Publication day for Called to Account, the fourth book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, is this coming Tuesday. I have just taken my first full step towards researching book 5. I have placed an order for Louis XIII: The Making of a King, by Elizabeth Wirth Marvick. It should arrive a week today.
I’ve already scanned the years 1613 – 1616 for further Standen adventures. Whilst much is happening in America, particularly for Pocahontas, and the Far East is interesting, books 3 & 4 pull me back to Paris. I have every faith that E.W. Marvick will provide me with the material I will need. Marvick sounds like a fascinating woman. I’m looking forward to reading her psycho-political analysis of Louis. Quite how I shall translate it into my adventure, only time and hard work will tell.
I can’t say how long it will take to write, except that I’ve averaged a book every 8 months so far. However, since my publicist Brian has persuaded me that writers have to put a lot more effort into promotional activity, I suspect I’ll be lucky to achieve a book per year going forward.
Marvick’s book is a 308 page hardback, so that’s going to be a long read. I’m looking forward to it though, I think the research phase is the part of writing that I enjoy the most. It’s my birthday today, and one of the presents I’ve received is a notebook. That’s going to come in handy. Whilst I use Scrivener to write and organise my research, if I’m reading Marvick’s book, I’ll want to jot things down at the coffee table.
It’s also just occurred to me that book 5 will be the first book I’ll have started since commissioning this website, and writing the regular blog posts. So I’ll be blogging throughout the writing process. I’ll have to think about how to do that without spoilers. This is going to be fun.