How books start: Recipes Through the Ages


Bernard Shaw once said that writing is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, but just occasionally books almost write themselves, or at least require far less perspiration. Spin-off books is a great example. Not books that continue a series, but books that take you on a tangeant from that series. Great examples by Terry Pratchett are "Where Is My Cow" as a spin-off from "Thud", where the hero reads his young son a book every night called "Where Is My Cow", and "The Book of Poo" as a spin-off from "Snuff". These are not cheap and quickly written rip-offs, but are charmingly written  and add value to the Discworld series.

Having now written the first two books in the Temporal Detective Agency series with the first one published by Publerati (plug!) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Temporal-Detective-Agency-Series-ebook/dp/B007XYIFO4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339149840&sr=1-1
The fact that one of the characters is rather surprisingly a celebrity chef, who owns and runs restaurants in a number of centuries thanks to Merlin's Time Portal intrigued a friend of mine, Marit Meredith, and she hit on the great idea of writing a book of recipes through the ages, starting in the 5th century and going through to present day. Marit, who incidentally has written recipe books before though usually on vegan foods, is now busy researching some quite revolting concoctions and my first thought was that it's not surprising the life expectancy in past centuries was so short. Royalty ate enough for an army and the ingredients for an average meal would turn your stomach rather than fill it. Nevertheless Marit and I will persevere, as will the unnamed celebrity chef in Leap of Faith and hopefully the book will be out under the Publerati banner later next year.

By the way, Marit is a multi-talented woman who also makes the most amazing animals and figures out of different types of cloth. Check them out on her web site http://www.oldhensnest.co.uk/

Meanwhile Tertia, the main hero in Leap of Faith is writing her own cylepodica (actually encyclopaedia, but it's a long word and she does come from Camelot in the 5th century). She gets fed up with all the errors historians have made and she's determined to put the record straight and I've promised to help her get it into print, with the help of Publerati Publishing, of course.

The rest of the Temporal Detective Agency series may be along the lines that George Bernard Shaw outlined. As he said when he was asked "Are you Shaw" ..."sir, I'm positive!"