I’m still utterly failing to finish my 1812 Burke book as life seems to be filling up with all sorts of other things. Last Friday I visited Sutton House in Hackney, a National Trust property described as the oldest private house in London. Built in the 16th century by Ralph Sadleir who worked for Thomas Cromwell at Henry VIII’s court, it has undergone many changes over the years. In the 18th century it was divided into two semi-detached houses, one of which became a school. Later the two halves were reunited as it was occupied by a church trust. Abandoned in the 20th century, it was briefly squatted before the National Trust started restoration work. The basic Tudor structure remains unchanged with some elements like the kitchens being taken back to their origins.
From outside, it just looks like an old, vaguely dilapidated house in the centre of Hackney. It’s a wonderful example of how in London we live alongside history without necessarily even being aware of it.
This is one of the original Tudor windows.
The beautiful linenfold panelling is a rare surviving example from the period.
Saturday I was out with fellow skaters celebrating Halloween on the streets of London.
We were out skating again on Sunday, so I got a reasonable number of miles under my belt over the weekend.
Tuesday I was at the Wellington Lecture in Southampton. Not an awful lot about Wellington but a gentle canter through the way that the events of June 1815 still resonated with the British Army in two World Wars. The Navy sometimes remembers his influence too, albeit through gritted teeth.
Thursday was more Halloween celebration, this time at tango.
Perhaps next week will produce some actual writing. I live in hope.
During covid (remember that?) one of my lockdown projects was to make an audiobook of my Urban Fantasy novella, Dark Magic. I was encouraged by a friend who is a professional voice actor but it was a very amateur effort, recorded under a desk with a duvet providing some basic soundproofing. The result was quite fun, but not really intended as a commercial exercise. Still, it’s available on Audible and Spotify and elsewhere. Spotify even sent me codes so I could give copies away but, because I wasn’t trying to actively promote it, I never did anything with them. I’ve got a lot left, gathering electronic dust in hyperspace.
But it’s coming up to Halloween and I’d like to give treats to anyone knocking on my virtual door. If you email me at tom (at) tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk, I’ll send you a code (until I run out). There’s no catch and I’ll not add you to a mailing list. (I once tried to run a mailing list but it seemed a lot of work for not much return.) There’s no warranty either. If the codes don’t work, that’s too bad (though I know some people have used them successfully).
If you like what you hear and you think you might enjoy the books, Dark Magic is available on Kindle and in paperback. You might also like to take a look at my Galbraith & Pole stories featuring the vampire detective Chief Inspector Pole.
Happy Halloween!
Header photos are from London’s Halloween skate. This year’s skate starts from Hyde Park Corner at 5.00pm on Saturday October 26th, weather permitting. Come and join the fun!
I’m so jealous of people who can just sit down and write. Back in the day, when I wrote books and reports for business, I could churn out words faster than most, but not a lot of imagination was required. Writing fiction, I find much harder work.
These blog posts fall somewhere between the two. They’re not as mechanical as much business prose but, although I am sometimes reminded that people will judge me on the quality of my writing, I’m not as worried about style as I am in my novels. Even so, they take a little while to write, especially if they have any historical information in them because I’ve learned that over the years that is always best to check details rather than rely on memory.
At the moment, I’m working on the next James Burke book, provisionally, if unimaginatively, called Burke and the War of 1812. I’m finding it more than usually challenging. Whilst by now I know enough about the Napoleonic wars not to have to keep checking every detail, the War of 1812 is new territory to me.
Not that long ago, I had no idea what the War of 1812 was. If that’s you too, it was a silly little scrap between Britain and the young United States of America notable, in this country at least, for the British burning down the White House. Most people in Britain tend to overlook it because there were other things going on in Europe at the time: Napoleon invading Russia for one.
Because it was quite a small war, there were few great strategic clashes of armies. Instead there was a fight here, a clash there, a naval engagement somewhere else. Pulling it all together into something that can be made a coherent adventure for one person has proved a challenge. In fact, it has proved impossible, so for much of the time James Burke and his trusty sidekick William Brown are operating independently from each other. This brings its own problems in writing as keeping track of them and having them meet up at crucial moments is not that straightforward. Which is why this week’s post is a short cri de coeur about the struggles of a historical novelist before I dive back into a world of Shawnee warriors, heroic colonials and (sorry American readers) dreadful Yankees.
At the current rate of progress, Burke and the War of 1812 should see the light of day early in 2025.
Featured photo: The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October 1812. Library and Archives Canada, 2895485
Tales of Empire is free on Kindle until Saturday 5 October. If you’re reading this after that, you will have to fork out a whole 99p. Here’s why you should grab a copy.
Tales of Empire is a book of four short stories showcasing the work of four very different but uniformly excellent historical fiction writers. (Well, three excellent writers plus me.)
The authors were asked to submit a story set anywhere from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the end of the century. Although they all write conventional historical fiction with no revisionist agenda, all four stories ended up challenging some of the more traditional approaches to Empire.
These are the authors and what they write about.
Antoine Vanner is the author of the Dawlish Chronicles, a series of novels (and the odd short story) about the adventures of Nicholas Dawlish who joins the Royal Navy in the second-half of the 19th century as the Navy is moving from wooden sailing vessels to the modern world of ironclad steamers. The stories show Dawlish developing from a very young man to a seasoned mariner, his own progress mirrored in the development of the ships that he sails in. Vanner is fascinated by the technology of naval warfare and his stories are full of solidly researched detail, but they are adventure stories too with Dawlish caught up in espionage and fighting alongside regular army forces as well as engaging in the sea battles that you would expect of a naval series.
