David Blixt is relatively unknown in the UK but recent reviews of his books, one by myself and another by the Historical Novel Society have thrust him into the limelight. His unique, unpretentious humour is a refreshing change to the genre of historical fiction and I have to say I cannot understand why he has not got a mainstream publishing deal! He was awarded "Editor's Choice" in the last quarterly edition of the HNS Review Magazine for
"Fortune's Fool" and I awarded him my highest accolade, The Golden Hammer & Anvil Shield, for "
Her Majesty's Will".
David kindly took sometime out to answer some questions on his writing and has kindly given a copy of "Her Majesty's Will" as a giveaway prize! Please comment on this interview, share the link on Facebook and Twitter to enter. Full details can be found on my
Giveaway Page!
1 - Can you tell us
about your writing life? How did you
start?
When I was 11, I had a teacher who made us write fiction
every Friday. Mr. Melby was his name. 200 word stories on a chosen theme. Then
he started letting us choose the topics ourselves. I did a Tolkien/Starlin
knock-off that spilled from page to page. I still remember it – terribly
derivative, but lots of fun. After that, I never stopped writing. For my senior
project in high school I wrote a comedic sci-fi novel (that will never see the
light of day).
I didn’t discover Historical Fiction until I was 17, on a
car trip with my father. He was listening to an audiobook of Colleen
McCullough’s The First Man In Rome. I
rolled my eyes and stared out the window, expecting to doze off. Instead I was
entranced. In the following years, I was introduced to Bernard Cornwell,
Raphael Sabatini, Sharon Kay Penman, Mary Renault, and Patrick O’Brian. At 19, I was working on a novel when a woman I fancied said
my writing reminded her of Jonathan Carroll. Seeing what he does in his books, his
dark freedom and brutal honesty, I tried to capture that. But I’m not him. So I
stopped writing for a bit, and focused on theatre instead. Which led me deeper
into Shakespeare, already a passion.
Then the woman I would one day marry handed me Dorothy
Dunnett’s The Game Of Kings and I
found my home. I had never considered writing Historical Fiction before that
moment. But seeing what she’s able to do with her world, her characters, her
stories – she is the monarch of the genre, absolutely unparalleled – I suddenly
had a framework for so many stories that lived inside my head. That was in the
year 2000. I’ve been writing ever since.
2 - Do you have a
favourite author and genre?
Apart from Historical Fiction and the authors named above,
I’m a huge Dashiell Hammett fan (and by extension, the novels of Robert B.
Parker, who modelled himself after Hammett and Chandler). I also feel the need
this week to give a shout-out to the late Tom Clancy. He taught me how to write
action sequences across a vast canvas.
In terms of Her
Majesty’s Will, the biggest debt I owe is to a hometown friend, Robert
Asprin. His Myth Adventures series is
one of my favourites, and growing up in Ann Arbor, I got to meet and know him.
His sense of the absurd and how to turn a story on its head served me very well
in this ridiculous flight of fancy.
3 - Shakespeare is a
huge passion of yours and your novel, Her
Majesty's Will is a very light-hearted romp with the famous playwright as a
central character. How did you come to
imagine him in such a role?
I’m drawn to gaps, holes in stories we all know. What caused
the Capulet-Montague feud? What did Caesar and Brutus discuss at dinner the
night before the Ides? So naturally I was intrigued by Shakespeare’s ‘lost
years’, the time between his departure from Stratford until his first recorded
mention in London. Where was he? What was he doing? It was tempting to write a serious tome. But there have been
too many of them, all too self-important. That was a trap I wanted to avoid. I
didn’t want to give a ‘fictional biography’, as they’re called. I wanted to
tell a story. I looked at the events
of those years and noticed the Babington Plot. The mental conversation that
followed went like this:
‘Shakespeare as a spy? That’s absurd!’
‘But wait – wasn’t Marlowe a spy at this time?’
‘So they say.’
‘What if Shakespeare and Marlowe team up to foil the
Babington Plot? A buddy comedy, like the Hope/Crosby Road movies.’
‘That’s totally ridiculous!’
‘Right-o. Get to work.’
‘Okay. I’ll need some tequila.’
