Polemics in the Bohemian Reformation. Oh, and 'Are you a member of the Louis the Pious Society?' turns out to be quite an effective pick-up line.

But this was no musty crusty fustiness: the academics sparkled, particularly, I believe, in their dancing shoes. Yes, they really did have dancing shoes. And T-shirts sporting erudite jokes. And opinions about tv shows like MadMen.

It was really rather a blast - a Blast of Medieval Historians.

details, details

2009-06-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

Yana has asked what Gavin, Will, Ellie and Kamil look like, which raises an interesting point about writing. Does the author have a fixed vision of the characters? I know that individual readers do, but actually, as the author, being asked to describe my characters is a bit like being asked to describe myself, which I would find quite difficult to do since I don't spend that much time gazing into the mirror. So - though I could give you Gavin, Will, Ellie and Kamil's opinions about almost anything, can I describe their faces? Well, here goes.

I see Gavin with thick brown/blonde hair, and Will too. They're both of medium height, Gavin slightly taller. There's a distinct family similarity in that both have those bright, expectant, very English faces, Gavin's a little longer than Will's, his lips a little thinner, his bearing a little stiffer. Will has a dimple, which appears when he tightens his cheeks, making it hard for him to look very stern. Will looks more and more like their father as he gets older. Gavin, had he lived, would have looked more like their mother. Ellie is shorter than Will, and slimmer, with auburn hair and expectant eyes. She's always alert, as an animal is, and her lips turn up at the edges when she smiles, which is often. In repose, her expression is a little wistful, as if she's seeing something in the far distance which she faintly wishes she could have.

Kamil's skin is walnut and his hair is black, as are his eyes in the dusk, though in the daytime you see they are actually greyish purple. He's the same height as Will, only seeming taller because he's very slender, with beautiful, long-fingered hands. His face is closed and deliberately so. He doesn't want people to guess what he's thinking. He can look a little supercilious, with a profile as clean and proud as a Persian statue (he never grows a beard). But when he's playing with his daughter, or when he's with his horse, his face softens and little creases dance round his lips. Even when he's laughing, he manages to preserve an air of slight detachment. It's his shield against the world.

answers for Yana

2009-06-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is a post for Yana, who kindly wrote to ask for some more de Granville details.

Hi, Yana!

I'm just catching my breath between events and journeys, so this is to say thank you for your email, I've noted the questions and I'll answer them very soon. I'm so glad you like the de Granvilles. Stay tuned! I'll be back in the next couple of days ...

Katie

blog 2 from Gryffed of Hartslove: an occasional blog from an occasional sort of hound (for blog 1 see 24th April)

2009-06-04T01:35:00.000-07:00

4th June, 1185
I stole a rabbit from the larder for breakfast. I was going to share it with Courant but somehow I forgot.

Later, there was a fine old hullabaloo. Gavin threw Will into the horsetrough! Doubtless that K. M. Grant will tell you all about that but let me assure you that the real battles and adventures round here are nothing to do with brotherly rivalry and Saracens: the real battles, the important ones, are between the Hartslove hounds and the Hartslove foxes, in particular between Courant and me and that slyboots, Reinhard, and his mob. Our war is about something much more important than religion or territory. Our war’s about chickens. Reinhard believes the Hartslove flock is his dinner menu. Courant and I disagree violently. It’s not that we like chickens, well, not to talk to anyway. We did once try to make friends but whenever we went near them, all they did was squawk and flap and I got so irritated I couldn’t help snapping. It really wasn’t my fault that one got in the way of my teeth. Luckily, Sir Thomas’s goshawk, Syro, who was off her leash, seized the corpse and it looked as though she was the culprit. Nobody dares to scold her or she sulks and won’t hunt for at least a week.

Ellie pulled ticks out of my ears this evening. She seemed sad. How could she be sad when I was looking at her so soulfully? Girls! Thought of giving her an acorn but forgot.

for Thies Ey at Hart School and Christiane Radford at Holy Family School

2009-05-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Hi there to Thies and Christiane, who both gave me stories to look at.

Thies, you have a great imagination. I felt your hunger.
Christiane, you've a really excellent style. Keep going with this one.

Katie

authors in april 2009

2009-05-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

How lucky to be one of Rochester's Authors in April! I've just had a wonderful week meeting hundreds of Michigan readers, and want to thank everybody at West Middle School, Hart Middle School, Reuther Middle School, Van Hoosen Middle School, Holy Family Regional School and St. John Lutheran who gave me a welcome I shan't forget. And nor, of course, will Uncle Frank of How the Hangman Lost His Heart, who would have been most gratified to see how his story had inspired the creation of a veritable army of papier mache heads, each more exotic than the last. Indeed, I have brought one home, complete with pike through the skull and many a blood stain. I can't think what it must have looked like on the security xray. Thank you, Angie, for a perfect present. This Uncle Frank will have his first Scottish outing next week, and will be transported, as is only fitting, in a hatbox - pink, I think. Why not.

I also want to thank everybody who created shields and hearts, the bakers of the Hosanna cookies, Sage O'Donnell for her drawing of Ellie and Shihab, Haley Zynda for her Barq-Lightning and Alyssa B from West Middle School for her delightful page of assorted compliments, none of which I deserved. All are now in my study in Glasgow and will remind me of my visit.

As for the Board members of Authors in April, let me just say this: with all your skills, talents and unflagging dedication, you should not just be running Authors in April, you should really be running the world. Hats off to all!

hidden in the archives - an occasional blog from Gryffed, an occasional kind of hound

2009-04-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

24th April, 1185
You may be surprised to hear from me, but my name is Gryffed and, for a very glamorous wolfhound at Hartslove Castle, I don’t get nearly enough attention. Why does everyone go wild about the Hartslove horses? We Hartslove dogs are just as brave, particularly me and my great friend Courant, the best running-hound I have ever had the privilege to meet. We can do things just as useful as any horse except that you can’t ride us, of course. Why horses allow people to do that, I’ll never know.

Anyhow, I want to tell you that Sir Thomas, Gavin and Will just take us dogs for granted. They toss us the odd bone and think we’re happy. Well, of course Courant and I like bones as much as the next dog, but they aren’t the ONLY things we like. I, for example, like having my ears scratched and Courant likes somebody to pick out her fleas. And if I tell you a secret, will you promise to keep it to yourself? Well, both Courant and I are partial to having our tummies tickled although this must clearly be done privately because it makes us look silly and I, for one, definitely don’t like that. Ellie’s good at tickling, though. Sometimes I think she’s the only one who takes any proper notice of us at all even though, as a rule, I don’t like girls. That Old Nurse (was she ever a girl?) is always pushing me out of the way when I’m helping clear the table. I reckon my tongue is a much better cleaner than her dirty old skirt.

I shall now list the things in my special hole, the one I have dug by the fireplace in the great hall, where the rushes are never changed.
1 mouse (dead), 3 acorns, a stick I mistook for a lamb chop, 4 mutton bones (2 very well chewed, one less well chewed, one practically perfect), a bird’s nest (can’t remember where I found that), Sir Thomas’s missing glove, Constable de Scabious’s best dog whip, a dried stag dropping and the remains of a custard tart – oh, and a little leather bottle Old Nurse dropped. When I bit into it, some strange-smelling liquid trickled out. It tasted like fire and made me feel very peculiar.

twit twoo

2009-04-15T03:28:00.000-07:00

A week on Saturday I shall be flying in to Detroit, to take part in the week long wonder that is Michigan's Authors in April. I'm looking forward to it immensely and should have blogged about it before, but as anybody who reads my blogs will know, I'm not a blogaholic. Indeed, I had to go onto the radio the other day to talk about blogging's latest spawn, Twitter, the 140 character splurge through which Stephen Fry informs us he is stuck in a lift or Jonathan Ross that he has returned home from the gym. Would I ever use it? I thought not. To me, Twitter should be the preserve of the brilliant, i.e. those whose epigrammatic wit rivals Oscar Wilde's. Every Tweet should be a masterpiece. What Twitter serves up mostly, however, is the literary equivalent of dog vomit (please excuse if you're reading this over breakfast), i.e. undigested, unmemorable slop. Just because you can say it doesn't mean you should.

Tweet Tweet.

Glasgow, London, Paris, Rome, Paris, London, Glasgow

2009-03-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Old-fashioned journeys are best. I have just been to Rome and back, not on the ghastly but oh so seductive cheapo airlines, but on the train. Set out for Rome on Tuesday lunchtime and arrived midday Thursday having been sumptuously dined in London at The Goring, spontaneously lunched in Paris in the plump glories of the Gare de Lyon and then whisked sleepily through alps heavy with snow and twinkling lights. Dawn brought a foggy Italy, skeletal vines huddled and hidden as winter refused to give way to a sulky spring. But what did I care! I was Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

I journeyed with my father who, at 87, can still stop a taxi at 100 yards and our mission was to attend the presentation at the Vatican of a beautiful facsimile edition of the Towneley Lectionary created by the Panini family of publishers (www.fcp.it) The Lectionary was created originally for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 16th century and its beauty lies in the illustrations by Giulio Clovio, a miniaturist Leonardo. My family purchased it in 18th century, then needless to say, let it go. The original now resides in the New York Public Library. The Panini facsimile recreates John Towneley's binding, which includes our shield in all its many quarterings. Exotic, certainly. The presentation was presided over by two cardinals, one neat as a mouse, the other filling his throne in a very Renaissance manner. For those interested in Vatican fashion, I wore a black mantilla of medieval proportions and didn't feel out of place.

After the ceremony, which took place in a huge long hall quite perfect for rollerskating, we had a special viewing of the Sistine Chapel. Really, Michaelangelo's Last Judgement is a most unChristian work. All those naughty people being beaten down into the pit! God is just a vengeful Jupiter in another guise. Despite all those churches and armies of scuttling nuns, Rome always brings out the pagan in me. Not so Paris, where I church-hopped for an entire Mass: the confiteor in St. Sulpice, the Gospel in St. Germain des Pres, a little window shopping in the rue de Grenelle during the sermon, communion at St. Thomas Aquinas and the blessing at St. Clothilde. Lunch was oysters in the rue de Bac before the Eurostar home.

What larks!

alarms all round

2009-02-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

Britain is paralysed by some snow, but here in Glasgow it's slush so I feel quite entitled to exclaim 'crisis? What crisis?' when stories of others' snowy inconveniences are broadcast to the nation.

Our trouble last night was not snow but an errant burglar alarm which, at 2 a.m. and in an 'unset' condition, took a hissy fit at a power surge and proceeded to screech at intervals irregular enough to force me to dance attendance , punching in the code with increasing velocity. Were I wearing one, however, I would doff my hat to the alarm company who sent out an engineer, despite the weather. Since I couldn't leave the alarm box even for a second lest it begin its wailings all over again, I greeted him wearing a silk nightdress, an old cardigan, a stripey scarf and mismatching gumboot socks knitted by somebody who had clearly never seen a foot. He took one look, refused a cup of tea, beat the alarm into shape quick quick quick then scarpered. Was it the silk nightdress? Was it the red sock or the blue? We shall never know.

I find I'm deep into Chaucer with my redheaded heroine. I don't know about her, but I'm having a lovely time.

gosh, that time already

2009-01-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

First of all, thank you to all those who have posted nice comments. It is so cheery to be greeted from afar, and I was really delighted, Stephanie, that you enjoyed the first two Perfect Fire books so much. Paradise Red comes out later this year and I hope you find it a fitting end to Raimon and Yolanda's turbulent tale. I learned such a lot writing those books and hope that even if they are set in an unfamiliar time, an unfamiliar place and in an unfamiliar set of circumstances that this will not put readers off!

I wonder if historical novels will ever become as fashionable as the fantasy that sweeps all before it at the moment. I doff my hat to the fantasy greats, but it's never quite been my bag. I like elements of fantasy but in the end prefer my characters' feet to remain firmly on the floor. That's just me, though. My children read fantasy and the Son, whose bent is Maths and Philosophy, has been to see Twilight twice.

I'm working on a new idea now, which I'm loving - a stand alone book whose details I'm not quite ready to reveal. My only other stand alone book is How the Hangman Lost His Heart, which, though I think of it as being a jolly romp, begins with an execution. This one will not do that, and for the first time, my heroine is going to tell her own story. Indeed, she's at my shoulder now, urging me to close this down as she's anxious to find out where she's going today. When I tell her to hang on, she flicks her red locks and bids me hurry up or she may just gallop off without me.

