Why Did I Write Palace of Ghosts?
This is a question I am often asked. It is also one that I have also pondered at length. It took me a while to work through the reasons, but I only did so after I had completed the first manuscript. My thought process did not follow a logical, sequential trajectory. I did not, for example, initially identify the reasons I might embark on such a course of action, then weigh up the pros and cons, and then evaluate whether or not to proceed. Rather it was fact a gut feeling. I had to write the story, and the more I researched, the stronger that instinct became. It was only tens of thousands of written words later that I attempted to rationalise why I had done it. The main reasons are those I have set out below. But it’s not an exhaustive list, and I may well come back to these points in a later post. The lure of an untold story . I believe that it is possible to sense history even if there appears to be a gap in the record and you don't know what the missing detail is. There is a deep...