A Stunning New Take on Ancient Greek Theater in Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

Join me as chat with Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits, a wonderful debut novel listed in the Theater category on Art In Fiction.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3ZFFQ4rg4DU

• Genesis for Glorious Exploits
• Based on true events that occurred in Syracuse, Sicily during the Peloponnesian war.
• The theme of friendship in Glorious Exploits
• Theater and research of ancient Greek theater in the writing of Glorious Exploits
• Traveling to Greece and Syracuse as part of the research process
• Why Euripedes? Discussion of Medea and The Trojan Women, the two Euripedes plays put on by the Athenian soldiers in the quarry
• The voice of Lampo and why he sounds Irish
• The similarities between Ireland as an island nature separate from and yet related to England, and Sicily also an island separate from and yet related to the culture of Greece
• The size and breadth of the ancient world and its many influences
• Discussion of Ferdia's compelling writing style
• How Lampo's character changes and grows in the novel
• The making of the audiobook that Ferdia narrated
• Parallels between Glorious Exploits and our own time
• Reading from Glorious Exploits
• Publication journey of Glorious Exploits
• One thing Ferdia learned from writing his novel that he didn't know before

Press Play now & be sure to check out Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon on Art In Fiction: https://www.artinfiction.com/novels/glorious-exploits

Ferdia Lennon's website: https://www.ferdialennon.com/

Music Credit
Paganology, performed by The Paul Plimley Trio; composed by Gregg Simpson

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Transcript

Carol Cram

Hello and welcome. I'm Carol Cram, host of The Art In Fiction Podcast. This episode features Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits, listed in the Theatre category on Art in Fiction. 

Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin. He holds a BA in history and classics from University College Dublin and an M.A. in prose fiction from the University of East Anglia. Glorious Exploits is his first novel. A Sunday Times bestseller, it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as a Book at Bedtime and was the winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2024. After spending many years in Paris, Ferdia now lives in Norwich with his wife and son.

Welcome to The Art In Fiction Podcast, Ferdia. 

Ferdia Lennon

Thank you so much, Carol, for having me. 

Carol Cram

I have to say, I was absolutely blown away by Glorious Exploits. It's one of the most original novels I've read in a long time.

I actually listened to the audiobook while I was traveling through Greece and touring various Greek ruins a few weeks ago. So that was a really cool experience, you know, since your novel brings the ancient times to life. Tell us about the genesis of Glorious Exploits. 

Ferdia Lennon

Oh, well, thank you so much. And really lovely to hear that you listened to the book while traveling around Greece. That feels almost like the perfect way. 

Carol Cram

It was, it really was. 

Ferdia Lennon

So, the genesis for Glorious Exploits, it comes in a few ways. I've always, ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by ancient Greece. I was one of those kids who would memorize the Greek myths, the various attributes and backstories of the Greek gods and asked to be tested on them.

I studied classical studies in university, history and classics, and I always wanted to write something set in the period, but I wasn't sure what that would be. Then I read two books; I read Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War about the 27-year conflict between Athens and Sparta that spills all across the region.

And at the heart of that story, I've heard it described as a story of a war, but in another sense, it almost reads like a Greek tragedy about the fall of Athens. And at the heart of that tragedy is the Sicilian expedition which Athens presents as this kind of humanitarian intervention, whereas behind the scenes, they very much had dreams of conquest, of defeating Syracuse, which was the largest city state, and then moving across the island.

And things did not go to plan, to say the least. They were completely defeated and thousands of Athenian prisoners, so many prisoners, in fact, that they couldn't fit them in a prison. They had to put them in a quarry outside of the city of Syracuse that you can visit today. So that really stuck in my imagination, but I didn't know what, again, what my angle on this would be.

Until a year or so later, I read Plutarch's Life of Nicias. And in it, you know, Nicias dies, he's one of the main Athenian generals in Syracuse, in Sicily. He describes how some of these Athenian prisoners who were left in this quarry to die actually survived by quoting lines from Euripides’ plays. So yeah, there is actually a real historical core behind this, even behind the idea of the plays and, you know, art to survive.

And when I read that, a diffuse idea of something set in that period became very focused and I knew what the book would be. 