So, off I go - hey wait for me, wait for me ...

christmas cometh yet again

2008-12-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

It's Blackberry's second Christmas and she's already decided she hates it. Curious trees with curious lights that produce shrieks of 'NO BLACKBERRY' every time she approaches them; the postman, for whom she reserves particular venom, ringing the doorbell obviously just to taunt; strange people upstairs (where Miss B is not allowed); parcels, none of which are addressed to her. Nope, Christmas is no time to be a dog. If only she knew how I sometimes envy her! No shopping lists; no hangovers; no credit crunch.

But our whole family is together for a whole week in a way that Blackberry's never will be - or at least I hope not. Six Jack Russells at the chewy twoey stage plus a couple of JR parents would spell the end of civilised living. Leaving the dogs aside, I think that human togetherness is what Christmas is mainly about this year, which suits me just fine except for the laundry. I've got used to the once a week wash. But then who cares because although I know Christmas is a wonderful time for children, it's an even more wonderful time for parents whose children are grown up but still want to come home. If an orchestra were to strike up during dinner when we're all round the table, I might well burst into song. 'Let's make a musical and do it right here!'

Happy Christmas!

crunching the credit

2008-12-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't know. The credit crunch makes for strange behaviour. The other day I returned a de-icer spray (unused, naturally) to the shop. My husband had bought it and we don't need it. The price was £1.50. Is this prudence or madness?

Now I'm gazing at the windows wondering if we really need the window cleaner.

I blame the Prime Minister. The more he tells me to spend, spend, spend, the more I want to save, save, save. Five seconds of his hectoring brings out my natural obstinacy and helps me to understand exactly why my ancestors remained Catholics during the Reformation. Asked nicely, I'm sure they'd have said 'ok then', but ordered to renounce their popery by a black-clad Gordon Brownish predecessor, I'm not surprised they cut up rusty. 'Get lost!' they cried. It's my cry now.

In the end, of course, Reformation-wise, my family paid in blood and money. I'm hoping to be spared the blood, but doubt we'll be spared the money - which is why I won't cancel the window cleaner. I'd rather give the contents of my purse to him than to Mr. Brown.

Damn, I seem to be spending after all.

good morning, America!

2008-11-05T02:53:00.000-08:00

So many commentators are warning of an excess of rejoicing at the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the USA, and I know quite well that he is not the Messiah. Yet as I walked the dogs this morning, I, who am usually pretty gloomy and cynical about politics, really couldn't help but feel, to coin a phrase, the audacity of hope. Everybody's nervous, of course. These are nervous times. But the fact that Mr. Obama is being given a chance to lead restores my faith in ordinary people to hang their hats on a dream. I'm told by some that this is foolish and perhaps it is. But it's also what keeps the ball bouncing and that, surely, is what human progress is all about. So Good Morning, America! It's a bit early to drink a toast so, in the same spirit, I'm eating some instead.

dames and wigs

2008-10-27T02:41:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Leah! I'd also rather write my books than pink books, though I did watch a glorious 1979 interview with Barbara Cartland last night. She was dressed in full diamente fig (or were the shiners real? Cripes!) and was being interviewed by a man who looked as though he was wearing the worst wig in the world. I was fascinated by both him and the Dame, whose self-confidence and eyelash batting was enviable. Her books are less pink than dreamy silver. She definitely had a gift, though I did not, for one second (ok, just for a second), wish it were mine - except for the book sales of course. Dreamy silver turns to gold ...

If only we did learn from history, Camille. Perhaps this downturn will teach us something although I doubt it. It will be interesting, though, to see whether the 'I want it and I want it now' generation will learn a little patience and find something attractively novel in the old thrill of looking forward to things. They may find it something of a relief!

Apropos of nothing at all, I've suddenly decided to return to sheets and blankets, using the duvet as a kind of eiderdown (remember them?) Believe it or not, the change has proven quite a weapon in the fight against my chronic insomnia. Is it the weight? Is it the comforting presence of wool, harking back to a childhood in which duvets were treated with the gravest suspicion? (Whatever next? Showers? Horror!)

crunch time for cute corruption

2008-10-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

What do we read when we're in a mess? I've fingers crossed that young adults will, as their parents downsize their Prada pouches and call time on pedicures for the under 12s, suddenly find the 'cute corruption', to steal from and paraphrase Naomi Wolf in the New York Times a year or two ago, SO last week and turn, with relief, to historical fiction. If things are bad now, consider Yolanda's plight in Blue Flame or Raimon's in White Heat. When perspective is needed, blood and guts (in both senses of the latter word) beat gloss'n'goss any time.

The reaches of the global financial collapse really could call time on the pink books, as I call them, with the loss of Daddy's bonus severely diminishing the fathomless financial liquidity so crucial to the lives of Gossip Girl, A list and Clique characters, to say nothing of their legions and legions of kitty-katty-copy-catters. When everybody has to shop at Walmart and make do with last year's mobile phone, it may become cooler to identify with Meg or Jo March than with Blair Waldorf.

Dream on! Though we are doing the bailing, the bankers still seem to be banking. It will be some time before the Prada pouch shrinks, if it ever does. Reassured or enraged? I swither, sometimes quite violently, between the two.

starred review - hurrah - and a couple of launches

2008-09-29T07:55:00.001-07:00

An excellent start for Blue Flame in the USA - a starred review in Booklist - and my UK editor loves the first manuscript of Paradise Red, the first time she has seen the third in the trilogy. The second, White Heat, has just come out here in the UK.

As it launches out into the world, our second daughter launches off to university. So much coming of age. She's busy packing and in my search for sheets and towels I came across a bracelet I lost months ago, which was a plus, and then gazed at the sheets I was sending with her in horror. I've always thought them absolutely fine. After all, they're just white sheets. Except now that they are to furnish a Cambridge bed I see that they're no longer white - probably haven't been for years. Rather, they're what I call Glasgow grey from endless washing. Still, at least I'll be able to get rid of another duvet. Ours multiply in a most unhelpful way and bulge out of drawers and chests as if daring me to chuck them out. Now there's no need. They can go off to university with Eliza along with all the plates, wobbly lamps and old bits of cutlery I care not whether I see again. How many mothers are doing the same? A quantity, I'll be bound.

Hey ho.

new projects

2008-09-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

To answer your query, Cody - and thankyou for posting a comment - firstly, I'm really excited about the publication in the US next month of Blue Flame, the first part of the Perfect Fire Trilogy, which I hope readers will like. Set in the stunning south west of France, it is a story of love in a time of fanaticism, with some twists and turns that even I, as the writer, did not expect.

Then, I have such a neat idea for my next book, although it is still at the bubble stage, i.e. try to catch it too firmly and it may vanish. It will be different from the Perfect Fire Trilogy, different, too, from the de Granvilles or even the Hangman. The overarching concept is about truth: what it is and how we see it. If I tell you I've been reading Don Quixote, which, shamefully, I had never read, that might provide a clue. So - a kind of Don Quixote-ish (very 'ish') novel of high romance set during the 100 Years War, which is the time of Chaucer or, perhaps more popularly, the time in which the film The Knight's Tale is set. Lots of chivalry and ransoming and pennants and lances. But it will not be a comedy, just as Don Quixote is funny but not really a comedy.

My narrator is currently a dog and I'm finding his voice. The heroine I'm keeping under wraps. A freebooter, a kind of medieval mercenary and more Alan Rickman than Heath Ledger is hoving into view.

This is the stage where anything could happen, and probably will. I have opened a new notebook - always a good sign.

grinding teeth in the credit crunch

2008-09-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Thank you for your sympathy, Camille, over our domestic upheavals. Nothing like a hurricane, so we shouldn't complain, but it's so DEMENTING when you are constantly waiting for people to fix things. Anyhow, tomorrow may - I stress 'may' - be D day. Having got the joiners to shave the doors and watched them shoot, by mistake, through an electricity cable (now thankfully fixed), the painters come to redo the damaged paintwork. And that, my dears, may be that, although I shan't count any chickens until a great deal more hatching has been effected.

This morning, a new set of excitements. Our bank was unhappy but apparently 'sound'. This morning, the beastly thing seemed less sound so we took ourselves off to remove all the money not guaranteed by the regulator (or somebody) and stick it somewhere else. Spread the risk, people said. Don't be your usual foolish selves. Well, trying to set up another account, then closing one and reopening it with our joint names was too ambitious. Really. I think the girl in one bank we tried to deal with must live in a bubble. She seemed oblivious of any turmoil and very surprised that we showed any concern. Unable to answer the most basic of questions, she summoned her boss, who answered one crucial question wrongly. This is why we hate the banks. After greed and complacency comes utter incompetence. It's enough to make you want to stuff any money you manage to earn under the bed.

Whilst I was waiting for the bank to mess things up, I read Don Quixote. Seems curiously apt for these cloud cuckoo-ish times, and being nice and long, by the time I've finished it, the whole world financial system may have collapsed and reconstituted itself without my even noticing. And anyway, if financial Armageddon comes, I shall at least go under with the nice Birkin bag I bought on ebay slung nonchalantly over my arm.

I also ate two choc ices. I don't know why, but they made me feel better.

restlessly in limbo

2008-08-27T03:57:00.000-07:00

It's an odd time, the time between books. Having sent off Paradise Red, I need not to dwell but to move on, so that by the time my editor's comments arrive my mind is fresh - new water for the flowers as it were. I'm going to use the time to forget about domestic things and concentrate instead on filling up a few more of the literary and historical gaping holes that seem to increase year by year, as well as grasping more firmly the ideas floating for new stuff. That old cliche, 'the more you know the more you realise you don't know' is really beating me over the head at the moment.

The best thing I've done this week is to make a resolution with a friend to read a poem a day. So easy - can be done whilst making coffee, speaking to dullards on the telephone, waiting for the spin cycle to finish. If only I'd made this resolution sooner I'd have got through the whole Norton anthology by now and how useful would that be! I'm always in awe of the poet's economy. It seems rather clumsy to have to use 72,000 words when 72 might do.

This is yesterday's, written by Michael Schmidt, now Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University. The idea came from another poem written by an unknown Irish monk aeons ago. Michael's poem was deemed not a poem by the Queen's English Society. There was a jolly row.

Pangur Ban (you probably already know that this means White Cat)

i

Jerome has his enormous dozy lion.
Myself, I have a cat, my Pangur Ban.

What did Jerome feed up his lion with?
Always he's fat and fleecy, always sleeping

As if after a meal. Perhaps a Christian?
Perhaps a lamb, or a fish, or a loaf of bread.

His lion's always smiling, chin on paw,
What looks like purring rippling his face

And there on Jerome's escritoire by the quill and ink pot
The long black thorn he drew from the lion's paw.

Look, Pangur, at the picture of the lion -
Not a mouser like you, not lean, not ever

Chasing a quill as it flutters over parchment
Leaving its trail that is the word of God.

Pangur, you are so trim beside the lion.
- Unlike Jerome in the mouth of his desert cave

Wrapped in a wardrobe of robes despite the heat,
I in this Irish winter, Pangur Ban,

Am cold, without so much as your pillow case
Of fur, white, with ginger tips on ears and tail.

ii

My name is neither here nor there, I am employed
By Colum Cille who will be a saint

Because of me and how I have set down
The word of God. He pays. He goes to heaven.

I stay on earth, in this cell with the high empty window,
The long light in summer, the winter stars.

I work with my quill and colours, bent and blinder
Each season, colder, but the pages fill.

Just when I started work the cat arrived
Sleek and sharp at my elbow, out of nowhere;

I dipped my pen. He settled in with me.
He listened and replied. He kept my counsel.

iii

Here in the margin, Pangur, I inscribe you.
Almost Amen. Prowl out of now and go down

Into time's garden, wary with your tip-toe hearing.
You'll live well enough on mice and shrews till you find

The next scriptorium, a bowl of milk. Some scribe
Will recognise you, Pangur Ban, and feed you;

You'll find your way to him as you did to me
From nowhere (but you sniffed out your Jerome).

Stay by him, too, until his Gospel's done.
(I linger over John, the closing verses,

You're restless, won't be touched. I'm old. The solstice.)
Amen, dear Pangur Ban. Amen. Be sly.

from The Resurrection of the Body, Michael Schmidt 2007
Smith/Doorstop Books

pressing the button

2008-08-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

The send button on a computer should be red, although if it was, I wonder if I would ever send anything at all? It feels red today, though, because I've just sent off the first draft of Paradise Red, the last of the Perfect Fire Trilogy. It should be thrilling, shouldn't it, finishing another trilogy, and it is in its way. But the thrill is a slowburn thing, not like the instant thrill of an Olympic medal, because hot on the tail of the thrill begins the anxiety. I've only got to look at the send button to want to change something.

