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Simon Scarrow: Interview |
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Email Interview With Simon Scarrow 28/02/06
1) How did you end up writing? Is it some thing you have always aspired to or some thing to get away from teaching?
I wanted to be a writer from a very young age and made a few false starts while doing homework for English. I didn’t actually begin a novel until after I had graduated – to fill in time while I waited for a job to come up, and then I continued it in my free time. It was an interesting enough story and I needed to convince myself that I had the self-discipline to see it through. You have to remember that this was in the days before affordable home computers. That book was written on A4, typed up, and retyped, before it went off to publishers. The whole process took over two years. By comparison (although this is an extreme deadline pressure example) the book I am working on at the moment will have taken just over two months to complete. As for teaching, that was the other great ambition in my life, and I loved the job enormously. But I just couldn’t continue to teach and write two books a year. So I had to give it up. Once the pressure is off I would dearly like to return to teaching in some capacity, since there is nothing as stimulating as working with young people and experienced staff. I’d happily recommend teaching to anyone.
2) as Alex has stated he grew up in " Hertfordshire. Raised mostly in Essex, but lived in Hong Kong, the Bahamas,
a short time in San Francisco (I was a toddler then) in your bio you mention being born in Nigeria and being raised
in a number of countries. Did this have an effect on you that has carried over to your writing?
I think so. I have a vast catalogue of memories right down to smells and touch of any number of places we were lucky enough to visit. They say travel broadens the mind and I agree with that. It has also proved very useful for the books. For example, the latest book is set in Judea. Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to Jordan by His Majesty King Abdullah, to see the Roman remains there. It’s an unforgettable country and I have tried to create some sense of the place in the Eagle in the Sand. Especially the desert castle of Q’sar Bashir which Macro and Cato’s latest posting is based on.
3) Have you always been a history buff, or is this something you grew to love?
Always my favourite subject at school, and a passion ever since.
4) you have intimated that Macro and Cato will make it to Jerusalem will they meet up with Vespasion's son Titus at the siege of Jerusalem?
Their paths have already crossed! Titus was a toddler in the first book when Cato joined the 2nd Legion. You could say they were squaddies together (or squatty in the case of Titus).
5) Cato often gets awards and medals when will Macro get a promotion?
In the latest book he makes it to prefect of an auxiliary cohort. That’s quite a step up for him, for those days.
6) Have you ever thought of writing about the 3 Punic wars?
I have, but it has been covered quite thoroughly by others, and I wouldn’t want to do another Cato and Macro style version of the Punic wars. Funnily enough, I’ve been asked to comment on no less than three new books in the last year that are set in this period. So American publishers seem to be intent on strip mining the Punic wars.
7) Currently you don’t seem to do extended book signing tours, is this on the cards for The 2 books this year?
I wouldn’t mind doing this, an now that I am self employed as it were, I should be able to fit more of this sort of thing in. But you must bear in mind that this sort of treatment is usually reserved for premier league authors, not chaps like myself who are more in the Norwich league for the moment. Though a promotion to the premiership is on the cards with the release of Young Bloods.
8) Do you plan your stories methodically with a storyboard and theme cards, or do you go with the flow?
All the books start from a half side of A4 thumbnail sketch of the main plot. I have tried to plan, but I found it became too restrictive and one of the great joys of the Eagle series is finding out what happens next. Frequently, Macro and Cato get into scrapes or do something that comes from out of the blue. Take the business with Macro’s mum in the last book. That ‘Hello Mum’ line just happened and I went back and filled in the gaps since it seemed like such a wonderful idea. I doubt it would have happened if I had tried to plan the Eagle’s Prophecy.
9) Do you have any plans to write a modern adventure?
I have so many plans… and yes some of them relate to a contemporary setting.
10) Hopefully Macro and Cato will be around for a long time to come.
After your Napoleonic Trilogy are there any other areas of history you would like to write about?
Oh yes, but I can’t go into detail because that’s how ideas get nicked. I really wish I could tell you more about a particular project for which I have written the opening chapters, but I won’t be able to settle down to it for the next three years and anyone could rip it off long before then.
11) Did anything in particular inspire the Macro and Cato series?
Not really. It was more a case of wanting to read a particular kind of book that no-one had written, so I thought I would step into the gap in the market and get on with it.
12) Is there any current goal to the Eagle series, in terms of an historical climax? Or is it more open ended?
I have an idea that one of our heroes might not survive the turmoil’s of 69 AD. Plenty of pathos there. On the other hand I would like them to retire to a quiet seaside resort called Pompeii, around, say 79 AD.
13) At alot of book signings you get to hear the tales of rejection letters,
do you have any of these, was it hard to get your 1st book taken on?
Have you kept the letters to remail to those people now your fame is growing?
