Special Guest Post by Emma Darwin, Author of The Bruegel Boy

Available from Amazon UK 

and Holland House Books

In the summer of 1566 an inferno of political rebellion and image-smashing, the Beeldenstorm, swept across Flanders and Holland; young Gillis Vervloet, model and muse to artist Pieter Bruegel, 

almost didn’t survive.

I'm pleased to welcome author Emma Darwin to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book

The Bruegel Boy is set in the early 1560s, when Antwerp was one of the largest, richest and most exciting centres for art, printing and learning in Renaissance Europe. Young Gillis Vervloet is thrown out of his family for a crime he didn’t commit, but finds a home as model and muse to artist Pieter Bruegel. 

Gil longs above all to become a priest, but this is a world in which politics, art and religion have become explosively combined – and then he falls in love. Framing this story is the other end of Gil’s life, in the German lands. He longs to end his days in peace in a monastery, but first he must first find their statue of St Michael, which vanished during the storm of Reformation image-smashing. And before the Inquisition arrives, he must prove that he is not a heretic. 

What is your preferred writing routine? 

In a perfect world, I’d write from nine till one every weekday morning, spend the post-lunch patch out in the daylight running errands, and then pick off the admin in the late afternoon. The weekends would be for research and reading. 

But it isn’t a perfect world, so the writing has to fit in with my teaching commitments, writing posts and Q&As on This Itch of Writing, my Substack about creative writing, and the promotional stuff that all writers have to do. 

What advice do you have for new writers? 

Don’t write what you know: write what you want in a way that will make readers believe you know it as well as you know your own high street – even if it’s set in twelfth century China. Remember that good research is necessary for good writing, but it’s never sufficient: working on your prose and story-telling craft is essential, and creative writing blogs like This Itch of Writing can help. Then get feedback from writers you can trust to tell you the truth about how your writing reads for them, but also support your confidence. 

By all means be strategic about where you want to aim your writing efforts, but never write anything which you’ll wish you’d never bothered to write, if it doesn’t achieve that goal. And finally, whenever you open the file of your work-in-progress, decide what job you’re going to do today and see it through. Don’t hop about, fiddle with trivia, switch jobs or get diverted: not only do you waste the brief times when your writing still seems fresh and you can read it like a reader, you also make muddles and lose creative momentum.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books? 

I’ve never been very good at this – and because I don’t talk about work in progress, I can’t do what lots of historical fictioneers are very good at, which is share what they’re researching and enjoying about their current project. I do find that just hanging around on social media interacting with other writers like you, Tony, is a good way, and looking for opportunities to talk to readers at live and online events. And with this novel I’ve got Bruegel’s paintings to work with, which is a massive plus!

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research?

When I first wondered if Bruegel would make a novel, I knew him for his snow scenes, his adorable children and ridiculous adults, and for his beautiful Nativities: as a teenager, I had his Census at Bethlehem on my bedroom wall (along with Elizabeth I!). 

But I hadn’t realised that all these intensely human delights were painted just as the Low Countries were exploding into religious repression, political rebellion, arrests and hangings, and a storm of image smashing. I started wondering about what’s going on when mere paintings and statues are felt to be so powerful that they must be destroyed – which is, of course, a human phenomenon that’s still with us.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

Practically speaking, I find action scenes of violence and disorder hard to write, but I can’t tell you much about that without plot-spoilers! Emotionally and psychologically, the hardest scenes were the ones where Gil, being exiled from his family, has to cope with being thrown out of his precarious security into isolation and destitution: feeling that despair strongly enough to write it was surprisingly grim.

What are you planning to write next?

I’m currently working on a novel set much later, in the eighteenth century, so the voices are very different, as are the manners and mores. And yet it’s still, really, about love, friendship, loyalty, betrayal and art – though not painting, this time. And one day I’ll get round to writing The Itch of Writing Handbook!

Emma Darwin

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About the Author

Emma Darwin’s passion for Pieter Bruegel the Elder was born in a childhood spent partly in Brussels. Her debut novel The Mathematics of Love was nominated for both Commonwealth Writers and RNA Book of the Year awards, and A Secret Alchemy was a Sunday Times bestseller. She is also the author of Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction and the memoir This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin. She has taught Creative Writing at Oxford, Goldsmiths and the Open University, and blogs at This Itch of Writing on Substack. You can follow Emma on Bluesky @emmadarwinwriter.bsky.social