Carol Cram

Isn't that wonderful. As an historical novelist, and I know this is your first novel, hopefully the first of many, when you find something like that, two things that just kind of come together, because what an amazing idea, the concept of these guys quoting Greek to survive, and then you get your two lads that come in and put on the plays.

The novel touches on so many themes, but I want to talk about the theme of friendship between Lampo and Gelon. So how is the novel a story about friendship? 

Ferdia Lennon

Well observed. I think it's a story of art, the fallout of war, theater, but in many ways at the heart of it, there's this friendship between Lampo and Gelon. They're two potters, but their pottery factory has closed during the war, so they're slightly at a loose end.

They're best friends, but in that way, they've been best friends since childhood. And I think often when people have been almost like family, best friends since childhood, you can actually be really close friends with someone that if you met them as an adult, you wouldn't necessarily even hit it off.

But because those bonds are forged at such a young age, you kind of see past the differences and you can love the person. So that's the kind of relationship between this somewhat of an odd couple. Lampo is a little bit of a layabout. He's always cracking a joke. He sees things. He's trying to make light of everything and he's not very ambitious.

He lives with his mom. He lives at home with his mom and Gelon is the opposite. He's a much more kind of melancholy, earnest, poetic, passionate individual. And he is the driving force. He is the one who gets it into his head. So, during this war between Athens and Syracuse, the cultural connection has been severed, so there'd be no more Athenian plays, and more specifically, no more Euripides plays. And he thinks that Athens, which is in a very bad situation, is probably going to lose the war. And if that happens, there's a good chance that Sparta or Syracuse might essentially just raze the city to the ground. So, by gathering these lines from these plays, they might actually be rescuing them from oblivion.

Whereas Lampo kind of thinks that this will be a bit of a laugh. 

Carol Cram

He doesn't really get the big picture at all. He just kind of goes along with stuff. Lampo was a wonderful character. I loved him. We'll talk more about him in a minute. I wanted to talk about the theater. I actually have a background in theater, so to read a novel that is about Greek theater was amazing. I actually went to Epidaurus while I was in Greece and saw the big theater. I was listening to the novel on that day when we went to Epidaurus. That was pretty amazing. What is your background in theater?

Ferdia Lennon

To be honest, I don't even have one. I love theater. I love plays, going to see plays. I love cinema, you know, ever since I was a kid, I've probably, that was my entryway into theater, in a way, was cinema a modified version of theater. I lived in Paris for quite a few years, and I did have some good friends who ran an amateur theater company which was called the Montmartre Dionysia.

I think, yeah, that probably even in a way, those amateur theatrics might have played a little bit of an influence. Even if I wasn't acting, I was kind of helping in various ways or along for the ride. But I do love narrative basically in all its forms, whether it's novels, poetry, plays, cinema.

There is something very, I suppose, special about the collaborative nature of theater and the live nature of theater, that kind of ephemeral, it's each performance is different and cannot quite be recaptured in the same way. And also the sense that theater back then when my novel is set was the popular mass entertainment.

These were the blockbusters of ancient Greek society. This was your Marvel. This was your Scorsese. This was everything kind of mixed in and thousands and thousands, like the whole community, would kind of show up to watch those plays. So, I wanted to convey that sense of the immediacy and the kind of fundamental part of theater was still important but, like, then it was essentially epic poetry and theater if you want.

Carol Cram

It really speaks to the fact that humans want stories and that their form of storytelling, of course, was the theater.

I was wondering how you did your research about how they put theatre on. You've got the masks, you've got the costumes, you've got the whole chorus bit, it's Greek theatre. How did you do some research about that? 

Ferdia Lennon

It was like a mix of reading academic nonfiction books about ancient Greek theater and the structures from what the masks were made of, how the chorus would be and the deus ex machina, how that kind of often functioned.

So, just a lot of those practical details that you want to get right. Of course, my play doesn't take place in a theater. It's in a quarry. Their resources are going to be very different or limited in comparison. I traveled around Greece. I went to Athens, saw the original theater where those plays would have first been put on. 

Carol Cram

Theater Dionysus. Is that what it is, at the Acropolis? I was there! 

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty It's surreal to think that that's the first production of Medea, of Oedipus the King. I found that amazing. And what else did I do? I did loads of things, lots and lots of books. I read basically every play, every ancient Greek play that I could get my hands on, all the tragedies, all the comedies, to get a sense of it.