These alterations, mostly tiny, although I have deleted 7,000 words since last Thursday - yes, that's 7,000 in a quick series of roller-coaster moments - zoom out of a clear blue sky. I think my mind is miles from the book, then suddenly I get a dagger-prick, right in the gut, and have to rush back to page 112 to change one word. Or I'm in Tesco's, and am stopped, stricken in my tracks. 'Where's Unbent when Raimon's stranded in the room-within-a-room?' The checkout girl looks nervous. Unbent is Raimon's sword. You can't buy a sword in Tesco. I might as well give up on the shopping then.

Anyhow - off it has gone and, for the moment, my Perfect Fire notebook, once so pristine and tidy but now scuffed, chaotic and bedecked with bits of grass for some reason, is shut. I await the verdict of my editor much as I waited for the results of my university finals - with a stiff drink to hand.

For those who have so kindly enquired: no, we're still not all repaired from our flood. Oh, it was cruel how close we came last week! The carpet fitters arrived - and left. Apparently our floors need attention. I draw a veil ...

Oh, and something else. For all those being very careful when they meet me, all is well! A Chinese whisper has grown round my family's decanting from our house when the BBC made their film Fiona's Story (to be shown on BBC1 next Sunday, August 31st, at 9 p.m.) From our decanted flat I rang a friend and left a message to the effect that I was not living at home at present, so could she return the call on another number. Can't think how I phrased it, but it was soon common knowledge that I'd been kicked out by my husband (he seemed such a nice man, too) and had joined the ranks of wives abandoned. All very Cranford, and, as in Cranford, all a concatenation of misunderstandings. We're together! We're happy! We're going on holiday next week, deus volente, which, of course, he may not.

fine thoughts are fine but a plumber's better

2008-08-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

I love my husband, yet although it's wonderful to discuss whether Henry James really was responsible for Constance Fenimore Woolston's death or whether Tracey Emin's work is complete junk (never having seen it, of course, but since when did that stop us?) in my next life I'm going to marry a plumber, or maybe an electrician or a decorator - at any rate somebody who can actually DO something.

You see, we're still stuck in post flood mode and there is nothing, nothing at all, more enervating than waiting for workmen. Will they, won't they turn up? Will they, won't they shake their heads and pronounce the house 'too old' for their tools? Will they, won't they make more mess than the mess they came to sort? These questions hover and haunt even as I am trying to finish book 3 of the Perfect Fire trilogy. It's one of the few times I really wished I lived at Castelneuf in 1242 and not in Glasgow in 2008, although, come to think of it, Aimery of Amouroix also has to sort out his castle after a great fire (see Book 2, White Heat, just out in the UK) so I suppose he must have had his moments. Aimery at least had a nice sword with which to prod. Don't think that would go down well here. Still, I can dream.

Lesson to be learned: if you rent out your house to film-makers, insist on portaloos and lock yours up tighter than a medieval wife's chastity belt.

Yesterday I appeared for the first time as an author at the Edinburgh Book Festival and it was quite an experience. It felt very grand to have an author pass and I must say, the whole thing is beautifully organised and civilised, quite a feat when, in this most dismal of summers, the rain has dumped down and then dumped down some more. But book folk are patient and well behaved, at least physically. The real nutters reserve their fire for questions/long rambling opinions in philosophy events. I think facilitators would also find swords quite handy, not to wound, just to swish with intent.

So - the writing. Well, the blog silence has not just been flood related. I've been so deep in the Amouroix, so involved with Raimon and Yolanda that I've scarcely emerged. Their story is more complex than that of Will and Ellie and Hosanna, and none the worse, I think, for that. In the Occitan, loyalties were divided not just in half, but often into fragments and in Paradise Red, Raimon and Yolanda have something to face that nearly floors them both. I thought long and hard about it, but it was absolutely right for the story. I shall be interested to learn whether readers agree.

I always like a fast-moving plot, but in these books I have also explored slow-burning change. Sir Hugh des Arcis, for example, who set out as one thing, is transformed into another through falling in love with Yolanda. I watched him. He couldn't help it. I simply faithfully recorded it in a way I had not anticipated.

I'm often asked if it's hard writing about times so far passed and I would have to say yes, but not in quite the way the questioner means. It's hard sometimes not to be almost paralysed by the sad fact of decreasing attention spans. Were T. H. White to send in The Once and Future King to an agent today, he would be told to cut out all the bits I find so magical - when, for example, the Wart is turned into a goose. Of what use is that to the story? But it's such great writing, it turns you into a wild goose too. Writing good historical novels involves meat as well as gravy, double cream as well as gossamer froth. You just have to hope that the reader is prepared to settle down with knife and fork and not just snatch and graze.

Myself? Today I'd settle for a book on drains even above Violet Needham's The Black Riders. Creating the past is a splendid thing but really, sometimes I'd be happy just to know which end of the plunger is the business end.

Katie

and the budgies STILL live

2008-06-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

First, thank you to everybody for their comments. I hope I answer all your questions as I trundle through, but first, where to start?

I think I'll start by appreciating your comment, Cuileann, that you would have let out your house on the promise of restoration to its original condition, but I must say at once that this is not exactly what's happened to us. In short, flood. Major flood. I won't go into details since the details, close up on my hands and knees and seeping into my slippers, don't really bear much description. Suffice to say that the bottom of our house is now in a state of some disrepair and the poor dogs, having returned from kennels at the end of the filming, have been summarily despatched back. So not quite the homecoming we hoped, although I must say that the upstairs looks very nice. The purple is no more. Now we're all Jasper Crane and Marie Therese, both Victorian yellows. Some visitors will say 'how brave', others 'how lovely', others still will remark that the line between cheerful and laughable is a fine one. All I can say is that it is very striking and the hall, though surprised by its second makeover, seems to be adjusting well to its new persona.

We also had a change of colour for our son Cosmo's room. It's now duckegg blue. I asked him if he liked it. 'Like what?' 'The new colour.' 'Has it changed colour?'
I think that means he likes it.

About the budgies. High above the flood, they rose, quite unperturbed. Then came the man with the chemical/medical spray to disinfect the place and strip it out. The budgies, about whom I had, in the stress of the moment, temporarily forgotten, enjoyed every minute. Then came their real joy: the drying fan and dehumidifiers. A choir! They all sing in chorus now, day and night. It's quite dementing, but I take off my hat to them, or would if I was wearing one. Boots are more in order at the moment.

As for India, how long ago that seems now! One day soon I shall blog about my visit, which was not meant to be research but of course always turns into that. It was just supposed to be a holiday with my gap year daughter, Eliza, the gap year, Camille, being the year spent in limbo between leaving school and starting university - a peculiarly British institution, of which I'm not sure I entirely approve any longer, but which both our daughters have much enjoyed. I did discover something wonderful in India, though. You may already be familiar with the Indian/Canadian author Rohinton Mistry. I had never even heard of him. And there he was, not personally, naturally, but in book form by my Indian bed. I read A Fine Balance and Family Matters hardly drawing breath. Truly remarkable.

In fact, paddling about in my bottom hall, I may read them again and be reminded, amongst other things, of all that glorious sun.

it's nearly over

2008-06-17T03:55:00.000-07:00

Filming is finished and the reinstatement has begun. Soon, really quite soon, our hall will be purple no longer. Now that it's going, I'm growing quite fond of it - not fond enough to keep it, but fond. I'm also rather dreading leaving our little dolls-house flat and returning to 'real' life. Life without domestic responsibilities is really rather blissful, particularly now my husband and I have resolved the wallpaper issue (i.e. he's given in). On Saturday, I shall pick up the dogs. I'm hoping it's true they have no sense of time, but I fear I shall have to do a bit of crawling before they forgive their extended abandonment in kennels.

The budgies, who remained at home, have also had their own adventure in the shape of an unexpected visitor. Astutely realising that the dogs were no longer in residence, next door's cat, who has long anticipated a budgie-shaped snack, availed itself of the dogflap and took a flying leap at the cage, plunging it, budgies and himself straight onto the floor. Flap flap flip flap. Miaow, piaow, miaow. Clang. Clang. Birdseed everywhere. Water everywhere. Feathers everywhere. Dignity shredded, the cat slunk off. Heart attacks were predicted for the birds. However once righted and back on the window sill, they appeared completely unmoved. Much discussion ensued. I mean to say, given that both birds should be dead, are ours particularly brave or particularly thick? Whichever, they are certainly survivors although once we move home again and things are back to normal, they'll probably die immediately - of boredom.

Oh - and for those who wanted to know, I did go home during the filming for some sneak previews and can thus confirm that Gina McKee is as beautiful offscreen as she is on, and is witty and charming to boot, and that Jeremy Northam, though a little more weather-worn than he was as Ivor Novello, is just the sort of man who would grace a drawing room. But my goodness is it unglam, making stuff for tv. Hours of preparation for seconds of filming. You don't just need acting skills, you need the patience of Job.

unexpected places continued: all out but the budgies

2008-06-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't told you the worst about the purple (see previous blog). Our house was finished in 1872 or so, as part of a graceful Crescent. Light being at a premium in grey Glasgow, cupolas were installed to illuminate generous halls. The wall space is large, encompassing two floors, leading the eye forwards and upwards to show off the house's generous proportions. When we first moved in, we went mad and decided to give the house a present. We would wallpaper the hall in its entirety - and not just wallpaper, but Zoffany wallpaper in gold and blue. An investment? Rubbish. Just one of those splurging impulse designed to give you, post-ordering the stuff, several metaphorical heart attacks. Not my husband. The prospect of a hall papered from top to toe in Zoffany filled him with delight. Up it went. Jaws dropped.

For fourteen years the paper glowed and shone and gave the house a certain distinction. Then along comes a film crew and in two days it is gone. I gaped.

Now, let me make it plain at once. The slapping of paint on paper was not done surreptitiously. In the many meetings we had before the 'dresser' got going, changing our house from a family home into a, er, family home, we discussed exactly what they were going to do. But theory and practice are not quite the same. As the Zoffany sighed 'what did I ever do to you?' and gave up the ghost, I felt a vandal.

Good news is that there is a glorious thing called 're-instatement'. That's when they have to put your house back exactly as it was. Yup, paper and all. And then I wondered if we really wanted paper. I mean, did we? My husband was appalled and at once rushed off to get samples. 'Look!' he cried, 'Look how beautiful paper is! How can you even speak of paint?' In all the shenanigans - the decanting into a tiny flat, the depositing of the poor dogs into kennels, our son's room turned into a false kitchen during his exams, the downstairs loo deciding it didn't want any part in this nonsense, the neighbours' houses having to sport Christmas trees in June, to say nothing of the troublesome and difficult subject matter of the drama itself which caused us both to gulp - the only thing that has caused any actual friction in our household is wallpaper.

For those who want to know what the troublesome subject of the film is - it stars Gina MacKee (The Street, the Forsyte Saga, Notting Hill) and Jeremy Northam (Emma, The Tudors, Gosford Park) - I shall soon post a link to the press release. That's a whole other story, and leads me to wonder, if the production team had approached you for such a drama, would you have agreed?

unexpected places

2008-06-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

I find myself in a small flat about ten minutes walk from our house. I said as much over the telephone to a friend and before I knew it, the rumour had gone up that my domestic bliss was bliss no longer and that I was living solo. 'And her husband seemed such a nice man,' exclaimed another friend, truly horrified. Oh, what assumptions we make in a world of Chinese whispers! In fact, my marriage is in fine condition, thank you. We have all simply been decanted from our house by the BBC, who, for the past six weeks, have been using it as a film location. Simply? Ha!

When we got that fabled 'note through the door' saying that our house had been spotted and might possibly be considered and and and, I so nearly put it in the bin. Had I done so, our hall would not now be purple and there would be no loo in our garden. But 'it'll be fun', I said to my reluctant husband. 'If they want the house, we should say yes.' Now, my husband is lovely, but since childhood parties which forced him into group laughter, he has viewed 'fun' with distinct suspicion. I backtracked. 'No, not fun. It'll probably be hell.'

That did it. We agreed and I promptly went to India for nearly three weeks with my gap year daughter leaving my husband to cope with the first excitement, which was that Health and Safety condemned our bedroom ceiling. 'It could fall right now, tonight, tomorrow or in five years' time,' he said. I must say that we don't worry much about that kind of thing. Ceilings come, ceilings go. We fix these things in our own good time. But even we could see that a lump of bony Victorian plaster on the head of a star of stage and screen might hold filming up a bit. But mikeyoreilly, the mess! I knew things were pretty bad when my husband stopped emailing me in Delhi. The silence shrieked 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US?' quite eloquently, even over 3,000 miles.

