“What inspires you?” is a question I’m frequently asked in many guest posts, in podcast interviews, or at conferences. Perhaps the people asking are writers themselves, or wish to make a connection on an artistic and creative level or want to know the answer to life, the universe and everything. That last one’s easy: 42. (Apologies to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)
Let’s be serious. Well, for a moment. I dread this question, not because I don’t want to reveal the secret identity of my silken-gowned muse, nor divulge her equally secret pearls of wisdom. Am I frightened she might run away, never to be seen again? No, I don’t want to let readers down with my answer.
I confess – I don’t know.
An inspiring thought or emotion can be anything and come from anywhere. For me, it’s like being ambushed. I often don’t have a clue until it drops into my head. When it does, it’s something shallow and mundane like being held on the phone in a queue, spotting a bargain or scoffing at a mistranslation at a tourist site.
The long burn
The Roma Nova books originated from a decades’ long fascination with Ancient Rome and women’s roles in the modern world but given it took more than thirty years to get the first words onto the computer screen (bypassing the typewriter), it can hardly be called a *moment* of inspiration. It was a slow-growing, but persistent, climbing plant.
Like all authors, whether they admit it or not, I drew on events, people and experiences from my life up to that moment to write that first book, INCEPTIO. We are all shaped by these experiences and by our background and values.
There will always be a little bit of the author in her book however much any author claims to deny it. And if we don’t show that in our main character, we switch it into another prominent secondary character. We all live in our own little world at the centre of which is our own delightful/dreadful ego, so any self-expression like writing is bound to reflect it.
Readers and bets
After nine Roma Nova thrillers featuring tough and lively heroines, my readers demanded I write the foundation story of Roma Nova. Thus inspired, that spilled out into two books – JULIA PRIMA and EXSILIUM – set in the fourth century.
In between, I wrote three modern thrillers based on Mel/Mélisende, a dual national Franco-British special forces heroine working for a European security service. Writing them was triggered (inspired?) by a bet from fellow author Conn Iggulden who had given me a fabulous front of cover endorsement for the fifth Roma Nova thriller, INSURRECTIO.
So…HEROICA, out today(!)
This new book of three stories was a case of inspiration via curiosity. I wanted to write a story featuring my original heroine, Carina, in one of her investigations. Her professional life wasn’t spent entirely on saving her country, but like most law enforcers had its fair number of routine cases. Of course, being Carina, the case turned out to be anything but routine.
Why isn’t Revolution? a full-length novel? Because the story ended when it did. We can’t always insist on dragging a story out to 100,000 words when it doesn’t naturally end at 24,000. But what to do with it? It’s too long to be a short story and compared to my two novellas – CARINA (38,000 words) and NEXUS (39,000 words) – not enough for a novella. So I thought about adding a couple of historical long short stories from Roma Nova’s past, but staying within Carina’s family in order to have a connecting thread running through them.
Honoria’s Battle is set near Vienna when that city was being besieged for the second time by forces from the Ottoman Empire. It was hailed as an existential fight by Christian Europe against the tide of Moslem Turks. Historians continue to disagree about the battle’s significance but to people of the time it was one of survival. Of course, Roma Nova was going to be involved! Researching characters such as the ebullient John Sobieski, King of Poland and the best commander of his day, was fascinating.
The Idealist connects with Giuseppe Mazzini’s attempt to form a new Roman Republic and unite Italy in the nineteenth century – another time of crisis and transition. It’s also the story of unrealistic expectations, family secrets and pragmatism. The inspiration was curiosity about the past and wondering what a terrible threat of the past coming back to bite those in the present would do to them.
In brief
Inspiration for me is a formless cloud, wisps, really, wafting around in my mind with no fixed abode. It takes something to come along – a bad film, five words in an email from a Very Famous Author, idle attention to a television report of a coup – to get the cloud to clump and produce a bolt of lightning. Usually, it’s a little crackle at the back of the sky that grows into a steady blaze.
Alison Morton
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About the Author
Thank you so much, Tony. Also for letting me talk about inspiration for this book on publication day. Writing is 90% craft and slog, but we do need that 10% inspiration to fire us up.
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