My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.
In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.
I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down.
I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.
I love all sides of the work but that doesn't mean it isn't hard.
I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.
First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.
You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.