By the time Eliza and I returned from India, the ceiling was fixed and 'prepping' was in full swing. 'I'm sure it looks lovely,' I said. It was not until I saw the purple that I realised the enormity of what we had done.

The excitement continues ...

the sopranos back to back

2008-04-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

I've been ill for the past ten days or so - the same virus that's now struck the Duke of Edinburgh, so I'm in good company. For three days I was speechless, which struck my husband and children as a gift from the Almighty. Less of a gift, they thought, was that since I have now acquired the rest of the Sopranos series and damned the cost, I have watched them, guiltily, back to back when my head has been too thick to work.

Though I know I join, rather late, those who think the series is extraordinary, gulping it down in great blocks has been psychologically interesting, scary even. The theme tune floats permanently in my head. I find that I'm thinking about the characters all the time. Yesterday I caught myself wondering whether I'd begun to imitate Paulie's strangled walk. And when I 'woke up this morning', I didn't 'get myself a gun' but I did sit bolt upright, wondering if there'd been a plot breakdown over the murder of Adriana. I mean, if she was going to bring Chrissy in to the Feds, wouldn't they have been watching her door? After all, seeing if Christopher would 'flip' was hideously dangerous for her. Quite apart from that, wouldn't they have wanted to ensure that the two toxic lovebirds didn't do a quick flit? So when Christopher left to 'clear his head', did no agent follow him up to Tony's house, and could Syl really have picked up Adriana without the Feds noticing? Or did I just miss something?

Then there's Vito, with whose fate, in my watching chronology, David Chase is still playing. Will he be allowed to survive and find happiness? That would be an unexpectedly bright spot in this slow descent to hell. More likely, I expect, Vito will revert to type when his new moustachioed lover smiles innocuously at another man. Death for somebody - perhaps in a barrel of pancakes - seems inevitable.

I'm trying to pinpoint the moment when we finally understand that this is not a story about mobsters with hearts but about heartless mobsters. It is different moments for different people. The moment with Carmela is not when, in Series 3, she goes to Dr. Krakower, the shrink who tells it like it is, marvellous as that moment is. It's when she sees Dr. Melfi after Junior shoots Tony, and after a little honesty, just when we're thinking Carmela is prepared to see what we see, she suddenly says that there are worse crooks in the world than her husband, as if that makes everything ok. Perfect pitch writing and yet another example of the viewer thinking we're going up one path and then realising that we've entirely misconstrued what we've been witnessing.

Sorry to non Sopranos fans but I can't sound off to the rest of my family as my husband and son couldn't watch it - they like the America of the West Wing - and my daughter found it hard to cope with after Dr. Melfi's rape scene. So here I am, talking to you and I'm afraid I can't promise not to again, particularly as I think it may somehow feed into my own writing. Help or hindrance? I'm still waiting to find out.

Onwards and unsteadily upwards,
Katie

spring in the air yourself, archdeacon

2008-03-24T03:58:00.000-07:00

Easter Monday and it's snowing. My second daughter's budgies, settled near the boiler like a couple of Davy lamps, nod and bob in amazement and the peony that has launched into flower looks faintly affronted. Don't know why. It often snows in Glasgow in March, particularly if we want to go somewhere.

This image of Carcassonne has also, like the images on my previous blog, been created by my sister Alice, although her website, aliceoneilpapercuts.co.uk shows it off far better than I can. Silhouette is a fabulous medium, particularly for the medieval period: full of little windows and mystery, both very helpful to the writer.

With Blue Flame and White Heat done and dusted - Blue Flame is just about to come out in the UK - I'm deep into Paradise Red. Yet again I'm struck how writing these three books has been a completely different experience from writing the de Granville trilogy: harder in some ways because the subject matter is trickier and also because the way things have turned out, it's not just a plain and simple story. For example, it has brought into sharp focus what is 'real' and what is not, and the very acute differences between being a novelist and a historian, differences that are not just about facts but about perceptions and desires. The historian in me says 'so far and no further'. The novelist says 'there is no such thing as no further'. Writing Paradise Red in the present tense continues to be a very writerly experience. I thought it might prove too cumbersome and limiting for a historical novel but quite the opposite. I feel that it adds far more than it takes away and leaves me constantly surprised.

Fat day today. Far too many chocolate eggs yesterday. It's a good thing Easter comes but once a year. Isn't it odd how just one day of overindulgence can make you feel like an elephant?

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

cutouts

2008-02-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

These are two of the cutouts created by Alice O'Neill, my sister, out of one single piece of paper. The first is a shepherd's hut that we saw in the mountains of the Ariege and the second is the pog of Montsegur, seen through a medieval window. It's such a clever concept and incredibly skillful in execution since she can't use scissors or glue, but must cut the paper in one go. She's going to do some more, which I shall post, or you can look at her website www.aliceoneillpapercuts.co.uk, where you can see just what a novel and intriguing art papercutting is. It's also a fantastic way to make a record of your house: so much more interesting than a photograph and so much less expensive than a painting. And they are so individual - no two are the same.

I'm now onto Paradise Red, the third book of the Perfect Fire Trilogy, and my life is uncomfortably full of small panic attacks. The thing is, the Cathar heretics have taken a popular, almost heroic, hold of people's imaginations: the small Perfecti versus the big bully Catholic church is how they are usually seen. But I've taken rather a different approach, unsparing of the Catholic church of the time but also giving the Cathar heresy a darker hue. Is this more 'truthful'? I've no idea, except when you read the accounts of heretics willingly giving themselves up to be burned, the line between bonkers fanatic and heroic martyr can often become blurred. Still, I hope I'm not going to draw down the fury of those for whom the Cathars have achieved some kind of saintly status! Remember, these are novels ...

I must also post some more pictures of Miss Blackberry. She's one year old now, and naughty naughty naughty. Also, quelle horreur! Her ears have pricked up instead of being floppy. How has this happened! Is there a cure?

Finally, an admission. I'm completely hooked on the Sopranos (boxed set for Christmas). It's full of appalling violence. Nobody wears nice clothes. They're always eating, or swearing or garotting or somesuch. I definitely do not want to be them. And yet I just keep watching. Should I be worried?

Katie

january greys

2008-01-07T02:29:00.000-08:00

In January, right on the button, the tax man cometh. Then the sky turns grey and remains grey for, oh, around a year or so. That's not strictly true, about the grey I mean, although the predominant colour of Glasgow skies is certainly not blue. I resent the grey less in the winter. It's the grey summer skies that drive me nuts. I always, however, resent the taxman because he takes such a huge slice and spends it so badly. I've never quite got my head round the cheerful adage 'the more tax you pay, the more you must have earned' because it never quite feels like that. The twice yearly tax punch is the curse of the self-employed, and the taxman takes particular delight in hammering you at the times of maximum financial horror: Christmas (sometimes the demand comes on Christmas Eve - why doesn't he just give it to Father Christmas to stick in the stocking and save the postage) and July, to make sure that you feel a little sick at the start of any holiday. On bad days, I'd like to be a taxman. You can make people feel terrible with just the flick of a pen, or the jokey placing (must be a joke, surely) of a decimal dot. That's power.

I had no intention of having time off from writing this Christmas but that's what has happened. All the stuff going on when everybody is at home, plus the boxed set of the first series of the Sopranos and an abundance of chocolates has been too much of a distraction. We love boxed sets in our house. We've done Brideshead (to death), and adored the West Wing. The Sopranos has taken more getting into and my husband hasn't caught the bug. The rest of us watch it, sometimes with our eyes closed. One question. Why don't they wear gloves when they're killing people? When Tony garrottes the Grass after dropping his daughter at her college interview, he does it with his bare hands. I'd have thought an endless supply of leather gloves was an essential mob tool. I'm surprised they don't own a glove factory.

We also tried 24. People rave about it, but we found it too contrived and cliched. Didn't much care for any of the characters. I'll probably finish the first series, but want to ask anybody out there if it gets better?

I'm desperate to get back onto my Perfect Fire roll, the one that I surfed through December, but getting back into the 13th century is a bit like jumping into the sea again when you've been out for a bit. You've got to grit your teeth, gather your courage and just go go go. Oh, but it's a bit cold, and then there are a few chocolates left, and perhaps just one more Sopranos ...

Onwards and upwards.

Happy New Year!

two down, one to go

2007-12-10T04:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I sent off both the final edits to blue flame, the first in the perfect fire trilogy, and the first draft of white heat, which is the second volume. It was a joyful experience made strange by nearly eighty hours of almost continual work. I did get into bed, but could never sleep. So filled with the books had I become that I didn't even really feel tired. I resented the time the kettle took to boil, refused to go to the loo until I could refuse no longer, walked the two dogs at a speed that left even the bouncing puppy breathless and didn't notice that I had failed to turn up for any meal, or cook one, until my husband told me there was nothing left in the freezer. He could have been talking double dutch for all I heard. I was in thirteenth century Occitan with Raimon and Yolanda and that was where I was staying.

These are the weeks for which this writer, at any rate, longs and you never know when, or indeed if, they will come. You don't even realise they have arrived until you're in the midst of one. Then, with astonished relief, you find that the act of writing is no longer like hewing granite. Rather, it's like sculpting with the finest clay. The tap tap tapping with furrowed brow and faltering fingers is over. Instead, you're zipping along with speed and joy and, most importantly, belief. You acknowledge this only in a whisper to start with, in case the muse deserts you. But your confidence grows as normal life slides away - and you don't care.

You may be able to understand something of the magnitude of this zany liberation when you recall that I am Mrs. Ultimate Control Freak. I mean, in a normal week, I tidy, I iron, I answer e.mails, I keep up with the news. But in one of Those Weeks, I couldn't care less if the entire household had to leave the house starving and naked. On Saturday, I couldn't tear myself from my laptop long enough even to draw the curtains in my meatsafe study. When some child or other came in and said 'it's dark and freezing in here', I felt like Andy McDowell in the rain at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral. 'Oh, I hadn't noticed'. Needless to say, having dressed in the dark with a quick stab of mascara for decency's sake, I looked even less like her than I do usually, and the resemblance is what you might call never very marked.

But here I am, back in the land of the washing machine and cooker. Thank you, Kirsten and Jessie and Camille for your kind comments about previous blogs. It's great to have feedback.

Have I told you before that this new trilogy is about love in a time of fanaticism? My children tell me I both repeat myself and don't finish sentences. I can't see the harm, myself, since ...... Have I said before that this new trilogy is about love in a time of fanaticism?

The thirteenth century Occitan is under threat from powerful King Louis IX of France, he who was later designated St. Louis (although not by me). Instead of all joining together to save the lands and the culture from being subjugated, opposition was split between Cathars (a Christian sect) and the Catholics. It was a time of terror and terrorism; of turning a God of Love into a God of Hate; of the kind of implacable and bizarre logic that leads to pyres for the living. Catholic Inquisitors or Cathar Perfecti (a Cathar high priest), which was worse, really?

It's fashionable to look on the Cathars with sympathy. After all, they were eventually hounded out and ground into the dust. But actually, when you start to delve, the Cathars were almost as bad as the Catholics. There were just fewer of them. One particular delight was their fancy for the 'endura' or fasting until death. This cracker was sometimes imposed on those to whom Perfecti had administered the 'consolation', a kind of Cathar sacrament that turned the 'consoled' into Perfecti too. Once you were 'Perfect' you must reject the world for the world was a creation of the devil. Horrible for contemporaries. Perfect (pun intended) for novelists.

Now to prepare for Christmas. One joyful week to another.

Katie

sisters

2007-11-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

If you get on well, there's no person better to travel with than a sister. You can share a room and toothpaste. You can talk or stay silent as you want and, perhaps best of all, you don't have to explain why you find certain things funny. As I have 5 sisters, I think I'm something of an expert and I think I can say with some authority that my oldest sister, Alice, is a the perfect travelling companion. Not only does she quite understand why I want to go to the top of crags, castles and mountains even though I'm terrified of heights, but she only laughs a bit when she sees me crawling between castellations not daring to look at the view we've driven a hundred miles to see. And then, in the evenings, you can gossip - always a staple of sisters (see blog for All Souls). So - a week with a sister in la belle France, and my goodness was south west France looking belle last week, is a proper excursion, i.e. one from which you return filled with cakes, wine, postcards, books, bits of old stone (I collect them to remind me of the colour) and enough family chat to keep you going until the next time.