I went to Syracuse. I visited the theater in Syracuse, the Greek theater in Syracuse, which strangely is so close to where the quarry was. So, where the theater would be is, like, maybe a six- or seven-minute walk from where thousands of these prisoners were left to die, which is in itself maybe a 20-minute walk from the city center of Syracuse.

There was a real juxtaposition of urban people's everyday lives, the theater, and essentially a concentration camp. I'm sure you know this yourself. It's… sometimes you can't really replicate. It isn't always possible. I had to do a lot of this research on a shoestring in bits and pieces.

But there can be a real value sometimes in actually going to see the place. 

Carol Cram

Absolutely. Yeah, all my novels are set in Europe, and I try to travel there as much as I can. You have to kind of get the, just the atmosphere, what the air smells like, you know, obviously things have changed a lot, but there's something about just being there.

But it, yeah, it is a bit challenging. It's expensive. 

So why Euripides? Medea and The Trojan Women were your two plays, so why did you choose those two? Is that because they actually did Euripides in the story? 

Ferdia Lennon

So, we don't know what place that we know it was. Yeah, exactly. It's because Euripides. So, this is Syracuse and Sicilians were particularly obsessed apparently with Euripides. So, it wasn't just any, you know Athenian drama. If you came out with some Aeschylus, they were like, no, get back into it. Next. So that was the reason why it had to be Euripides. With Medea, I feel was it was the first, it's probably his most famous play, and iconic, and there were thematic things that I felt.

It made sense for the book and for these characters. The Trojan Women had even had more thematic resonances. It's about what happens to the victims of the Trojan. It basically completely turns the Trojan war, the Iliad on its head, and changes it from this celebration. Homer is more interesting than just a pure celebration, but there's definitely that aspect.

Militaristic, you know, male. Conquest and valor is held up in high regard and then you reframe about slaves, be it women and children, just the devastation. And I don't think there's anything else really like that. It's quite unusual in ancient Greek theater. And what is really interesting is that that play was performed the summer before the invasion of Sicily. So that would have actually been the last play. That was the last Euripides play that was performed before the invasion. It was this strange synchronicity of it that made the most sense thematically, but it also historically would have been the latest play.

The way that theater worked there is that you might have had professional actors in the main roles, but for the chorus and various other parts, you would just have people in the citizen body chosen by law. So, there's a high chance, high probability, that some of those prisoners in this quarry would have actually acted in The Trojan Women. Which I really liked.

Carol Cram

And that's what I was wondering. I thought, why were soldiers so able to quote Euripides? But then also I guess that speaks to how important theatre was in their lives. You know, when they were in Athens. 

Ferdia Lennon

And it's an oral kind of storytelling tradition. People are carrying these poems around in their mind or these, it's a very different way. There's no iPhone, you know. 

Carol Cram

I know it's not wonderful. You really brought that out that they would have these in their mind, even though they've been through so much, they could still remember. And every so often they'd have to make lines up, right? Well, it was because they'd forgotten them.

You mentioned that at some point. So that was quite realistic. 

So, I wanted to talk about the voice of Lampo. I just loved him. He's very modern. It totally works. So Lampo and Galen are basically lads from Dublin. And so why did you decide to make them kind of modern in a way, but, you know, set in the time?

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah, thanks. The decision for that part of the inspiration was actually reading Aristophanes comedies. And they're the only plays that we have from 5th-century Athens that are actually about the ordinary people. And contemporary, you know, they're not set in a distant mythic past or a long historical past. They're set in contemporary Athens.

And what you'll see from modern translations is translators will use slang. They’re bawdy, they’re wild. They feel contemporary. I think the translators understand if they want to convey that, they can’t use the kind of more formal structures that you typically find in the tragedies.

So that was the inspiration. Also, if I had them sound like 19th-century posh English people from Downton Abbey, I think automatically you'd be like, oh, yeah, that's a good choice. They would have sounded like, you know, Boris Johnson or whatever, but hopefully not. But, in a way that makes actually no more sense.

It's like a translation when you're writing historical fiction, unless you're writing something in the recent past where you can literally replicate it. But if you go quite far back, anything more than 400 years or 500 years, you'll start to see that, you know, writers have to make a decision about what version of English they're going to use.

The Irish Hiberno English for me made sense. I'm from Dublin. It was a natural way, but also Syracuse and Sicily is this island. It's part of the Greek world, but not part of the Greek world. It's an insider outsider. And Ireland was part of the British empire historically, not anymore, but was also an outsider.

It was in, but it wasn't in. And you had the native old Irish playing underneath the version of English that we spoke, which gives some of those idiosyncrasies to Hiberno English. So, I thought, you kind of create those post-colonial resonances in a way that's not heavy handed, feels quite natural and I think hopefully gives you a sense that this ancient Greek world isn't some kind of monoculture of one type of person, you know?

Carol Cram

Well, actually you bring that in a lot because one thing I really noticed about the novel is how ancient Greece was really large. You mentioned the tin mines, which is, would be up in Cornwall or in Ireland or wherever they were. And that people came from all over, like Lyra.

Where did Lyra actually come from? I can never remember that. The slave.

Ferdia Lennon

Lyra is from Lydia which is part of modern day Turkey, Sardis. 

Carol Cram

That's where that was. So Lyra was from Turkey. But yeah, so what you brought out in the novel is how big the ancient world was.

I think we thought it was a lot bigger. It wasn't just Athens, you know, that they did, they traded right up to England. Which is something I found out when I was in Greece. I didn't realize that the Mycenaeans were actually in England, you know, or they traded to England anyway. I didn't know that.

So yeah, that was interesting, that it's a bigger world and I love that idea that, you know, there's Athens and then there's that idea of Syracuse being like Ireland, you know. 

Ferdia Lennon

Kind of periphery, you know. 

Carol Cram

I gotta talk to you about your writing itself. You are a really good writer, and well, one of the things I really enjoyed about the novel was your use of simile. Many times, you know, I'd be listening away, and I would actually gasp out loud because you had such apt similes or a turn of phrase and I was, of course, as a writer, I'm going, darn, I wish I'd thought of that.

So, do these come to you as you write or is it during the editing process? Your world is so visceral, it's so tactile. And just so beautifully rendered. 

Ferdia Lennon

Tell me more, tell me more. 

Carol Cram

I know every writer likes to hear that. I mean, you’ve really got the knack. The use of your similes is excellent. I was just wondering how you kind of come up with it. I know that's almost impossible to answer, but just speak to it a bit. 

Ferdia Lennon

It's hard to say. I think in one way, what I tried to do with this novel, it's written in a first-person narrative from the perspective of Lampo.

So, when it's going well, you're in that character's mind, so you start to use similes or ways of seeing. It's almost like method acting, that's the metaphor that I would, a comparison that I would use. It's not that I was running around thinking that I was Lampo, but in a way you're kind of tricking yourself. You're kind of getting lost. 

I think often writing is at its best when it's real and vivid for yourself. It’s a lot more of a likelihood that you will create those effects for the reader. So, part of that is getting into, like, a flow state, getting into the mind of the character, understanding who that character is.

And then, as you say, in the editing process, you might come back and that's where you can fix things where maybe it wasn't as seamless, or a description isn't as vivid as it could be. It isn't as evocative as it could be. So, it's that blend of intuition and then afterwards going back with a kind of, you know, a red pen.

Carol Cram

The red pen. Yes. A lot of it is done in the editing process. I think, yeah, ‘cause you really get into Lampo’s head and you're seeing the world, like Lampo smells the world and  sees the world and feels it. It's very tactile. It's one of the most tactile novels I've read in a long time.

It was really well done. 

So, the novel's really about Lampo's growth, isn't it? He's a bit of a ne'er-do- well, as we talked about earlier. He lives with his mom. And he sort of finally steps up and takes responsibility. So, tell us how you developed Lampo.

Ferdia Lennon

How did I develop him? In one way, I remember I sat down, and I was trying to write the novel, and I had the first line. 

So Gelon says to me, let's go down and feed the Athenians. The weather's perfect. 

Carol Cram

Great first line. 

Ferdia Lennon

Cheers. But it was very useful for me because I knew who this guy was.

Rather than being some, you know, quite distant figure in a Greek cloak, impenetrable. It was like someone I grew up with in Dublin. I could understand that psychology. So, in a way it was just following that. It's not that he's based on any specific person, but that where I grew up definitely informed it, but through a lot of historical research as well.

So how did I develop them? People describe the novel as quite comedic and where I would see it as a tragedy comedy. It's hopefully funny, but also quite sad and a blend. My favorite type of comedy would be comedy that comes from character where you're never breaking the plausible psychological plausibility in service of a quick gag.

So, for me, understanding who he was and the decisions he made had to be consistent, rather than, you know, Oh, it would be great if they do this, if I could get them to do that. It has to come from, I guess, with psychological realism and knowing the character, which is a lot of thinking, sitting with it and writing and rewriting.

Carol Cram

Just writing and rewriting and just getting into his head. Yes, because he does, the world sort of slowly unfolds in front of him, in a way, and it gets deeper and deeper as he learns more and more the sort of nuances of life. I really found that. He's a great character. And of course, the voice.

I have to talk about your audio book.

You actually narrated it, didn't you? Which is amazing. How did you do that? Are you a, do you have a, well, you said you don't have an acting background, but it was unbelievable. 

Ferdia Lennon

Oh well, that's really lovely to hear that because you're always nervous about why did I do that? I like really like audio books.

They're a wonderful way of just, you know, reading and moments where you otherwise wouldn't be able to read. And I started listening to audio books when I was commuting in Paris. I was teaching a two-hour round trip and the rush hour Metro was so packed that you couldn't actually read a book.

So, I started to listen to audio books, listen to an audio book a week, basically just on my commute. And in the back of my head, I was like, this is a wonderful way to experience. I still, mostly I read my books, but this is a wonderful way to experience a story, a literature. Then I remember listening to an audio book or a part of an audio book by an Irish writer and the actor was, like, well, they got an English actor in to do it, which is fine if they can do the Irish accent, but this person couldn't.

And I was like, okay, you know, this is something I want to do if I can do it well. Oh, I don't want to force myself. I want to do what's best for the book. So, I had to audition to do it. Yeah, yeah, they had me read a sample chapter, and it was all, you know, all okay. But, yeah, fun experience. Really, it was tiring, you know, because you're in there for like five or six hours a day just speaking.

Carol Cram

Yes, how long did it take? 

Ferdia Lennon

Took about three days. 

Carol Cram

Yeah. I thought it would be longer. But anyway, it was amazing. You really got all the voices, especially, of course, Lampo. But in fact, when you're talking, I can sometimes hear Lampo and it's really fun. 

What are some parallels between Glorious Exploits and our own time? It actually felt very contemporary. 

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah. I think one of the things that's very interesting, if you read the ancient Greek plays, the comedies, the tragedies, Thucydides, is the strange juxtaposition of the deeply alien kind of world of ancient Greece where, yeah, sure, they have democracy, but only for adult male citizens.

You know, like, half the population are probably enslaved, and yet still comparatively to most of history, certainly like from a thousand years before, you do have some form of, like, civic duty. You have public debate. You have elections, you have art, you have theatre, you have epic poetry, singing, costume. There are a huge amount of parallels.

Also, what I found reading, so let's say stuff set in the Middle Ages, the degree to which thought is constantly just imbued with religion, religious explanations, for things in a way that isn't as consistent at all in ancient Greece. Because in ancient Greece, you had people who were deeply religious. You have people who are skeptics, and you have people who are atheists, and that mix creates a kind of almost secular humanism mixed with religion. Something that's a lot closer to our own society. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. That's true, yeah. It wasn't so all consuming because I write in the Middle Ages sometimes, and it is so much part of their worldview, like everybody.

There would be nobody who wasn't part of it, pretty much. So yeah, I've thought about that there would be a kind of a secular nature as well to ancient Greece. 

Ferdia Lennon

Completely. I think that's one of the big ones. When I read the history of the Angles and the Saxons by the Honorable Bede, you know, in history, and then you compare that with Thucydides, and just Thucydides feels so much more contemporary despite being thousands of years old.

Carol Cram

Isn’t that interesting. I haven't read Thucydides for quite a long time. So, this would be a good opportunity. Would you like to do a short reading from Glorious Exploits?

Ferdia Lennon

Absolutely. I feel like maybe a good one would be something as, well, there's lots of theater in the book, but this section is where Lampo and Galon go to the main theater shop or the only theater shop in Syracuse to try to get costumes and masks for their theatrical production.

Carol Cram

Oh, good. I love that scene. 

Ferdia Lennon

I'll just do a little short reading. 

Chapter Eight. 

There's only one theater shop in Syracuse. Not really open to the public, but Electo lets us in on account of an old friendship with my ma. The shop was her husband’s, and they ran it together until one day he disappeared.

This was about 20 years ago, and I was just a kid at the time. There's been no sight nor sound of him ever since. All sorts of rumors abound. But my favorite is that she killed him and used his skin to make props for the plays. And yet, this isn't even the strangest thing about Electo. The strangest thing is that she kept the shop.

There were three other costume makers in Syracuse when her husband disappeared, and the owner of each offered to buy Electo out, or even better, marry her. She was a stunner in her day. But to both proposals, business and matrimonial, she said, No thanks. It was her shop, and she'd run it. And besides, she believed her husband would return someday, and what then?

Though I've heard that when she said this, there was a curious lilt in her voice. Anyway, she kept her shop and never remarried. Within a couple of years, Electo was seen as the best option when it came to fashioning all things theatrical. In ten, it was the only option. She'd driven the others out of business.

I knock a couple of times, but then Galon pushes and the door swings open. This house is a sprawler, four stories including the cellar, yet it seems even bigger on account of all the theatrical gear. You can't see the real walls, ‘cause they're covered with scene paintings from different plays. 

To my right must be Olympus, rolling clouds and gorgeous sunbeams thick and gold as honey. To the left are the battlements, some citadel, probably Troy, blood streaks on the limewashed wreck like gashes in pale skin and tiny arches in the towers. It's so well done. I'm almost nervous walking past it, like if I don't leg it, I'll go the way of Achilles. Straight ahead is the best scene of all, Hades.

The River Styx to be exact. The water green and trembling, with faces and limbs rising. It reminds me of those statues at Victory Gate, but it's more beautiful than them. The light on the water is different from any I've ever seen in this world, yet it seems I know it. Galon says that's what the best plays do.

If they're true enough, you'll recognize it, even if it all seems mad at first. And this is why we give a shit about Troy, that for all we know, it was just some dream of Homer's. And I walk towards this green soul river, and for a moment, it's like I'm going home. 

Carol Cram

Wow, thank you. So that's theater in a nutshell, isn't it? And storytelling in a nutshell. You know, it might seem all mad, but there is truth in there. That's really well done. That’s great. Really love that. 

So, Glorious Exploits is your first novel, so tell us about what was your publication journey like? It's done very well, hasn't it? Rightly so.

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah, I feel very fortunate now at how it's gone. Absolutely. You never know. Yeah. I mean, you realize just that so many great books get out there and you need a good fortune, I think, in finding a book, finding its way and finding its audience.

It took a long time to write. So, what was tricky about it was the process of writing it, researching it, working different jobs. So that was a long process. When I finished it, it was smooth enough then, you know, not easy. You know, I didn't have an agent or anything. I sent it out. I waited a couple of months, probably, of sending, of having it out and I got an agent.

Yeah. And then there was maybe, yeah. So, the process, that process I've been writing for years though, as well. So, in one level, it's one of those things that seemed to happen quite quickly, but it was years and years before that. 

Carol Cram

 Yeah. It's an overnight success. Yes. There’s no such thing.

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah, so then it's just the, I'm trying to think of the process of my, yeah, I've been writing for many years. I mean, I studied, I began an early version of this novel years and years ago on a writing program in England. And there, I kind of wrote about it once for an essay where I brought it in. the workshop environment

And it was just one of those things where one student looked very annoyed and they were just basically, like, why do these characters sound Irish? This is, no, this doesn't work. Which is, so that's an interesting one in that, like, I think you know, no book is going to be for everyone.

I think it's very important to have your own aesthetic and try to have a bit of faith in what you're doing and accept the fact that it's not going to be for everyone. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you cannot please everybody, because eventually everybody gets that one-star review, which is a killer, but you have to learn to ignore it for sure.

Ferdia Lennon

Completely. I mean, I think Goodreads is a wonderful thing for readers. It's a great thing for people to share books and respond to, recommend and respond, etc. Probably not the best place for writers to be hanging out, you know. 

Carol Cram

Never go to Goodreads. I know, I don't ever look at my reviews on Goodreads. There’s always somebody. 

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah, exactly. But what is interesting is you can look at your favorite novel, your favorite writer, and you will see plenty of one-star reviews. Some of them even seem credible. They might seem actually quite articulate, other than, you know, the book and you know how great it is. So, it's, yeah, the world's, it's many, many people. And, yeah, you just have to hopefully write something that you believe in as best you can and hopefully find an audience for it. 

Carol Cram

So, one of my goals with The Art In Fiction Podcast is to inspire other authors. What's one thing you've learned from writing your novel that you didn't know before. 

Ferdia Lennon

I think there's a few. One thing that I've learned for writers that I didn't know before. I think what's useful to me is that I actually set this book aside for a few years because I got stuck. And I was really stuck with the book and didn't see a way forward. So, it's very useful to me now, realizing that you can actually be completely stuck in a book and not know how to, you know, I've just been like, I can't do this.

And then you can actually come back to that. The work isn't lost. You know, leave it, save it, and you work, keep it in a file and you can come back to it, and you might, a year, six months, a month. In my case, it was actually a couple of years, return to it and suddenly understand how to do it.

So that is very, very useful because you understand in an experiential way. It's not just as simple as writing. Writing isn't easy. Some stories will be easier than others, but writing is, it's hard work, you know. 

Carol Cram

It's extremely hard work. Yeah, that's very good advice because it is true.

I've done that myself. I've set things aside and then come back and I feel like I'm a failure because I can't get through, but actually it's just got to sit there back over somewhere and then five years later you come and  pick it up? So yeah, don't despair. Nothing is ever lost. I'm actually kind of in the middle of that right now with a novel, but it's taking forever.

But that's just the process. We all love this idea that you could sit down, like in the movies, and you write a novel and it's done and you're famous. But no, it unfortunately doesn't work that way. It's a painful process, isn't it? 

Ferdia Lennon

That's it. It's hard graft. 

Carol Cram

So, what are you working on now? If you'd like to share. 

Ferdia Lennon

Yeah, so, I'm working on my second novel. It's set in 14th-century France. 

Carol Cram

Yay! That's my period! 

Ferdia Lennon

Oh, amazing! That's right. 

Carol Cram

Well, my first novel was set in 14th-century Italy. And the one right now is also 14th-century Italy. It's not finished yet. It's a great period. So, where in France? In Paris?

Ferdia Lennon

A little bit in Paris and then in the North, kind of Picardy region during the Hundred Years War. So, it's, yeah, kind of a little bit more of a kind of noir, detective, medieval. But grounded very much and kind of historical. Yeah, in the period, you know, steeped in the period, but hopefully a bit different as well. So yeah, working away on that and, yeah, just, and as we were talking about in the research process, I think the key is to set your novels in beautiful places and then have to go and investigate.

Carol Cram

Yeah, you're lucky. At least you're close to France. For me, it's a bit of a trek to get over to Italy. 

Ferdia Lennon

France is amazing, but Italy is so incredible too. What a place and what a period, you know, because they were very much ahead of the game, weren't they? The Italians.

Carol Cram

Yes. Well, my novel is about a lot about the arts and visual art in particular. So, the current one is actually set in Siena. And of course, as you know, like when you're writing, you're back in Siena or wherever your novel's set, and you can sort of see it and feel it. It's a lot of fun. I think that's why we like to do it. We just like to go to cool places in our imagination. 

So, thank you so much, Ferdia. I really enjoyed talking with you. I was really looking forward to this interview because as I said, I really liked your novel. So, I really appreciate you coming in.

Ferdia Lennon

Thank you so much, Carol. This was, yeah, this was a real pleasure. I had a great time chatting with you. 

Carol Cram

Thank you. 

I've been speaking with Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits, listed in the Theater category on Art In Fiction at www.artinfiction.com. Be sure to check the show notes for a link to Ferdia's website at www.ferdialennon.com. You'll also find a link to a 20 percent discount on a subscription to ProWritingAid, a fantastic editing tool for writers.

If you are enjoying the Art in Fiction podcast, please help us keep the lights on by making a donation to the Ko Fi website. The link is in the show notes. Also, please follow Art in Fiction on Facebook, and don't forget to give The Art in Fiction Podcast a positive reviewer rating wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks so much for listening.