Ask the Author: Philip Armstrong
Answered Questions (3)
Philip Armstrong
I shift over to something else, like editing previously written material. Then the whole project is still being advanced, without me 'biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite'. It's always far easier to work on refining something that's already written than it is to generate new material. The empty screen; the blank page - these can be the scariest things in the world. There are days when I will waste time online, seek out any distraction, even do the washing up, rather than sit down and write, but I have to force myself to do so. It really is a question of mindset. If I can get myself excited about what I'm about to write, then that energy usually carries me through. Of course, not all passages are going to be exciting, and they can be more of a challenge. I do find that if I have something else going on in my life that is preventing me getting on with the latest book, then I at least try to write a little every day, even if it's just a couple of paragraphs in a notebook. That way, my mind stays active within the fictive world, so when I have the time to return to it properly, I don't have to waste two or three days reading all that has gone before to get my mind back into it. Another thing I do is try to end my day's writing not at a natural break point but at an exciting moment so that when I resume the next day, I've already broken the ice, as it were, rather than having to start flat.
Philip Armstrong
The third (two-part) instalment of The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma takes place against the backdrop of the Trojan War, and that was always going to be the case, from the moment I introduced the character of Prince Alaksandu (aka Paris) in Ch4 of 'The Shadow Prince'. But I also knew I didn't want to do yet another retelling of the war, and my breakthrough came when it occurred to me to take my primary inspiration from the Odessey rather than the Iliad. Yes, we have the chapters that focus on the war at Wilusa, which have characters like Alaksandu, Amar and Ekkataru at their centre, but the main action focuses on Tupilu, Pellilu &c, who are forced to wander all over the Greek World searching for - well, that would be a spoiler, but let's just say what he's seeking is directly linked to Akkamemon's war on Wilusa and Tupilu has a personal stake in it. It's also a darker book that previous instalments, with 'good' characters forced by circumstances to take some pretty questionable ethical decisions, and the theme of death looms heavily over both volumes - as it should in a book dealing with war. I also wanted to introduce the Minoan (or Kaphtaran) culture, which is that of a people in decline at this point, having been oppressed by the Ahhiyawans for almost a century, and that gave me a route that leads directly to another of the Atalantaën relics. Readers can expect a few twists on the traditional Homeric version of the Trojan War - after all, Homer left out the daemons!
Philip Armstrong
I'm currently finishing the second part of 'The Towers of Wilusa', the third book in the 'Chronicles of Tupiluliuma' series. It's a bit of a monster to shape as it deals with my regular characters against the background of the Trojan (Wilusan) War and Greek myth in general, which is a vast canvas. I'm also editing the first volume for (hopefully!) September publication.
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