Some people concentrate their researches on facts but actually for a novelist it's far more important to research for atmosphere. Facts you can get from books or the web. Atmosphere you have to live: breathing the air, battling the wind, climbing the climb, walking the walk, viewing the view (in theory at any rate). At least that's what I tell my accountant.

My sister also does marvellous silhouettes, which she creates and sells. I'm going to post up some of the Cathar chateaux in due course because she manages to evoke the essential spirit of the place much better than many photographers. In our age of colour, we forget how powerful black on white is.

So, home. Glasgow is not quite Carcassonne or Limoux or Pamiers or Fanjeaux or Puivert or Puilaurens or Montsegur or or or. But it will have to do for the time being. And anyway, if we'd stayed much longer I'd be the size of a house. Sisters are not good for diets. Only with a sister is 'Oh, go on then,' always the default answer to the question 'shall we?' at the patisserie.

Katie

eating cake

2007-11-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the life of an author can't get much better. Here I am, strolling about France with Alice, my oldest sister, following the journeys made by Yolanda and Raimon in Blue Flame, but eating rather better than they would have done, I suspect. Cakes were consumed beneath Beynac Castle on the banks of the Dordogne today under the watchful eyes of two magnificent eagles. So sad that this is our last full day! Tomorrow we go to pay homage to Richard the Lionheart at Chalus Chabrol, just south of Limoges. We'll stand by the keep next to which he was struck by a quarrel from a lucky (or unlucky) crossbow and died of gangrene a few days later. Moral of that story is always to put your armour on properly and no skimping. The crossbowman was flayed alive, despite Richard's forgiveness. I'd rather have died of gangrene.

Anyhow, we began our trip in the stunning fortress town of Carcassonne which rises from the plateau like something from a fairytale, then moseyed on into high mountains of the Ariege and the Aude, with the Cathar castles impossibly perched on impossibly high crags making the head spin before we'd even begun to climb. We picnicked on the top of Montsegur, wondering how they ever got 600 knights inside its gloomy walls, and how ever they withstood the wind. When we set sail over the mountains to the west of Foix, both of us had such bad vertigo that even Alice, who was driving, had to close her eyes at the sheer drops to our right. An exciting ride we had, as did all those who met us. But the view over the peaks from the top took the breath away, as did the descent. Oh, there's nothing like a good mountain to get the heart beating. Those Cathar heretics should have been given medals for bravery not burnt on pyres.

Early start tomorrow, and there's wine to be consumed, to say nothing of a few more cakes. Ah, the author's life is a very happy one.

Katie

all souls

2007-10-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

On Friday this week, the Feast of All Souls, my family gathers at our ancestral home, Towneley Hall, to pray for all the Towneley dead. Amongst the dead for whom we pray is, naturally, Uncle Frank of How The Hangman Lost His Heart. Indeed, we hear Mass in the very chapel in which his poor old bonce resided until the central heating proved a bit of a problem and he had to resort to the hatbox. It is an odd occasion, this Mass for All Souls. So many dead Towneleys. Glad to say so many living Towneleys, too.

The priest officiates at the Towneley altar, an early sixteenth century Flemish affair installed by my ancestor Charles Towneley, who died in 1805. To say it was intricately carved would be a severe understatement. This altar is the busiest altar you've ever seen, with lively scenes from Christ's passion from which no detail is spared. What patience wood carvers had in those days! We kneel in front of it on creaking floorboards, all those that can gather, and confront the fact that one day our descendants, God willing, will be praying for us in similarly uncomfortable postures. Comforting, though, to think that even if they've forgotten who we actually were, we'll be remembered in the general job lot of dead Towneleys the priest is obliged to mention - "and all those others". Better than nothing.

I remember particularly my mother, who died in February 2001 aged 65. How the world has changed since then. She wouldn't recognise most of our conversation now: 9/11, Al-Qaeda, iPods, blogging, the universal mobile. Mind you, she never quite got the hang even of payphones so perhaps it's as well she was spared the clamshell, the ringtone and texting. But I remember her standing for the photograph the All Souls before she died, knowing quite well that the next time we gathered in the chapel she would be included not in the photograph but in the RIP list.

After Mass, we all have breakfast together. How the mighty are fallen! No longer do we breakfast in the fine family dining room. Nope. We are relegated to the servants' hall, and a very merry relegation it is too. We have a full English fry-up, Oxford marmalade for the toast and more family gossip than you could fit into a Jane Austen novel. Woe betide any of the sorority (we are 6 sisters and a brother) who isn't there! Woe betide cousins who don't turn up. If you're not present, you may well be spoken of in terms to make you blush. With the priest on tap, we can always nip to confession afterwards if we feel we overstepped the mark and return home with perfectly clear consciences.

So, I gather myself together. Prayers for the dead and a hearty breakfast for the living - we Towneleys are nothing if not inclusive. Any spectre welcome at this feast.

Katie

the sound of silence

2007-10-11T06:56:00.001-07:00

I've been searching for a bit of silence. Do you ever wonder where it all went? It doesn't seem too much to ask, but actually, silence has virtually vanished in the modern world - well, in Britain anyway. I'm alone in my house, but let me tell you what I can hear:

Blackberry (naturally) scuffling in her E-collar (she's just been speyed)

Crumble sighing because Blackberry's being a pest

Audrey and Douglas Orme-Herrick (budgies) gossiping

the washing machine complaining

a man outside slamming his car doors

a car alarm

an alarmed bird (possibly two)

my laptop clicking and occasionally whirring

two blonde ladies chatting (I can't see them, but they're having a blonde conversation)

the electricity meter ticking (why have I never noticed that before? It can't have just started)

This is silence of a sort, I suppose, and I'm not really complaining. I wonder if there was more silence in the medieval times about which I write? Let me see. In those days, my list might have read:

my little lapdogs yapping

the larks in my aviary trilling (perhaps anticipating being eaten)

the laundresses singing (and cackling at the older one's lewd jokes)

iron shod carriage wheels grinding and setting my teeth on edge

church bells sounding, sounding, sounding

my scribe scratching his head and other more unmentionable bits of his anatomy with his quill

my ladies giggling behind their embroidery

a pig complaining loudly

the cook complaining loudly

the cockerel complaining loudly

my husband stamping up the stairs, rattling his sword

the priest muttering away at his prayers

water dripping from the hole in the roof

the wind whistling through the windows because, curses, we can't afford glazing

the daughter practising the recorder, an instrument that should be banned under the Geneva Convention regarding torture

Good Lord! I find I'm much better off, silence-wise, now.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

writing writing writing

2007-07-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

We're in the middle of the holidays here, except it rains all the time. Some days I barely notice, though, as I'm stuck in my little meatsafe, writing away.

The new trilogy has involved some really hard thinking. The historical time is complicated and very dark. Could any time be darker than the crusades? Well, yes! Thirteenth century France was bleak: it's when we meet Inquisitors rather than the Inquisition. These were Dominican friars sent to deal with, amongst others, those people known in Europe as the Cathar heretics, i.e. people who had their own ideas about how to worship God and said rude things about the Pope - never a good idea in the medieval times. Doesn't really matter actually what they all believed. The important thing is that the Catholics hated the Cathars and the Cathars hated the Catholics. Favourite punishment if you were found to be a Cathar? Funeral pyres. All jolly stuff.

On top of this, the south of France, known then as the Langue D'Oc, or Occitania, or the Occitan, was trying to stay independent of King Louis IX of France, who kept trying to overrun it. For good measure, Louis was Catholic (of course) but not all Occitanians were Cathars, so you've got a rare old mix of loyalties, counter-loyalties, imperial ambitions, iffy reasons for war - sound familiar? Add to that treachery, counter-treachery and a Blue Flame that stands for all the Occitan's brilliance and life but which isn't always reliable and you've great grist to the mill of a story. Once you've sorted it all out of course.

Anyhow, my story is a love story, which explores different kinds of love: love for country, love for another, love for self, love for God. It also unravels a little the difference between being righteous and being self-righteous. The difference has been crucial to world history. When you mistake one for the other, all hell breaks loose.

It's been fun writing about thirteenth century Paris, which reminds me of nothing so much as 19th and 20th century New York. New York as a medieval city may sound odd, but it feels very right. Building building building: higher, bigger, better. Building as power. Height as might. Architectural glamour as personal pride. Medieval cities were as buzzy as Manhattan: noisy, 24 hour places, teeming with life, not at all like the rather sleepy ruins so many are today. When Yolanda (my heroine) went to Paris, I thought of my first trip to New York - not something I had expected to do.

That's the joy of starting something new, although it's also terrifying. Many times over the last month I have longed to change places with a supermarket checkout girl.

Miss Blackberry is now quite large. If I could find my camera underneath the pile of papers in my study, I'd take a picture. Maybe once Yolanda's left Paris and I can refold my maps, most of which are covered in arrows to remind me which way the rivers flow, I shall find all manner of things. Perhaps even the dog herself.

Good holidays to all,
Katie

king ping ding ding hits the USA

2007-06-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

Firstly, what is it with me and cameras? I was in the States for 3 weeks, met hundreds of wonderful people, saw dozens of wonderful sights, and took five pictures: none of books, none of authors, none of audiences (a good thing, possibly, at Borders in La Grange, Illinois, except at the end, where my dulcet tones - stop a tank at 100 yards as somebody once described them - finally attracted a few book buffs, perhaps because the words 'hangman', 'execution' and 'deathshead' were unusual to hear on a warm May evening). But I still should have taken a picture of Borders' beautiful display. Thank you, Borders in La Grange!

Actually, because of lack of any photographic evidence to the contrary, I think my children are convinced I actually never left Britain, or even the house, just spent 3 weeks lying low, possibly in our bedroom, sneaking out for a little refreshment when they weren't looking. It's an idea ...

But I have been in the States (really truly) and have been back a week now. It may have been a mistake after flying in, red-eyed, at 7.30 a.m. to Glasgow from New York, to attack the kitchen floor with a mop, although perhaps the biggest mistake was to go out to lunch with my husband. Why not a Fruitini cocktail? The Hudson comes to the Clyde. Why not another? And a little wine? Is this what they mean by jetlag?

Still, so far as I remember, and although, in the words of the S & G song 'Michigan seems like a dream to me no ow ow,' - magical thing about America, it's just like the songs people write about it - I landed in Detroit at around 5 p.m. on Monday 14th May, was swept up by Rachel from Walker, socks and boots at once discarded into the back of the rented SUV - they said it was compact: COMPACT? I could have fitted my study into the boot - and turned on the SATNAV. Question: does anybody know what the British voice - Richard? Kevin? SadMan? - says as a greeting? Is he exhorting us to eat more carrots? The best thing about the SATNAV was the withering contempt with which the phrase 'recalculating' was uttered every time we went wrong. It did a lot of 'recalculating' as we tried to negotiate our way out of Grand Rapids, past the Gerald Ford Library. I think it might have been easier to take a boat down the rapids themselves, which were pretty impressive from my suite (upgraded since vast hotel chocabloc with diners and sleepers - Americans love to conference) in the glass tower of the hotel.

Then there was King Ping Ding Ding. I hadn't really thought much about him for some years but suddenly, out he popped. He wanted his moment on a book tour in the States even though he's about as far away from the de Granvilles or How the Hangman Lost His Heart as it is possible to get. Be quiet, I told him, in ruder language than that, but his determination wore me down. He goes like this: There was a king called Ping Ding Ding and he had a wife called (deep breath) Onoratacata(lots more of this)rian. And they had a daughter called Lamamasukawila(lots more of that)mo. As you can see, this is quite a story, and it gets more and more confounding as I speed up. My biggest Ping Ding Ding moment was reciting it to 3 adults in a public spot, (they did ask for it, I promise) with shoppers peering in: amazed? aghast? completely flummoxed?

And so the tour began.

What author can extoll enough the virtues of book stores, most particularly the independents? Who can extoll enough the managers and staff, and also the schools, with their teachers, supervisors and librarians, to say nothing of the public library librarians? I met many in Michigan, in Illinois and Chicago, and in New York. From Colleen at Book Beat I also learnt that September 21st is the International Day of Peace. Thank you for that, Colleen, and a huge thank you to all. We authors would be nothing without your enthusiasm and dogged book carting skills, your hand selling, your recommendations to your classes and library users and your fabulously undimmed love of literature, even in the face of all adversity. I took home fantastic memories of the people in Michigan, Chicago and New York City, loved the lunches with the book groups and learnt a lot from the other authors on the panels. I do like authors! You know, from the gleam in their eyes, that they suffer from exactly the same angst as you do yourself. Sometimes we communicate just by the twitching of an eye.

