Ask the Author: Mark Patton
Answered Questions (6)
Mark Patton
I must confess, I haven't yet had a serious attack of it, but when words won't come, I put down my pen and pick up a good book.
Mark Patton
The ability to define the world you inhabit, and to communicate with people with whom you will never meet, including those who will be born after your death, to be a link in a chain that began with Homer and will end God knows where, or perhaps (we may hope) will continue forever.
Mark Patton
Write what you know, write what you are passionate about, write the kind of books that you'd love to read if only they were out there. Don't even think about becoming a writer unless you are already a voracious reader - it doesn't work. Do show your work to other people, but choose them carefully: I paid for critiques of my early drafts from The Literary Consultancy, which I heartily recommend, and subsequently joined a couple of online critique groups.
Mark Patton
I'm not giving too much away, because I've only just started working on it, and it's unlikely to be published within the next couple of years. I've now lived in London for longer than I've lived anywhere else, so I think it's about time I wrote something about it. My working title is "Fors Fortuna."
Mark Patton
I read a great deal and, living in London, I go to a great many exhibitions, see many plays and films, all of which provides inspiration.
Mark Patton
The whole idea comes from a single place (La Hougue Bie on the island of Jersey), although much of the action of the novel takes place elsewhere (Crete, Jerusalem, Galicia, Berlin, Pembrokeshire). I first visited La Hougue Bie when I was 9 or 10 years old, and started thinking about the people in the novel when I was researching my PhD in the late 80s. I directed an archaeological dig there in the 90s, but the novel cam much later.
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