Phew!

So. It's done.

Yesterday afternoon I pressed "Send" and then sat back, exhausted. And was completely useless the rest of the evening.

It happened like this a couple of months back, when I sent the revised book proposal for Will's Treason - Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot off to my agent. That had taken me two full months to research, write and revise.

And now, same goes for Commanding Youth - The True Story of Arthur and the Fall of Britain. Weeks of work, then off she goes.

So now what?

Wait and see ...

What is Britain for?

Any thoughts?

It's a question my agent posed me in connection with my book about Arthur ('King' Arthur, that is - the original, the historical, the one!) "What is Britain for?" What's the point of the book - current subtitle: "The True Story of Arthur and the Fall of Britain" - if we haven't decided what Britain is, and why we should give a damn?!

And at first I thought - "What is Britain for? Well, it's kind of for keeping the wind off Belgium. And for making sure Ireland doesn't get too close to the Continent."

But that was just me being facetious.

Anyway, I've spent about two months now on my rejigged opening chapters to Commanding Youth and I think I'm getting there. The question. What's it all for.

The Romans invaded, but they only took about a half to two-thirds of Britain - essentially, the same part as the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes would later turn into a place called 'England'.

The rest of Britain got renamed. The tattooed people to the north got called 'Picts' (from pictii- 'painted'). Their Irish equivalent was the 'Cruithne' - effectively, the Picts in Ireland (or, as Diodorus Siculus called them, 'those of the Pritani who inhabit Iris'). The Britons, according to a description given by Claudian Claudianus just five years before the Romans left Britain for good, remained rather 'Pictish' themselves.

So - all of the British Isles, plus a substantial part of Ireland, were once 'British'. Then Rome came along and turned just a part of the territory into 'Britain', the rest becoming somehow alien. And the bit Rome called Britain then got taken over by Germanic immigrants (the English) who were anything but British.

And therein lies the problem of Britain.

Over the centuries, England has tried to govern every part of the British Isles (and Ireland) from London. But England is the odd-one-out, the non-British part of the whole. Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall ... these are aspects of the real Britain, and they have all been imposed upon, trampled, exploited and frequently despised by the controlling English in their southern capital.

So I'm beginning to formulate an answer to the question "What is Britain for?"

It's for uniting against the stranglehold of London and the southeast, and for remembering that Britain existed long before England was invented.

Now I've just got to get that idea past my agent, who's based in ... yes, you've guessed it.

London.

Keeping the Faith

I realised, after many years as a screenwriter, that writing is essentially an act of faith.

People talk about the 'magic' of cinema. When you think about it, though, there isn't a lot of real magic involved (and, with the advent of CGI, there's arguably even less). But where there is still magic - where something is made out of nothing, or where nothingness is given shape, form and life - is at the scriptwriting stage.

Anyone who can take 120 sheets of plain white A4 and turn it into a gripping and memorable story of fascinating characters in complex situations with some heartstopping moments is without doubt a magician.

And novelists - well, they just have more paper at their disposal (and don't have to worry about too many other departments wrecking their precious baby).

Magic, of course, requires various things if it is going to work. The main thing, I would argue, is faith. I mean, what's the point of setting out to achieve some magic if you don't believe it's going to work?

Which brings me to my current slough. I have started revising my opening chapters for Commanding Youth, my brilliant historical revelation of the real Arthur, who he was, where he fought and where he is buried. It's brilliant, I tell you.

Only, I haven't really worked on CY in well over a year. Back in March 2009 it squeaked into the top five on Authonomy. Two publishers had asked to see it. One of them told me back in September that a colleague of his was reading it and he'd have a firm response for me by the following week. Then, silence, and the occasional glimpse of tumbleweed.

I've spent most of my time in between working on my equally brilliant Will's Treason, the first three chapters of which went winging their way to my agent late last week. So maybe I'm a but bleeuuugghhh because I've been working so hard on that one and I'm waiting to find out whether my agent loves it or wants to get me sectioned.

Maybe it's harder to build up the necessary faith in order to work some magic if you've had a go at this trick a few too many times already. Maybe it's easier if you're tackling something fresh. But, I'll be honest, I feel like I'm struggling with putting the new Commanding Youth together. Okay, so it's early days, but how long, I wonder, before the faith returns ... The faith that this draft will be fantastic ... The faith that somebody out there is going to go nuts over it ... The faith that, one day, it'll be out there in paperback ... ?

Hard to work magic when your faith's not quite up to the challenge, don't you find?

And ... relax

Okay, the deed is done. Yesterday afternoon I had one of my moments and pressed 'Send'.

Actually, it wasn't quite as random as that. Two months it's taken me to revise three opening chapters to Will's Treason (subtitle: 'Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot'), although the last week or so of that was mostly devoted to the 'proposal'.

What's a 'proposal', apart from something you do on bended knee? Well, it's like a sales pitch, or a business plan, for a TV treatment, or any of those things which really aren't all that important but people like to pretend they are. The worst is probably TV treatments (although I'm sure a lot of business plans ultimately caused the recent recession), because nobody reads them, they're a waste of time, they're not what we're good at and they end up crippling the writer's freedom and imagination.

And ... relax.

Anyway, after many a long dark night of the soul the three chapters, plus pitch, info, chapter outlines, tra-la-la, were done. Finished. Revised. Pored over. Checked.

So I asked people on Facebook whether I should send the 103-page project straight off to my agent. Some replied along the lines of, 'NO! God, no! By no means! Keep checking it!' Others were more like, 'YES! Send the damned thing NOW!' A few bets were hedged, i.e., 'Check it. Then send it. Or send it. Then check it. I dunno.'

I sent it. And I feel about a hundred pounds lighter. The sun is shining. A fine weekend is promised.

Only I've now got to start on the opening chapters and proposal for Commanding Youth (subtitle - I'm not sure, yet; currently it's something like 'Arthur and the Fall of Britain'. Suggestions on a postcard, please, to: stirlingsa@hotmail.co.uk) So the whole process starts again. And instead of trying to live my life in 16th century England for two months, I'll be heading back to the Dark Ages.

Forgive me if I only blog occasionally, for a while, at least, or until there's some news. Only we didn't have blogs in Manau Gododdin.

(Curses - forgot to mention a fantastic meeting of the Screenwriters' Forum in Birmingham last week. Great to meet up again with Natasha, Dan, Catherine, Simon ...)