One memorable moment from many: the mother duck and 5 ducklings solemnly paddling down the road, beaks up, stomachs out, in the huge mall at Skokie. Hey, mother duck, did you know where you were going, or were you just trying to reassure the kids? We never found out, although we did notify the police, just in case the ducklings weren't all hers and she was doing a runner - well, more or a 'walker' I suppose.

I was also was introduced to the concept of the neighbourhood 'tear down' (thank you, Heidi). Now, in Scotland we have a lot of 'fall down' - our 150 year old town house is being lightly touched by such a trauma - but 'tear down'? What's with that? Is it what we British would love to do but don't dare? Or is it a jokey hoot that only Americans could carry off? We British are stuck with what we have, architecturally speaking. But in the US it seems that in some neighbourhoods, for people with a bit of cash, it is quite the thing to buy a $5 million mansion, bring in the demolition men, then rebuild it in a mix of romantic French, solid German, Gloucestershire country cottage with, as a little frolic on the top, a personal flight of chimney brickwork fancy. The results are fantabulous, or, if you are a Glaswegian, gob-smacking. It was an education.

And what about the books? The Walker de Granville covers are so lovely, I almost wanted to cry when I saw them altogether. I can never decide which is my favourite. I've been incredibly lucky. Some authors hate the look of their books, I love mine.

If you've made it this far down the post, congratulations!

There will be more, in time. I mean I haven't even mentioned BEA, our Saturday night al fresco dinner with Lemon Drops, or the man who threw all his clothes out of a taxi on, I think, 34th and 9th, and left me wondering whether it was good or bad New York etiquette to scavenge.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

home again jigetty jog, as one of our nannies used to say

2007-06-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

Home again after three fabulous weeks in the USA. I shall blog in more detail very soon. At the moment, I'm having a writing blitz. Returning home after 3 weeks is an experience both wonderful and dementing. My control freakery is turning somersaults as I see things NOT WHERE I LEFT THEM. Blackberry so wrigglingly thrilled I could hardly find a bit of her to pat. Crumble knows how to be pleased in a ladylike way.

Now, sleep. My insomnia is reaching new heights, or should that be depths. Have I told you about my insomnia yet? Oh, don't worry, I will, I will. Any cures considered.

Onwards and sleeplessly upwards,
Katie

message for Eva

2007-05-20T10:37:00.001-07:00

Dear Eva,

Thank you so much for e.mailing. I'm so glad you like the de Granville Trilogy. I tried to e.mail you back, but the message kept getting returned. I'm not sure why. As it happens, I am in the United States at the moment - I'm guessing you live here, but I could be wrong! - but if you do, you could send a letter care of Rachel Wasdyke, Walker/Bloomsbury Publishers, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY1010, I'll get it next week when I get to New York. At the moment I'm doing school and author visits in Chicago. What a fabulous city it is.

I shall look forward to your letter!

with very best wishes,
Katie Grant

here I am in the usa

2007-05-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, how proud my hapless Uncle Frank would be! Or would he? I've been telling his story in lots of places in Michigan at the start of my tour in the USA, and having a great time meeting readers. Hope I haven't grossed anybody out too much, but there's no getting away from the fact that Uncle Frank's story is a bit gory. It's so nice that Blaze of Silver, the last in the de Granville Trilogy, is also going down so well. Thanks to everybody who's e.mailed about it and the other de Granville books. I appreciate that very much. Hope you enjoy How the Hangman Lost His Heart when it appears in the autumn.

Last year, you may remember that I was extremely impressed by American plumbing on my tour, and this year is no exception. In Holland, where I was beautifully looked after by Michelle at Treehouse Books, the bath in the hotel was so big it was in the bedroom and it had jets! What more could anybody want?

I have also discovered the doubtful joys of SatNav. How on earth do they pick the voices? The US SatNav lady in our hire car had Rachel, my brilliant publicist from Walker, and I feeling like naughty children as she constantly told us, in highly disapproving tones, that she was 'recalculating' when we made slip ups. She was only topped by the British voice, who, every time we turned him on, announced, in a voice of weary desperation, something about carrots. We never quite discovered what it was, so he remained rather weary until he was finally handed back to the rental company. We didn't dare try the Australian for fear he might actually leap out of the SatNav screen and box our ears.

Chicago tomorrow, and then on to New York. Who said an author's life wasn't all skittles and beer?

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

april already

2007-04-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it's April already, and I never posted in March. I don't know what I've got against March, except that I always think it's going to be warm and it's always freezing.

Only a month to go before I return to the States for another book tour. Last year, I came home buzzing like a bee, and the buzz lasted all summer. It wasn't just the people, the plumbing and the fantastical cakes, it was that special US 'can do' thing, which, forgive the pun, we 'can't do' over here. And the US is the country of the West Wing. How on earth did I manage so long without CJ? We're only on series 6, which means we've still got a whole series to go. I've no idea what we'll do when it's finished. Start all over again, I dare say, or we'll all, including the dogs, have violent withdrawal symptoms.

I've been thinking about blogs a lot recently. They're funny things, aren't they, raising lots of questions. Should you be completely honest? Should you make stuff up? The biggest temptation for me is to be sunny all the time and use the blog as a kind of holiday. I find it hard to use it as a diary as I believe that some things should be secret. There should be snippets of ourselves and our lives that we take with us to the grave, things we've never told anybody, or perhaps just one other person. But private thoughts are not fashionable. There is a sense that anything private has no meaning; that meaning is only given if something is observed, or written up, or declared on Oprah. I tell all therefore I am.

On the other hand, I would, could I find the courage, find it useful to write about how hard I find the whole creative process some days, and how a sense of desolation can really wallop you, particularly at the stage when nothing in a book will settle down. But that can sound like complaining, and as an author with a fantastic book deal, I have absolutely no business to complain. Balance, balance, balance! I've never had much. I was always the child who wobbled on the wall and eventually fell off, usually into a cowpat.

Onward and upwards,
Katie

a birth

2007-02-24T04:49:00.000-08:00

We swore blind we wouldn't, but two weeks after Biscuit's death, with Crumble ageing before our eyes, we succumbed. Here is the result: Blackberry, aged 7 weeks, although I warn that if you are currently looking for reasons NOT to have a puppy, these photographs will be seriously bad for your resolution! We bought her from Staffordshire, a county which has consequently gone up in my estimation. She comes from a highly respectable family of small, clever Jack Russells, smooth-haired, with tri-coloured faces and jaunty eyebrows.

I must report that Crumble is not very impressed, and whilst we have told her we love her quite as much as ever, and that she is most certainly the senior dog in this household, with senior dog privileges, she continues to be a trifle sniffy. If we give Blackberry toys, she carefully removes them. 'I shall blow raspberries at this blackberry,' she says, 'until she learns some manners.'

It's funny how guilty you feel, though, at bringing in a new dog when an old one dies. Whilst Blackberry is sweet as jam, I thought it quite right that Crumble didn't at once welcome her without reservation. After all, Biscuit is still a benign presence in the house. But though it will be strange, I'm going to give Blackberry his old bed to sleep in. Silly as it is, I like to imagine that in her doggy dreams, she can hear him growling 'respect, Blackberry, respect'.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

a death

2007-02-18T03:32:00.000-08:00

Tragedy struck a week ago last Saturday. Biscuit, our old and rather apologetic Jack Russell terrier got out of his bed to discover that his back end was no longer working. Arthritis had finally crept where arthritis has no right to be. We carried him into the garden where, with difficulty, he did what dogs do, then into the car to see if the vet could help. After two injections, one of morphine and the other an anti-inflammatory, we brought him home again where he tried manfully, or dogfully, to haul himself about, and even to get up the stairs. But it was not a happy sight. At lunchtime we discussed possibilities. He was in the room with us. I felt a heel. As the day wore on, he sank into a gloom. I think he knew. He ate his dinner. We ate ours.

On Sunday morning, a decision had to be made, and I made it. Then I e.mailed Clemmie (20) at university. I was anxious for her not to feel that she was not part of this important family event. Eliza (17) and Cosmo (15) lined up at the front door. In the car, Biscuit sat on my husband's knee. I drove, and missed the turning to the vet, which made us late for our appointment. I don't like being late.

We weren't kept waiting. The vet explained this and that, poked and prodded. Biscuit quivered. We all knew what the outcome was going to be. I was pleased that though his eyes were nothing but love and remorse, he tried to bite me as I held him for the jab. I didn't want him to go quietly into the dying of the light.

It was over in seconds and we laid him out with due dignity. The vet left the room and we remained. Though he looked so peaceful, it was hard to leave him, on that table, although I didn't cry until much later. 'Do you want to take him home?' we were asked, as we paid the bill. £70 is the current price of a dog's death. We didn't. Our garden is too small for private burials. 'Do you want his ashes returned to you?' We didn't want that either. Too The Loved One for us. Biscuit shouldn't end up in a pot. So we took his empty collar and got back into the car. Lunch was a very silent affair.

Katie

what will the new year bring

2007-01-22T03:55:00.001-08:00

I've always hated the new year because I don't like the idea of time passing. This has nothing to do with book deadlines which were 'next year' suddenly becoming 'this year' or anything like that, although that does induce a certain panic. But really, it is just a mourning of the passage of time. I miss the world before 9/11 and although the 20th century may have been filled with ghastly wars and bloodshed, I miss it as well, and not just in a regretful, nostalgic way, but sometimes quite achingly, as if it were a friend who has died. I want it back. Ridiculous, of course. I should get out more.

So many things beckon on the going out front, too. New films, new performers, new exhibitions. That's the trouble. I read a review, think 'oh, I must,' then don't, then hear of something else and say 'I must' and don't, until I have a bank of 'musts' as long as my supermarket shopping list. Then I have to make a 'must' list from the 'musts', because it's too late to do them all, and then a 'must' list from the truncated 'must' list, and oh dear! In the end I just stay at home and watch more West Wing.

And what a joy that is, although does everybody have to walk and talk so fast, and does Toby always have to address his beard? My family never caught the WW on the telly, and bought the boxed set of series one as an antidote to Brideshead Revisited, which we have watched over so many Christmases past that we can fill in the dialogue ourselves. No more Sebastian! No more Julia! No more Lord Marchmain, I decreed, at least not for a while. Let's get to know President Bartlet. Two episodes (so much better without the advertisement breaks - I'm only ever watching boxed sets in future)and we are hooked. We watched the end of series one on Sunday night, and on Monday morning I was back at the shop, panting. 'Please, please, please don't tell me you don't have series two in stock'. Luckily they did, so now we can't go out until that's finished, and then there's more, and more, and more. Perhaps I'll never go out again.

It's exciting waiting for the publication of Blaze of Silver, and book one of my new trilogy is almost finished. I don't know about other authors, but I'm always surprised to reach the end, because when I begin, the end seems so impossibly far away. It creeps up on me - a bit like the new year, I suppose, except that I'm always glad to see it.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

Christmas cometh

2006-12-14T04:09:00.000-08:00

I write this between Christmas trees. We are to have two, a normal one and a tiny one, because this year we have decided to have Christmas in a different room. I always think of the nursery - we never got round to renaming it, even though Cosmo is now 15 - as the Christmas room, as that's where we've always had the tree, opened the stockings and presents, slobbed about, watched the telly and consumed the chocolates. Certainly, we decorate the rest of the house - ancient decorations, never renewed, greeted with loving exasperation each Advent as they droop and bits fall off - but the nursery has been the Christmas hub. No longer. For reasons with which I won't bore you but involve a running machine, it's the drawing room's turn to strutt its stuff. When we told the children, they looked terrified. 'You mean Christmas is going to be DIFFERENT?' 'Er, yes.' 'But you're no good at different! We're no good at different! We don't like different!' Oh dear! And I thought we had brought our children up to know the value of risk taking.

A compromise has been reached. The nursery will have a tiny tree so that it will not feel left out, which also means that the dogs, who are not allowed upstairs (our drawing room is on the first floor) will have something to look at. As both Biscuit and Crumble loathe Christmas, viewing their stockings as some kind of softening up process in prepration for something very very nasty, I'm sure they will be relieved.

On the writing front, I'm trying hard to get book one of the new trilogy finished by Christmas Day. It's running over length but I can't ever quite seem to reach the end. 'Look,' I tell Parsifal, Raimon and Yolanda, the heroes and heroine, 'do get on with it,' but things keep happening. This morning, I have to extricate Raimon from a dog kennel, whilst Parsifal nurses the Blue Flame. And it's not as if the work is over when the story's finished. Then, I have to go back, pruning and toning, a cross, if you like, between gardening and a spa treatment, before ever the editor gets hold of it.

