2009-12-04

Team history

When I started in the writing business, it was just the word-processor and I working late in the evening after I'd beavered away at my day job. The only other people I knew in the trade were another writer (the one who got me into it in the first place) and my production editor, who was a remote and awe-inspiring figure. At the time I thought it would always be like this.

It turns out I was wrong. I was reminded of this again as I looked over my Christmas card list for 2009. There's a stack of editors - production, commissioning and assistant - whom I've got to know well over the years. There's artists, agents and a dozen fellow writers. Instead of writing being the solitary business I always imagined, putting a book together involves a mini-community of professionals.

There's another stack of cards I'm about to sign. These are for non-professionals I have met in the course of my writing. These people have helped me in countless ways, contributing their enthusiasm and specialized expertise for no other reason than that they share my love of classical history. Sometimes I've sought them out and been overwhelmed by the generosity of their response. Others have contacted me about some aspect of the ancient world that particularly concerns them. Sometimes this has forced a major rethink on my part.

All these are on my Christmas card list. Another, even larger group I'd like to send cards to, but can't, are those people who have paid the ultimate compliment of parting with their hard-earned cash to read what I have to say.

Season's greetings and my grateful thanks to you all!

2009-11-08

Getting technical

I've just got one of those Sony eReader things. Actually, my wife got it for me as a Christmas present, but its so useful that I started using it the moment we got the box home.

As I mentioned before, I often pre-read stuff before publication(and other people do the same for my work). Being able to read this in a book-type format rather than on a screen is great, especially as I can scribble notes right on the touch screen and the thing keeps track of what I wrote where.

There's also a zillion odd .pdf files of various articles I've used for research scattered all over my computer's hard drive that I now have an excuse to put into coherent order, because this reader handles .pdf files very well. The only thing I have not tried reading with it is an actual book, because paper is still clearer, non reflective, and turning pages is easier.

While I love the benefits of an eReader, I'm also slightly worried by the downside. If it becomes as easy to rip books in the future as it is with music now, a lot of authors who are just hanging on in the writing business are in trouble. It's not that easy even when you get paid for every sale. We sometimes joke that if you can make money writing history, you can make a fortune doing anything else.

So let's hope that publishing has learned from the music industry, and finds out how to allow eBooks to benefit both readers and writers.

2009-10-07

Last seen in 200 AD ...

The nature of my job means that most days, I spend about ten hours in the ancient world. Most of today, for example, was spend wandering about the delightful city of Ephesus in Asia Minor where I was investigating the monuments and trade links.

This leads to a certain degree of mental misalignment with the modern world. I know Trajan's forum in Rome reasonably well, but as the ancient forum, so my first thought when I actually went there was to look at the modern road running right across it and think 'Who put *that* here?' In the same way, a fellow historian was able to put me right about the whereabouts of Budapest by pointing out that it is right next to the Roman town of Aquincum.

But the process is yet more insidious. I genuinely respect Tacitus and Thucydides, and consequently tend to respect what they respect. So I refer to 'worshippers of the Olympian Gods' rather than using the derogatory term 'pagans', and recently found myself hotly defending Roman gladiatorial combat as being ethically superior to the punitive systems of many modern countries.

During the days of the British empire, many an administrator spent so much time with the people he was governing that he adopted their manners and viewpoint wholesale. I can imagine those earnest Victorians shaking their heads over my liking for stoic philosophy or my admiration for people like Rutilius Rufus, and sadly saying 'The game's up for the poor fellah. He's gone native.'

2009-09-06

Wot I dun in my hollydayz

On the last line of a completed first draft of a book, I always solemnly, and with a certain degree of emotion. write the word 'Finis'. On the one hand is the satisfaction of seeing a project safely through, and on the other there is a certain sense of anti-climax, as something that has dominated my life for the last year abruptly vanishes. Of course the book is far from a completed work - there are pictures to be captioned, an index to compile, and numerous corrections and the occasional section to rewrite to editorial specifications. However, once that first draft has been sent off, there's always a delay before the other jobs begin, and I have the strange feeling of waking up without knowing what I'll be doing that day.

Quite by co-incidence, it happened that I finished my latest project just as August was beginning. It seemed a good idea to try taking a summer holiday before starting the next book in September. So I took my lily-white body to the beach and even tried swimming a bit. Picnics by the lake are also good fun, I have discovered. I came across 'Ancient Warfare' magazine, and decided to submit an article. (Which has just been published in the September edition.) I also made a nuisance of myself on various online ancient history forums, and began preparing another article for Amphora online magazine which should be ready soon.

Now with September here, I'm comfortably back in harness with a deadline - actually two - waiting in 2010. With a pleasing symmetry as I start one book another is making its first public appearance. So later this month, say hello to the 'Classical Compendium' or in the UK version, 'Philip Matyszak's Classical compendium' - the first book I've ever done with my name in the title.

2009-08-06

Aaaaarghh!

Although I'm known in ancient history circles for my sweet and sunny nature, I have to confess this fails somewhat on the subject of builders. I desperately want to see less of the species, with their saggy sun-burned bellies and execrable taste in pop music.

You see, when I am not working in a library, I tend to work at home, and the vicinity of my home attracts builders as a honey-pot attracts flies. When I was writing my thesis in Oxford, builders were rebuilding our student flats. Once I went out to complain about the noise and got back to find that a builder had fallen through the roof on to my desk.

In Austria, they knocked down the house next to our front garden and noisily built a bank. Then they moved to a vacant lot behind the house, and started a large apartment building.

We fled to Canada, where my persecutors zealously demolished the house adjoining my back fence, and have spent the last four months putting up two large houses in its place. I've spent the morning trying to translate Apollodorus while the house shudders gently in accompaniment to a digger tearing up a driveway a few yards from my kitchen window.

Voodoo dolls and prayers to the cthonous gods have failed me. It may be time for a bazooka.