I wrote the first several chapters, and had a ball. Then I
took a break for a year, doing shows and working on another series. Then I came
back and in the space of about a month finished the whole thing. In the
process, I utterly debased Stephen Greenblatt’s wonderful Will In The World. But I made a deal with myself. Accepting my
utterly ridiculous premise, I had to stick to historical facts.
I’m also rather fatigued by Tudor novels, because they’re
always about the court. I wanted Will and Kit to rub elbows with the scum of
society – thieves, pimps, whores, and actors. A view of Tudor society from the
bottom up. But I made sure to use real people. And I have to say, I was smiling
as I wrote that whole book. I’m smiling now, thinking about it.
4 - You are a
prolific writer, what else have you written?
One series is set in 14th century Verona,
exploring all the characters of Shakespeare’s Italian plays, combined with the
actual people of Dante’s time. I started with an odd inspiration from the end
of Romeo & Juliet about the
origin of the feud, but the research took me to fantastic heights. Three novels
are out now – The Master Of Verona, Voice
Of The Falconer, and Fortune’s Fool (Historical
Novel Society Editor’s Choice last August!). The fourth novel, The Prince’s Doom, is coming in January.
I’ve also got a series set in first century Rome and Judea,
about the destruction of Jerusalem, the building of the Colosseum, and the
birth of the Roman Church. Those are the Colossus
books. The third will be out next summer.
There’s also a play called Eve Of Ides, which will be published in November. Plutarch tells us
that the night before his assassination, Caesar went to a dinner party at
Lepidus’ house. Brutus, Antony, Cassius, and Trebonius were all there. My
biggest problem with Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar is that Caesar and Brutus never have a conversation. We never see
how Brutus gets to the point of saying, ‘It must be by his death.’ So my play
does that.
I have some short stories as well, some historical, some
not. My Pinocchio-inspired story Remember
Me will be published by Grey Matter Press in November. At this moment, I’m about 5 years behind my brain. There are
at least three stand-alone novels I desperately want to write, as well as
continuing the series. I have a sequel in mind for Will & Kit, with the
worst title in the history of the world: Will’s
Will Will. It’s a riff on Love’s
Labour’s Lost, and pits Will and Kit against the Spanish Armada.
5 - How do you
research your books? Are there any
specific resources that you return to time and time again?
Each series has its touchstones. I already mentioned
Greenblatt. There’s also Asimov’s Guide
to Shakespeare and Asimov’s Guide to
the Bible. Shakespeare’s Songbook
I use constantly. I read a lot of Ian Mortimer. Will and Ariel Durant are
priceless. And I learn a lot from my fellow writers, constantly. But the best
is to walk in the places I’m writing about. London, Verona, Rome – these are
cities I know well, and love. I try to include in-jokes for locals, whenever
possible.
But clearly my biggest influence is Shakespeare himself.
I’ve been fortunate, as an actor, to do perform in two-thirds of the canon so
far, and many of them repeatedly (over 30 R&Js at this point – yikes!)
Familiarity has not bred contempt – far from it. I didn’t want to be too
tongue-in-cheek about the plays, but I did want to plant the seeds for some
scenes and characters. His love of the common man is so clear, even as he fears
mobs and hypocrisy. I wanted to root that in some reality.
6 - What advice would
you give to an aspiring writer?
Write.
Kill your darlings.
Write.
If you’re bored by what you’re writing, make something
unexpected happen. If you’re not interested, your reader won’t be either.
Write.
Characters dictate the action, and their motives matter.
Write.
Always flout the reader’s expectations.
And write.
7 - Which three
historical figures, either real or imaginary, would you invite to a dinner
party?
Caesar, Shakespeare, and FDR.
8 - At which event in
history would you have liked to been a fly on the wall?
Oh, the assassination of Caesar. But even more, I would have
loved to be present at the moment the first Brutus threw out the Tarquin and
refused the crown, setting up the Roman Republic. So much of Western history
stems from that moment. I would love to see that first hand.
Thanks for having me! Let’s get together when I’m in London
next fall. I’ll buy.
Now go to my
Giveaway Page to enter my latest competition to win one of David's books!