I am so deeply into these books now that my characters go with me to Tescos, and to the cleaners and I've occasionally had to pull in off the road when they become too vociferous. Let's hope they have a snooze whilst I'm eating Christmas dinner. I've suggested that just for the day, they might like to stay in the nursery with the dogs, but, as the children keep pointing out, when you try and do things differently at Christmas, how can you be sure of anything?

Very Happy Christmas!

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

A lovely day for me and Green Jasper

2006-11-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended my first award ceremony. Green Jasper got down to the last three in the Royal Mail Scottish Children's book awards in the older category. Hurrah! These are particularly special awards because children vote on their favourite 3 books of the year. All the authors there were glowing and trying not to look too pleased, which was hard, because we all were.

Two boys read aloud from Green Jasper, and chose the passage where Will and Hal get ready to jump over the moat from the rising drawbridge. It was a funny feeling, sitting in the audience. When I finally get a scanner, I shall scan in my beautiful certificate so that it appears on the website. As for the prize money, well, I'm going to use some of it to take my husband out for lunch. He deserves that and much more, as he's the most stalwart of stalwart supports.

What's more - another hurrah - I had a MUCH more successful visit to France last weekend, this time to Fontainebleau to a Salon, at which I signed my first ever copy of Flamboyant, which is Blood Red Horse in French. I lost nothing, left nothing behind, my computer worked and my hosts couldn't have been more hospitable. We began in style with a glass or two, or possibly three, of champagne on Friday night, and that set the tone for the whole weekend. Can I recommend the Aigle Noire in Fontainebleau for comfortable nights, and REELBOOKS, the English Language bookstore, for good reading? It is run by Sue and Judy, who love literature - what more does a bookstore need?

I do feel rather tired today, though, through nothing more than a new and overriding compulsion to check my bag every five minutes to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. This may be the result of losing everything I needed on the previous French trip, or 'le catastrophe' as we call it in this house (is 'catastrophe' masculine? I bet it's not, well, whatever, as they say these days). Anyhow, this morning, for example, I had to tax the car. I KNEW I had all the right bits of paper, but I stopped at least 10 times in the street to check, and then when the lady in the Post Office was scrutinising my insurance, I almost began apologising for bringing the wrong document even though I knew it was the right one. Does anybody recognise this syndrome? I'm sure it has a name. I am currently calling it 'lookingbagitis'. It seems less crackers if it has a name. Because of it, the children refuse to walk with me. Nor am I accompanying my second daughter to an important university interview because, as she said very nicely and with a somewhat embarrassed smile, 'you see, Mummy, I don't want to be a nervous wreck before I've even arrived.' What's come over me? Is there a pill I can take? Perhaps I should drink more.

I shall certainly drink on Friday when William and I go out. Once in the restaurant, I shall forget all about my bag and toast all Green Jasper's readers. God bless 'em, and you too, if you are one of them, and if you're not one of them yet, you've still got three days to get yourself a copy and be included ...

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

Could it have been more disastrous?

2006-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Today I had hoped to be publishing a lovely blog all about my research trip to the Pyrenees. Bumping into a bear seemed a possibility. Spooky evenings in Cathar country were a certainty. I and my oldest sister, Alice, who was going to mapread, drive and interpret, as she is a fluent French speaker and knows that part of the world, were all set.

What makes the fates choose to stick their fancy spanners in the works? The signs are there, of course, but we don't read them until it is too late.

Alice and I were to meet at my father's house in Lancashire and fly to Limoges from Liverpool. On the train down, I thought I'd bust my iPod. Then I got the wrong train from Preston. Minor, minor things, since I hadn't actually bust the iPod and another sister just drove to another station to collect me. But they were the forerunners. Alice arrived. I had forgotten my binoculars, but another sister lent me a pair. I relaxed. We were delayed getting to the airport by bad roadworks. But we made it. On the plane, Alice shut her eyes. She felt a migraine lurking, but surely it would vanish. I bought a cup of coffee. Plane landed. Collected luggage which was not lost - hurrah! Everything looked rosy - until I went to my bag to get my credit card to hire the car. No purse.

I won't bore you with the rest of the details, but suffice to say I had dropped the beastly thing on the plane, nobody handed it in and the airline and airport denied all knowledge. But you can't hire a car without plastic or a driving licence. Then my sister's migraine kicked in bigtime and my laptop decided to go to sleep and not bother to wake up. Now I was reading the signs - but it was too late. I felt an IDIOT. WHY didn't I put my purse away properly? WHY did I have everything essential in the one place? WHY DID I BUY COFFEE I DIDN'T EVEN WANT?

The upshot was that we were rescued by wonderful friends, but although Alice took a major pill from a French pharmacy which helped her migraine a bit, she still wasn't well and the car hire was complicated, so eventually, not wishing to tempt the fates any further, we bought new air tickets and returned home. Not quite the week we had been anticipating and I just wanted to rewind and start the whole trip again.

Now I'm in recovery. My husband was wonderful, doing all the inevitable bureaucracy that ensues when you lose your plastic and never once saying "you careless nitwit". But that's what I felt.

So - no bears, no spooky evenings in the shadow of Cathar castles, just a couple of limp rags with no money and a large headache.

Onwards and upwards, from quite a long way down,
Katie

strange things - and hello to Hannah

2006-09-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

It's really wierd, but I can answer some people's e.mails direct from the 'contact the author' link, whilst other times, although I get the e.mail address right, I just get 'failure to deliver' alerts. Does this happen to other people? Is there a solution?

So, today I can't answer directly a lovely e.mail from Hannah, who, I think, is in New Zealand, so am answering it this way. Hannah, I really appreciated your writing, and I just wanted to say that I've finished Blaze of Silver, and am really missing the characters. Also, I don't think it's giving the game away to tell you that, apropos your wish, I don't think you'll be disappointed ...

My second daughter and I have been to a car boot sale this weekend - my first. We had to get up at 4 a.m. which was HORRIBLE, and then it rained, as it often does in Glasgow. But there's nothing nicer than selling old bits of stuff that you would otherwise just have thrown away. I can't say we made a fortune but better than thinking of the stuff in landfill sites. And the people! You see the whole gamut of human life and experience at a car boot sale, and the goods and chattels that pour out of vans, clapped out old rustbuckets and even the odd BMW is quite extraordinary. Sewing machines, nail varnish, hideous lamps with bits missing, bikes with one wheel, a teapot lid, computer cables, an old plastic doll and clothes you couldn't imagine anybody wearing, let alone buying. Just watching everybody, how they operate, what they are looking for, how they talk to each other, was a revelation. You haven't lived in a city properly until you've been to its car boot sales. And what an incentive to clear out the cupboards plus the garden shed. Everything sells, plus our house feels as if it can breathe again.

Back to work this morning. Sometimes writing is so hard that I'll do anything rather than start. Hmmmmm. I'm sure I should have a cup of coffee, and then doesn't my son Cosmo have some drawers in his room that really must be sorted out today ... Oh, and the dogs would so like another walk.

No, no, NO.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

message for Miller

2006-09-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hi there, Miller, I tried to send you an e.mail but it keeps being returned, so I'm replying here instead. I'm so glad you liked my books. I've just seen the cover for Blaze of Silver, which will be out in April in the States. It's beautiful. The designer has done such a good job. Authors owe a huge debt to so many people for making their books stand out on the shelf. I've never met my jacket designers, but I hope I will one day.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

computer horrors and then a surprise

2006-09-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

If I have been silent, it has not been for want of trying. We have had a fortnight of computer hell, with no internet access, just endless smug repetitions of 'unable to establish a connection'. In the end, the only connection I wanted to have with my computer - not my delightful wireless iBook, but the computer that's supposed to get us onto the 'information super-highway'- was on the end of my foot. Oh, how we love machines when they work. How we hate them when they don't. I could just have gone to the library, of course. I could have done any number of things. But I wanted the computer to do what it promised when I bought it and it wouldn't. Won't bore you with the grisly details. Suffice to say, those automated answer helpdesks are obviously designed to make you explode and totting up the number of man-hours spent on the telephone, I could have written at least 30,000 words of my new novels. Grrrrrrrr. Only good thing was that for a fortnight I was so angry and frustrated I couldn't eat. Computer loss equals weight loss. At least that was something.

We're watching the television adaptation of I Claudius, based on the novels by Robert Graves, at the moment. Great titles for each episode: Poison is Queen, and Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Worse - I made the last one up, but it would have done very well. Derek Jacobi is superb as Clau, Clau, Claudius, the stutterer who became Roman Emperor, and just hearing Agrippina saying 'here are my sons, Nero and Caligula' is enough to send you running for cover. I'd forgotten what wonderful telly it was. Perfect for making you forget the onset of autumn, and if you think you've got family problems, you can always thank God, or perhaps Jove, that you weren't given Tiberias as a father - or Livia (a peerless performance by Sian Phillips) as a mother. The make-up is very 1970s, which gives the story an added twist. There's lots of nasty emperors, too, so they can keep you happy for ages.

My big story of the month, though, is that at a small dinner party miles away from any capital city, I found myself sitting at dinner next door to Hugh Grant. Yup, Hugh Grant of 4 Weddings and a Funeral etc. fame. I'd like to say I was cool as cool, and just thought, 'oh, here's Hugh Grant'. But of course I didn't. I thought CRIKEY BOBBERS - a Lancashire expression - I'M SITTING NEXT TO HUGH GRANT! Two responses only were possible: starstruck silence or verbal overdrive. I'm afraid I collapsed into the latter. He was very charming, and yes, his hair is just as floppy as it looks in Notting Hill.

And so the A list man and I, we spoke of many things
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings ...

Apologies to Lewis Carroll.

I, at least, had a lovely time.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

2006-08-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

We are returned from the small paradise that is the Quercy region of France redder than we left. It was 40 degrees when we landed in Toulouse and our hirecar was hotter than the top righthand oven of an aga. Nobody was much interested in showing us how the airconditioning worked, and my husband I and are both hopeless at that kind of thing, so we and the poor children sweated our way to our little house 100 km to the north. On day 6, my husband said 'the weather has turned' but it hadn't. I'd just brushed some button or other with my bag and, bingo, the airconditioning had roared into action and we were freezing. And we froze from then on because we didn't dare touch any buttons after that in case the aircon vanished altogether. Temperature-wise, it was a holiday of fluctuations.

And fluctuating tempers occasionally, particularly the day I was only saved from turning up a dual carriageway in the face of the oncoming traffic by my husband saying 'you're surely not going to ...' Like any self-respecting wife, I snapped back 'of course not' but I was, and had nightmares about it for days after, even though France is so empty you could dance a complete eightsome reel on most major roads and only a cow and perhaps two elderly ladies would see you. Driving abroad is fine, but I do wish they would not insist on driving on the wrong side of the road.

In the end, we didn't care about the road as we sat on our terrace, above the stables where beasts had once been kept, and perhaps not so long ago either, with the only noise the gentle dropping of green figs on pink tiles and the crickets, who scratched so loudly I wondered if it was an enormous scratch for help. Maybe the heat had got to them. Maybe they knew something about the airconditioning.

I think only three things had ever really happened in our town of Castelnau Montratier: Simon de Montfort had roared through during the Albigensian crusade (early 1200s), there had been a bit of scrimmaging during the 100 years war (ended 1453) and 9 cars were burn out in a garage (when we were there). Otherwise, life was unchanged in its essentials. The white stone houses still glittered in the sun, the vines grew, the grain ripened, the hills rolled, the orchards groaned with fruit. From the side of the road we bought peaches so juicy that they were only really fit to eat in the bath, the only place our nanny, who used to throw the cat out of the window and finally went mad, would allow us to eat oranges when we were small.

We visited the cathedral at Albi, so stupendously ugly on the outside, as it bellows from its hilltop THOU WILT BE CATHOLIC and so intoxicating on the inside, painted from top to toe with visions of heaven and hell. I wandered round the cloisters at Moissac, marvelling at the Romanesque capitals and absolutely furious with those beastly revolutionary soldiers who took such bovine pleasure in scratching out the carved faces of the prophets, angels and saints. Destroying art - real art, not the self-indulgent nonsense that passes for art these days: great white canvasses with one red dot hung in a great white room; videos on a loop; egg boxes tastefully arranged; unmade beds - is not a sign of virility, but weakness.

Now we are back, and sometimes I wonder if it's really worth going away, there seems to be so much catching up to do. But of course it is worth it, and most of the mail mountain is junk which can be thrown, most satisfactorily, straight into the bin. I have a million new ideas for my new books. I fancy taking up the piano again. Holidays do that.

