A hired pen for too many years, I decided to switch to proper writing a year ago. It's lonely, time consuming and highly unprofitable. But I like it. I produce and edit Egopendium, an e-zine which sets history on its head by inviting great historical figures to comment, not always favourably, on modern counterparts who have similar talents or accomplishments. Compilations from Egopendium 2011, 'Ten women with a past' and 'Twenty men with a past', have just been published as free ebooks through Smashwords. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:5.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} I am a history grad and my first book, 'The Archer Prism', was a fictionalised autobiography of a famous (in his time) Elizabethan writer and inventor, John Harington. He looks back at his life through the modern lens of the bestselling modern novelist and controversial British peer, Jeffrey Archer. My current novel-in-progress moves away from historical fiction and into the modern crime genre. It relies less on research and more on character creation (rather than recreation). It's a different challenge which I may or may not be up to.