Guest author Jay Lewis Taylor
Jan. 31st, 2018 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneIt's always a pleasure to welcome the historical romance reader's best boy to my blog to answer questions about his new release, Appointed Limits.
What inspired this book?
What inspired the book initially was finding a mention of the Messina earthquake (28 December 1908) about two weeks before the actual anniversary in 2016. I wrote the first story in what became Appointed Limits in a terrific hurry, but it came through so fast that it didn't feel like an effort. I thought Shore Leave was going to be a one-off when it was posted in Manifold Press's blog, but the conversation that resulted made me wonder what John and Pasco would doing in six years time, during the Great War. And then another story came, and then another, and I couldn't leave them alone ...
Is location an important element to you as author?
Very much so. I need to be able to see a place in my mind's eye even if I've never been there, even if I've invented it. I haven't been to Malta (though I've talked to people who have, and have seen pictures). I invented John's home in Cornwall, though I could point to the space on the map where it is. But when I was writing John's journey towards his home in Walk Ashore I suddenly saw it at the foot of a hill, with the church tower and the houses nearby.
Also, location influences my characters. If they don't feel at home in the city they will behave one way; if they are only comfortable at home in certain circumstances, why is that? I also I find that I need to know what they are physically negotiating as they move around, what they can see and hear and smell. Location has a bearing on all of that.
What about as a reader?
I think the same applies. It's a very poor book where the characters are talking in a vacuum, without responding – for example – to the beautiful landscape or the hideous city in which they're standing. Location has its own work to do in a book, whether it's a place we recognise (London, New York) or not. Earthsea, for example, works for me because it was so thoroughly created by Ursula K LeGuin that every place in it, however strange, is the world that her characters are navigating and responding to; and as a reader I see it through their eyes.
If you could have served on any historical ship/under any captain, which and who would it be?
Hmmm ... I'm sure Nelson would have been inspiring, but I'd have wanted danger money. It would have been interesting to serve on the Beagle if I could have talked to Darwin, but I think Robert FitzRoy would have been hard work as captain, poor man. With Captain Cook to Tahiti? Round Australia with Matthew Flinders? The Antarctic with Shackleton? Too many to choose from. I need other writers to take me to the time and place...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
I grew up in southern England, but now live in Somerset, within an hour’s drive of the villages where two of my great-great-great-grandparents were born. I have worked in an eclectic range of libraries over the years but am in fact a thwarted medievalist with a strong arts background.
I have been writing fiction for over thirty years, exploring the lives of people who are on the margins in one way or another, and how the power of love and language can break down the walls that we build round ourselves.
APPOINTED LIMITS
An officer never, ever goes adrift in the Gut, the most infamous street in Malta. However John Amery, Surgeon RN, loses his way, his innocence and his virginity there one December night of 1908 when he meets Pasco Teague.
From Malta to Devonport to Gallipoli, from the Mediterranean to the Channel to the Dardanelles, John and Pasco meet and part, in peace and war and peace again. Duty and Pasco are the fixed points in John’s life, but there comes a time when he has no power over either, and must find his way to another kind of peace.
What inspired this book?
What inspired the book initially was finding a mention of the Messina earthquake (28 December 1908) about two weeks before the actual anniversary in 2016. I wrote the first story in what became Appointed Limits in a terrific hurry, but it came through so fast that it didn't feel like an effort. I thought Shore Leave was going to be a one-off when it was posted in Manifold Press's blog, but the conversation that resulted made me wonder what John and Pasco would doing in six years time, during the Great War. And then another story came, and then another, and I couldn't leave them alone ...
Is location an important element to you as author?
Very much so. I need to be able to see a place in my mind's eye even if I've never been there, even if I've invented it. I haven't been to Malta (though I've talked to people who have, and have seen pictures). I invented John's home in Cornwall, though I could point to the space on the map where it is. But when I was writing John's journey towards his home in Walk Ashore I suddenly saw it at the foot of a hill, with the church tower and the houses nearby.
Also, location influences my characters. If they don't feel at home in the city they will behave one way; if they are only comfortable at home in certain circumstances, why is that? I also I find that I need to know what they are physically negotiating as they move around, what they can see and hear and smell. Location has a bearing on all of that.
What about as a reader?
I think the same applies. It's a very poor book where the characters are talking in a vacuum, without responding – for example – to the beautiful landscape or the hideous city in which they're standing. Location has its own work to do in a book, whether it's a place we recognise (London, New York) or not. Earthsea, for example, works for me because it was so thoroughly created by Ursula K LeGuin that every place in it, however strange, is the world that her characters are navigating and responding to; and as a reader I see it through their eyes.
If you could have served on any historical ship/under any captain, which and who would it be?
Hmmm ... I'm sure Nelson would have been inspiring, but I'd have wanted danger money. It would have been interesting to serve on the Beagle if I could have talked to Darwin, but I think Robert FitzRoy would have been hard work as captain, poor man. With Captain Cook to Tahiti? Round Australia with Matthew Flinders? The Antarctic with Shackleton? Too many to choose from. I need other writers to take me to the time and place...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
I grew up in southern England, but now live in Somerset, within an hour’s drive of the villages where two of my great-great-great-grandparents were born. I have worked in an eclectic range of libraries over the years but am in fact a thwarted medievalist with a strong arts background.
I have been writing fiction for over thirty years, exploring the lives of people who are on the margins in one way or another, and how the power of love and language can break down the walls that we build round ourselves.
APPOINTED LIMITS
An officer never, ever goes adrift in the Gut, the most infamous street in Malta. However John Amery, Surgeon RN, loses his way, his innocence and his virginity there one December night of 1908 when he meets Pasco Teague.
From Malta to Devonport to Gallipoli, from the Mediterranean to the Channel to the Dardanelles, John and Pasco meet and part, in peace and war and peace again. Duty and Pasco are the fixed points in John’s life, but there comes a time when he has no power over either, and must find his way to another kind of peace.
