Clambering up the nob of Nob Hill with the other tourists in the brilliant San Francisco sunshine, waiting to go out and sign, sign, sign. Everyone riding the cable cars; the streets smell like brakes. I always feel a shadow of Kerouac in the air.
How will I explain New Amsterdam to folks that live in so unlike a town? A tiny bit of a settlement, a mile square, 15 streets, a gallows and a fort. It would all almost fit into Union Square, down Geary Street, where I just sat in the cool air and drank a coffee. But it was actually more like today’s Times Square, in New York, smells and noise, money being spent, money being stolen…
I was thinking about something that gave me a spark of interest in the world that would form the basis of The Orphanmaster. I took a hearth cooking class about ten years ago, in an early 18th century cottage at a restoration near my house. I came out of there blinking in the sunlight, thoroughly drenched in smoke from the cook fire. I loved that immersion in a different world, so real I could smell it on my clothes. Writing historical fiction is a comparable immersion, and you don’t have to wash it afterwards.
