Mr Stroud
first let me say I really like your books (understatement of the aeon) and have a question or two for you

*Is the stone bartmaeus throws at the Golem the Rosetta stone they used to translate hieroglyphs?
*Was it fun writing the books?
*Is the mercenary of the same sect as the assasins in book 3
*I have wanted to be a writer since my friends wanted to be engine drivers and firemen do you have any advice for me?

Hi Variq,

Glad you like the books. Thanks for your questions.

Some answers:
1. Yep, the stone Bart throws at the golem is the famous Rosetta stone that sits in the British Museum. He shatters it.

2. It was great fun writing the books. Obviously you get off-days where the words don't flow and you give up in disgust, but I really enjoyed myself most of the time. It was pretty intense because I had to write one book a year, which doesn't sound too bad except they're fairly long and I needed to promote them as well. So I had my head down most of the time. The best days were when I was writing a good Bart section.

3. Yep, the mercenary comes from the assassins' sect. It isn't really spelled out, but he's got the same criss-cross pattern on his hands that the Egyptian-era assassins have.

4. Advice for writing... Well, the best advice is also in a way the most obvious. You need to read as much as you can as widely as possible, so you absorb techniques and styles, and you need to keep writing as often as you can. It doesn't matter WHAT you write - stories, poems, plays, diaries, comics, sketches, games etc etc - because it's all good practise. And don't get too bothered if a lot of them don't work out or remain unfinished, because that's par for the course as well. The more you experiment the quicker you'll get a feel for the area that you might excel in. Good luck with it!

Jonathan

ohhh. so that was the rosetta stone. haha. never thought that it was the one bartimaeus threw to the golem. :)