I’ve had plenty of rejection letters and near misses for books, plays, short stories over the years. Funnily enough with Macro and Cato I struck lucky almost at once. As for the second point, I have kept one letter, from Headline, who rejected the work. Then once I found an agent, they read the script and went for it. Just shows you how lost you are unless you can find someone to represent you first.
14) I read to relax...what do you do as reading must seem like work?
Some reading is a chore, alas. Like Alex, I find myself increasingly intolerant of badly written material and I tend to give up on books much more quickly than I used to if they aren’t working for me. Since I have to do a lot of background reading these days I find that it is nearly all a huge pleasure to read, compared to my problems with a lot of fiction. Outside of book related relaxation, I play computer games a hell of a lot. It’s no surprise to tell you I’m addicted to Rome Total War. And I just love the ballsy tension of games like Call of Duty 2. I have rigged up a network of PCs at home and play my sons quite often (they’re getting spookily proficient – especially my six year old). I also have evenings on the network with fathers of other kids at the boys’ school – great fun.
15) How did you feel when Alex said he was going to become an author? Did you help him avoid the pitfalls
that can only be learned by experience?
It was one of the proudest days of my life when he called to tell me he had a deal. Alex is a natural story teller. When he was eleven he filled nearly two exercise books with a story for homework. A wonderful sci-fi dystrophic piece. I have been able to offer him some advice, but there’s a hell of a lot that agents and publishers could and should tell new authors as soon as possible. I’ve had to flounder through no end of situations for the first time which hopefully Alex will not.
16)When you're in a book shop do you ever have a peak to see who's browsing your work and if so how often
are you recognised?
Very rarely do people recognise me. That’s down to the very flattering (well I think it’s flattering) picture in the back of the books. I don’t tend to spy on people in bookshops. My sin is more practical. I go round turning the spines of my books face out and placing them on top of the books of bestsellers… I’ve mentioned this to other authors and I’m relieved to say they ALL do the same thing!
17) If someone was to enter a shop where you were, how would you persuade them to consider one of your novels
over someone else and how would you persuade them that your work is different to other authors?
I just wouldn’t do that. I’m too British. But… I guess if I had to, I’d say my work is different to other authors because it is helping me to pay off huge debts and keep the lupine pest from the door so that my kids can eat. You get the idea.
19) Out of the characters that appear in your work do you have a singular favourite and please explain your answer?
Oh, this is tough. There are so many I like. Apart from my best pals Macro and Cato, there’s Prasutagus, Figulus and Vitellius (always huge fun to have around). More recently, I found that I really liked Macro’s mum. She reminds me of my own long suffering mum in certain respects and makes you realise that Macro, much as we like him, must have been a real tyke as a kid.
20) How do you view feedback to your work and how do you react to negative input?
I can honestly say that there has been very very little negative feedback. I find praise harder to deal with simply because it tends to be so effusive and therefore a bit embarrassing. That’s why I refuse to let the book group I’m a member of discuss any of my books.
21) What advice would you give to debut novelists to encourage them?
Same as most other authors. Read a lot. Write a lot and keep submitting stuff. If it’s any good, then someone, somewhere will recognise that and take you on.
22) When you've spent hard months working on a novel have you ever gone back and read your work and have you ever been able to enjoy it? Or are you an author who hates to read his own work?
Listen, by the time it is published, I have read and re-read and re-re-read that book so much that I’ve begun to hate it. That said, after a decent length of time has passed, I do dip into books and find that it really is a lot better than I feared.
23) When buying a new book what genre are you most drawn to? (apart from Historical books)
Crime fiction I guess. Although I will read anything by Stephen King and Philip K Dick that I can find.
24) Im sure you have envisaged certain actors/actresses to play certain characters when you've been
writing the novels but do you draw them or even sketch them? If not how do you tend to remember the
attributes and physicality to each character?
Interesting. Since Cato is really me in many ways I have very little idea of what he looks like (other than being a lot thinner and younger than me). Macro has always struck me as a Bob Hoskins/Ray Winstone type. Other than that I guess the image slowly gathers around the way they tend to act in the stories rather than the other way round.
25) Does your life carry over into your books, ie: you are having a hard time personally / professionally so in
the book Macro and Cato also suffer, or can you keep these separate?
Sometimes things carry over. In Under The Eagle, all the Titus scenes are pretty much exact reproductions of what I was going through with my eldest son, who was biting everything in range of his teeth at the time. Other than that, there’s no real crossover with my personal life. However, I frequently find that my political preoccupations feed into the fiction. In the latest book it is hard to write about the Roman army in Judea without thinking of the US in Iraq.
26) In your bio you mention Brothers (plural) are you guys the next beddingfields?
can we expect more Scarrows to hit the literary world?
Our older brother, Scott, is far too busy skiing and living it up to become a writer. It seems to agree with him. Anytime the three of us get together, people we meet think that he’s the youngest, followed by me and then Alex is the oldest!
Perhaps I should give up writing and become a skier instead…
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