And it is nice not to have to think about airconditioning in the car. Glasgow may surprise in many ways, but that chilly wind is always just round the corner. I'm deep into the first of my new books now, and am back to France, further south than Toulouse, in October, to really get a taste of precisely where they are set, Castelnau Montratier being a little too far north. My sister Alice, who is coming with me as driver and interpreter - my French is as wonky as my driving - will accompany me up into the foothills of the Pyrenees. Perhaps we will even go into Spain. Quite likely, I think, given that when she and I are together, we seldom draw breath. We'll find ourselves in Barcelona before we've finished even the domestic gossip.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

I am a blog illiterate

2006-07-14T03:01:00.000-07:00

I am a blog illiterate! This is another message for Angie, who posted a comment on the blog. I didn't know the difference between an e.mail from the website and a blog comment. Honestly - sometimes I'm not fit to be let loose with a computer. Anyhow, Angie, I'm so glad you enjoyed Blood Red Horse, and hope you are enjoying Green Jasper.

You asked if you might know more about the next books, so, in addition to the previous blog, which talks more about writing than content, here is a small taster.

The new trilogy begins in the Limousin in France, with the death of Richard the Lionheart as he searches for some mystery treasure. That is historically true, which made a wonderful base for a story. My young hero and heroine are on opposite sides in the Crusade against the Cathars, who flourished in Occitania, now in France itself, but which was then a separate culture entirely. So there's a bit of a Romeo and Juliet feel, except not, if you know what I mean! At the moment, the books all lead up to a terrible climax in a fortress called Montsegur, where, in 1244, there was a violent massacre. My characters are torn between their families and each other. Add in the mysterious treasure, which is very important, plots and counterplots,the stamping on the colourful and warm Occitanian way of life by an army conducting a War On Heresy, all set against the background of the stunning Pyrenean mountains, and you have a flavour of the books. Lots of research done, lots still to do.

Hope you are enjoying your summer.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

2006-07-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

14th June 2006

First of all - hi, Angie, who e.mailed on Thursday 13th June. I've tried to reply but my e.mail just keeps bouncing back. Not sure why, but I apologise. If you have another e.mail address, could you perhaps send that through? Please don't think I just haven't bothered - that would bother me very much.

I'm feeling both insecure and liberated today. My new book contract is through and to concentrate fully on the first three out of the five, I have given up one of my newspaper columns. It feels like being given a present of a huge chunk of time, but I hate giving anything up! Yet I must. Delivery date for the first book is April 2007, which already feels terrifying close.

As always, when I'm nervy, I take refuge in the laundry and the cleaning. All the sheets in this house have been changed today, at least once, and I'm just staring at the yellow rubber gloves and the bleach. My children run away, in case I clean them as well. They know me in this mood. I've already brushed Crumble, and taken the clippers to Biscuit (they are the dogs, not the children, if you've not read this blog before, but I dare say, if the children get in the way, they'll find their hair clipped too). I may take the saw into the garden and chop something down. When I'm in Mrs. Mop mode, nothing is safe.

Starting a whole load of new books is a huge vista of choices. The characters are still fluid, the plot a hotchpotch of possibilities. The de Granville trilogy taught me so much about writing, but when I began Blood Red Horse, Will, Kamil and Hosanna already seemed like people I had known for ages. In this trilogy - or will it be a quartet - the characters are slowly forming. They have names, but I'll not give them out yet, since as soon as I do, I'll want to change one of them. Anyhow, these not-quite-named-characters and I are still at the stage of circling round each other. Suddenly, one of us will pounce, and then the character will take off. Actually, one did yesterday, and as he is a very important character, I was very pleased to see him. He's safely in my notebook (Moleskin cahier, squared paper, 21 cm by 13 - perfect for a bag). When I looked at him again this morning, he was still there, thank goodness, staring at me balefully, wondering why I prefer the rubber gloves and the bleach to getting better acquainted. He's a man, of course, so doesn't understand female obsessive compulsive scrubbing disorders. He'll learn, I dare say.
Now I must empty the washing machine. The life of this writer is, at present, an odd one.

Nevertheless, onwards and upwards,
Katie

2006-06-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

29th June, 2006

It sounded so far away when I was first asked, but then, here it was: prize giving for the Glasgow Academy prep school. There can be few things more alarming than facing an entire junior school, who are just waiting for your speech to finish to take possession of their prizes and start their holidays. If you can leave without most of them shuffling and their parents snoring, that's a good job done. But how lovely to be asked, even if it did make me feel rather old. I mean, at my school prizegiving, you looked up at the worthy droning on on the stage, and you thought 'I'll NEVER be like them'. And now look at me. (By the way, speaking of looking and going back to the previous blog, I went extra blonde with the hair, but am still toying with the green.)

Tomorrow, I am at it again, this time for the senior school at Mary Erskine's, in Edinburgh. Addressing the leavers is always a big moment. Trouble must be taken with the speech. Trouble must also be taken with the fake tan, since I must wear a dress, it's too hot for tights and I don't want my legs to look like pillars of salt. Time for the fake bake. Just pray it works properly and I don't end up with legs glowing like tangerines.

I both dread and love the summer holidays. Hate the cooking and the endless laundry. As a nation, we are FAR TOO CLEAN. But by the end, I've quite got into the rhythm and the idea of the children being back in school is appalling. They have organised themselves quite brilliantly this summer, having long since given up on any idea that I might turn into a super-mother who gets them to camps etc. and arranges fantastical days out. My days out usually involve outdated maps, nettles and old castles. Surprisingly often, they have also involved being chased by bulls. This year, my 16 year old and 14 year old have chosen navy and airforce camps respectively. Probably safer there.

Two chapters left to go of the adult novel I am writing, which nobody has yet seen. I'm both longing and dreading finishing it because then I'll have to do something with it. Perhaps my agent will hate it. Perhaps, when I reread it, I'll hate it. I always go through stages when I'm writing. 'This is great' is followed by 'this is hopeless' followed by 'yes yes yes' followed by 'help help help', then a long 'hmmmmm'. I'm at the 'hmmmmm' stage with this one. But having got so far I must finish it before I can concentrate on my new trilogy, which is cooking away nicely in my head, prologue written and the characters gradually forming. It hasn't yet got a name, which makes me feel insecure - not a good thing for a control freak like me. I scour the Bible and poetry books, and scribble words down in odd places. I have turned into an unashamed eavesdropper, just in case somebody should utter the perfect phrase for a title. Why can't I come up with something as resonant as Fair Stood The Wind For France? H. E. Bates was a titular genius. Or his publisher was. So, I listen away. If you find yourself next door to me, you have been warned.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

2006-06-08T02:27:00.000-07:00

8th June 2006

Well, Blaze of Silver, the final part of the de Granville Trilogy, is well on its way. One of the peculiar things about being an author is how your time-scales have to alter. Writing a book is a little like having a baby, in that it's a long gestation period and some of it is rather painful, but then, once the baby's born, it disappears to be made respectable before being launched out into the world. Waiting to see the dust-jacket always plays on the nerves. Will you like it? And if you don't, will you dare say so? I've been really lucky so far in that I've loved my jackets - the one on the left is the Puffin jacket for the story of my unfortunate Uncle Frank - but other authors have real horror stories with covers that seem to them to bear no relation what they thought they had written. Perhaps some designers have agendas all of their own ...

But I also have other big news. I am to write a quartet of books, still 'epic adventures set in the past which may or may not be true', (the modern way of describing historical novels) for Quercus. Once I had finished shouting 'hurrah!' and downed a quick glass or two of champagne, I settled down to think. Except of course, once the bubbly effect of the champagne wears off, I tend to fall asleep. Being asleep at the keyboard is a very wierd experience since if your head nods forward, when you wake up you have typed screeds of stuff. You scan it anxiously. Could it be brilliant? Well, it might be, except that it all seems to be in code. Mine was a mishmash of sdfga or ';lkjk. My forehead is not trained in touch-typing.

When beginning a new project, I spend a lot of time reading, which is very nice since you can do it outside and, believe it or not, it's been quite hot even in Glasgow. I sit in my jungaloid (is there such a word? If there isn't, there should be) garden and concentrate. Except I don't because it's impossible to sit in a garden without seeing millions of things that need to be done, so I'm up and down like a yoyo, pruning this, tidying that, sweeping the other. The dogs get absolutely fed up because as soon as I move, they feel honour bound to do the same, just in case I was thinking of taking them for a walk.

Anyhow, in the few moments of peace, I find myself reading T. H. White's The Once and Future King. Blast Mr. White to Fiery Hell, as my son, who is in particularly swashbuckling mode at the moment, might say. Mr. White is a genius. He tells the story of King Arthur as nobody else. He begins with Arthur as a boy, generally known as The Wart, and the reader, like the Wart, is changed into different animals and birds by the magician Merlin. What Mr. White didn't know about everything on earth and a few things above and below isn't worth knowing. And he was writing long before Google was invented. I'm glad I'm not writing about Arthur or I would lie on the floor of my study weeping. How to better T. H. White? Impossible.

Today I'm going to have my hair cut and, whisper it, coloured (of course). It's always a moment for me, when the hairdresser says 'what colour'? I have a wild desire to go red, or even orange, and frighten my family into fits. Or perhaps I could go green to complement the budgies?

Onwards and upwards,
Katie

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

2006-05-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

I think I have, at last, solved the mystery of uploading pictures onto the website. Not only that, but I now have a beautiful Apple computer, which is very wierd after using a pc all this time. We now have more computers than dogs, which does not impress our dogs at all. I hope their picture comes out, or they'll feel very short-changed. The dogs are Biscuit, on the floor, and Crumble, on the cushion. Crumble is Biscuit's daughter. Biscuit is slow and venerable. Crumble is just a ball of fur.

I promised that I would try and upload some pictures from my Fabulous American BookTour, so here goes. Those of you who posed have been very patient. Now, I don't seem to be very good at actually getting these photographs in order, but if you go down the line, these are what they are, and apologies for the terrible quality. I'll get this digital camera malarkey right one day.
1. Lovely Fairview School in Illinois
2. Signing at Book People, Austin - I'm so sorry the photo is so dark since you were all so smiley
3. Douglas and Audrey Orme-Herrick (they were NOT in the USA but insisted on being in here: if the dogs can be in, so can the budgies)
4. Texas Lone Star Magic in the Middle: Anthony Horowitz, Garth Nix, me, Steven Layne, Sherry Shahan and Rick Riordan. I thought it was magic to be in the same line-up, but my camera definitely went overboard on the magic bit
5. Garth Nix and I at the welcoming Blue Willow Bookstore in Houston - I also compared iPods with Lauren Myracle of TTFL fame - a novelist of the past and one of the present still have the same gadgets
6. Biscuit and Crumble, who will be cross to come below the Orme-Herricks

There are lots more photos which I shall stick on in due course.

I must now decide what we are going to have for dinner. I do wish somebody would invent home-cooked food that cooked itself.

Nevertheless, onwards and upwards,
Katie

2006-05-08T01:47:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is the first blog I have ever posted, so please forgive me if it either looks a little strange or bits vanish. I hope that you won't hesitate to e.mail me with suggestions or ideas it might be fun to discuss.

I'm just back from a splendid 12 day book tour in the US, where I was bowled over by the friendliness of the people and the plumbing. American showers! In Austin, Texas, I had not only a showerhead and jets (pulsating or sweeping, as you chose - there was an instruction book) but a WATERFALL. I almost never emerged.

The tour itself was a whirlwind and the high moments were very many: just arriving in New York, for one, then meeting my wonderful US publishers at Walker and seeing Blood Red Horse and Green Jasper in Books of Wonder, and in B & N on 5th Avenue. For a British author that is a very particular thrill. I also did some shopping ... Why are there no J Crew shops in Britain?

Then to Texas, where the welcomes are legendary, to do a Lone Star Magic in the Middle panel with Anthony Horowitz, Garth Nix, Steven Layne, Sherry Shahan and Rick Riordan. That was a moment for me and I tried not to look too star struck. Then to Milwaukee, to another wonderful welcome in the brilliant Harry Schwartz book stores - the kind of stores that make you want to be a writer, just to appear on their shelves, and then to Chicago, which I had never visited before and will certainly do again. More on all these later, including the library where the stars come out, the evening we lost our dinner, my turning from a historical novelist into one who write 'epic adventures set in the past which may or may not be true' and how to travel with wigs.

Now I'm off to Aberdeen with my Uncle Frank's head. If you want to know more about him, try reading How The Hangman Lost His Heart, published by Puffin on 4th May but don't read chapter 1 directly after breakfast.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie