When ‘The End’ is the beginning

The two-headed Roman god Janus, who lends his name to the month of January, looks back as well as forward. He is the god of new beginnings, transition and comings and goings.

I suspect ‘old’ Janus would frown looking back on 2025; perhaps with horror on 2026 given Trump’s world-order-changing move on Venezuela and hanging Ukraine out to dry.

But that’s not why I write this – I’ll leave that to trustworthy commentators such as Heather Cox Richardson to explain the ramifications.

I’ve not posted here since the end of November because I’ve been head down, focused on achieving my New Year’s resolution made a year ago to type ‘The End’ on the first draft of a novel by the end of 2025.

This required monumental research and much plate-spinning because I have other work with its own set of deadlines.

I missed the book deadline by one day. I typed those magic words on January 1^st 2026. Now to self-edit before passing it to my kind-hearted (but critical) beta readers and then submit to the publishers who already have the first two manuscripts in the series.

A nod to repetitive writing

Interestingly, I’ve already discovered a worrying trend in writing a 90,000-word novel in fits and starts. An example is that familiar go-to for many novelists when writing dialogue: He/she nodded. That word ‘nodded’ can become extremely annoying, but is there another way of expressing physical agreement?

I ran a quick search on my draft and found 46 noddeds. About 40 too many. I asked AI for replacement ideas and drew a blank, beyond a few clumsy phrases. Ideas in the comments section below are welcome!

What’s it all about?

The novel is actually the third in a series, collectively entitled The Britannia Conspiracy. It’s a story weaving together real and make-believe characters affected by Caesar’s expansionist designs on Britain over three years between 56 and 54 BCE.

None of these have yet been published, but I’m assured by the publisher that Book 1 will be scheduled in the next few months. Three years in the making and the fizz is on ice.

So, what will you find in The Britannia Conspiracy series when it takes a bow?

• A wolf, rescued by the protagonist when Roman hunters killed its mother

• A priestess on an island where ancient hero-warriors are laid to rest

• A Roman writer who goes along with Caesar’s lies and is not afraid to admit his duplicity

• A Belgic king whose alliance with Caesar is shaken to the core

• The quirky crew of a trading ship, captained by a tough woman known as The Pirate who knows her way across the Channel.

• A Roman imperator bent on lying, killing and cheating his way to the top (you guessed, it’s Julius Caesar)

• Above all, a protagonist who has all the instincts of the Celtic ‘god of wild things’, Cernunnos, and can’t resist crossing the sea to help the Brits

Three tales (so far) of courage, ingenuity and dogged conviction that Rome must be stopped.

The idea was instigated by my sister, who lives in the druidic atmosphere of Anglesey, which of course is the site of a later crime by Rome against the Celts. She asked me to ‘think’ about writing up some Celtic history. This coincided with my wife’s art research into the antlered god Cernunnos.

I asked my friend Nich what he thought about this, wondering why the best cut-and-thrust historicals are about Romans and Vikings. Why are Celtic heroes not as eagerly sought?

His answer? ‘Because they lost.’

Can they win? You decide. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, you’ll find links to my current novels and social media here.