Antoine’s contribution to this collection is a story about the Royal Navy’s attempt to suppress the slave trade and how difficult this could turn out to be in practice.
Jacqueline Reiter is a professional historian whose biography of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, The Late Lord, is the definitive work on his life. The Late Lord is a joy to read and Reiter’s affection for, and understanding of, her subject shines through. A fictional account of a real episode in Pitt’s life is her contribution to this collection.
Penny Hampson writes mysteries set during the Regency. A Gentleman’s Promise is the first book in her Regency Gentlemen Series. She also enjoys writing contemporary mysteries with a hint of the paranormal, because where do ghosts come from but the past?
Her story looks at how social and technological change during the Regency led us from the world of the 18th century to the country we live in today.
Tom Williams (that’s me) writes the James Burke stories about a James Bond figure during the wars with France. The Burke stories have an enthusiastic following but the books he is most proud off are the John Williamson Papers which deal with more serious issues at the height of the Age of Empire. The first, The White Rajah is about the real-life James Brooke who became the absolute ruler of a chunk of Borneo in the mid-19th century. The novel looks at how his idealistic approach to government collided with the realities of the day. The short story is about a fictional tiger hunt that shows the kind of person he was and the effect his style of rule had on those around him. It was written after The White Rajah but it could well have been a chapter in that book. I hope it will encourage you to read the novel.
So there you go: four writers presenting their talents in the hope that you might read more of their work. And free. I do hope you pick up a copy. Here’s a link: mybook.to/TalesofEmpire
Everyone seems to be talking about social media these days, largely because of the controversies about Twitter.
Social media are important to writers like me because they provide an important way to tell people about our books. This blog is a form of social media and I’ve been writing it pretty well once a week for very many years. It used to be hosted on Google’s Blogger and you can find an archive going back to 2011 at thewhiterajah.blogspot.com. It can be frustrating because the number of people reading it varies a lot, not just only depending on what I’m writing about but on the vagaries of Google’s algorithms which sometimes point people to small blogs like mine and then switch to focussing on larger sites. I’m not sure that it actually sells many books, but I quite enjoy writing it so, although I am always threatening to cut down on the amount I post, I’m still here. (Either that or you’re imagining reading this, which is a sort of spooky idea.)
If I write the blog to encourage you to read the books, I then have to encourage you to read the blog. I used to do this mainly through Facebook and I have an author page there at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTomWilliams. I still post there but Facebook is a rotten way to reach people these days. I think its time has passed.
Twitter and its like
After Facebook, of course, came Twitter. I used to hate Twitter but gradually grew to love it. Then came Elon Musk…
Twitter is now problematic. It’s lively and I’ve met some lovely people there, but you have to wade through an awful lot of extreme right-wing nutjobs and cryptocurrency sellers to find them. I’ve got over 2,000 followers there which, even if a lot of them are fembots, is too many to just ignore but I am looking at other possibilities. The problem is that refugees from Twitter have scattered all over the place so there’s no single obvious alternative.
Threadsseems fun. There are interesting conversations and I enjoy visits there while reading my feed on Twitter often leaves me feeling quite depressed. I don’t get a lot of interaction, probably largely because I have only 27 followers. That’s the problem with starting again from scratch and it takes a long time to build things up.
Blueskyseems quieter than Threads and I get even less interaction despite my 74 followers.
Is any of this worth the effort?
The thing is, social media take a lot of time. If you want to build a following you have to post regularly and respond to posts from others. Even if it’s enjoyable, it takes time away from life and, specifically, writing. That’s why I don’t do Instagram and make only occasional weak efforts on TikTok. I have cut down on Twitter a lot lately as, thanks to Mr Musk, it seems likely to die. A lot of the time saved has now been lost to Bluesky and Threads, mainly double (or triple) posting but also responding to stuff (easier on Threads because it has genuinely fun stuff on it and I learn things).
In the end, I have to ask myself if any of it is worth it: using Twitter (or whatever) to drive traffic to my blog to try to drive readers to my books. I do think that cutting off social media depresses book sales but do you know what boosts sales? Writing more books, that’s what. Perhaps I should concentrate on that.
Social media is such a minefield at the moment. What do you think?
It got so hot in London that we have headed off to the hills and are spending a few days in mid-Wales. I’ve posted photos before, but they never really catch it, so I took a couple of short videos and tried to put them on TikTok. I’m not sure they are an improvement to be honest and on the WiFi available here they are painfully slow to upload. Still, the first one is available at Tom Williams (@tomwilliams4777) | TikTok so let me know what you make of it. EDIT: I’ve got the second one up too: https://www.tiktok.com/@tomwilliams4777/video/7398266204302986529
It’s the part of the country that features in Monsters in the Mist so if you want to know what it’s like you could do worse than read that. It’s very different from my historical novels, featuring vampires, secret underground lairs and lots of descriptions of wet days in Wales. It’s the third of my Galbraith & Pole Urban Fantasy series, though you don’t have to have read the first two to enjoy it. It’s just £3.99 on Kindle.
Anyway, that’s what I’m doing right now. I hope you are enjoying our brief, belated summer.
