Martin Dugard's Blog, page 7

Taking London is in stores everywhere today! I am bolstered by strong early reviews and so eager to walk into my local shop and catch sight of that gorgeous blue cover and its images of Churchill and Spitfires.

For those who follow F1, this feels like the day George Russell moved from Williams to Mercedes. I am fortified by my decision to go solo again and ready for the world to read this book which I had such a blast writing.

As the Spitfire pilots would say as they dived into a dogfight, "Tally ho!"

This blog post will be updated with reviews, interviews, and more throughout the week.

The Cipher Brief

History Nerds United

Red Carpet Crash

Point of the Spear (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)

I have this habit when I write. Just to keep myself honest, I start every day by writing down the current word count. The goal is to add 1,000 more before knocking off for the day. That's about three double-spaced pages.

I tiptoe into the manuscript, cleaning up the previous day's work to remind me where I left off. Hemingway was a big fan of not thinking about a project between the end of one day and beginning of the next, believing the subconscious would sort out any issues.

I believe this to be true.

Hemingway also said that to write a great novel, one must first clean out the refrigerator.

This nod to procrastination and all the devices we use to avoid the hard labor of plumbing the soul for just the right words is also correct, in my estimation. My version of cleaning out the refrigerator usually involves checking out airfares to someplace i want to travel for research.

Some days I get to 1,000. Others I go a little higher. I used to shoot for 2,000 but that means a ten-hour day in the chair. Those are the writing sessions where I drink too much coffee and postpone my workout, then feel like dog shit when I'm done because I've also put off showering. One downside of those long days is that they're unsustainable. Write 2,000 carefully chosen words on Monday and Tuesday is sure to be right around 300. One thousand is just right.

I daydream when I'm chasing a thousand, imagining myself in London or Mammoth or, right now, Midway Atoll. I don't think about things like sex or what's on TV that night. Just travel. Not sure why.

I shut out the world as I chase 1,000, ignoring the phenomenal chaos now defining my office. I don't pay bills or take calls. I get angry when I do something stupid like schedule a lunch.

Do I always get a thousand? Not by a longshot. The other day I got so caught up in studying the USS Yorktown that I actually wrote a negative-100 words, cutting out stuff from the day before that didn't sound right.

That's the thing about the thousand: it's not just sitting down and pounding out anything that comes to mind. This isn't the same as writing emails (or this blog, which — as you may have mentioned — just flows onto the page of its own accord). The thousand are carefully chosen little gems.

When my oldest son was five he told me he wanted to do an imitation of me writing. He sat down in my chair, opened my laptop, put his fingers on the keyboard, then stared at the screen. After a minute he typed something for a couple seconds, then started staring again.

I had no idea that's how it looked, but that's what happens. A lot of staring. A lot of thinking. A little writing. After six months, a book emerges. The final product will number 85,000 words or so. The editing process means the actual number written is more like 200,000. The delta simply disappears.

This year, that book is Taking London. It's on sale in just two days! This wonderful habit of locking myself in a room for hours to write a thousand words produced this beautiful collision of art and commerce. It's a pretty awesome feeling.

I hope you enjoy reading Taking London as much as I reveled in the writing process. I've sold something like 20 million copies of my books over the last thirty years, but this is the most exciting, thrilling, intensely-researched, page-turning thing I've ever written. Bar none.

A thousand words per day.

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Monday morning. June marine layer hanging over Southern California. Drinking stern black coffee from my new Yeti press and looking forward to finding today's words. Just back from a weekend in San Diego with Callie, where I surprised myself by not opening my laptop even once. Thanks to all of you who sent birthday wishes. I read and appreciated each one.

We were there to celebrate. The last week of May and early part of June are always a unique time. Anniversary, my birthday, then Father's Day rolls around the corner. This year there's the added fun of Taking London's publication in betwixt and between. I think all this implies we spent the weekend popping champagne corks and swinging from Gaslamp District chandeliers. To be sure, the Pendry has its fair share of champagne, including a vending machine in the lobby selling bubbly by the bottle.

But a hallmark of the way Calene and I travel is making it up as we go. Oh, there might be a brunch reservation to serve as a helpful tent pole, but for the most part we just riff.

So my Saturday birthday looked something like this: sleep late, workout with a run and stadium steps at the San Diego Convention Center, lunch at Social Tap (hot chicken sandwich, West Coast IPA). The Champion's League game was on the big screen so we stayed until it was done because the bar was full of soccer fans and there's nothing like being in a big crowded room to feel the energy as a sudden goal (or home run, or touchdown) breaks the tension and the place goes bananas. Then a little walk around downtown. Back to the room to watch some golf, because there was no track and field on TV. San Diego Bay out the window. Gorgeous view of an aircraft carrier in port. Chorizo nachos at the place on the corner. Overtipping a busker because he was making righteous music. A nightcap.

I call this birthday the Introvert's Delight. It just felt awesome to be hanging out with Calene. No agenda. Making it up as we go. She is the extrovert in our duo, so Callie kept asking if maybe we shouldn't go see a show or take a tour of someplace. Nope, I replied. This day is perfect.

Left unsaid — and this is where I sneak in the little lesson about what it means to be a writer — is that my three books never left me alone.

There's Taking London, about to be hurled out into the world, there to be loved and reviled in equal portions, as all new books are.

There's Taking Midway, which is an unusual monster, making me doubt my storytelling while daring me to boldly attempt some risky new ways to write history, all of which can plunge a creative soul into self-doubt. A stout heart and the courage of convictions are vital for telling a story like that.

Finally, there's the third book, the one waiting to be written after Midway, the one that won't tell me its name or subject yet, no matter how hard I think about it. Soon enough, it whispers. Soon enough.

"It's just you and me and all that stuff we're so scared of," Springsteen sings in "Tunnel of Love."

Sometimes celebration is chorizo nachos. Cold IPA. Watching the Canadian Open. My birthday weekend, quiet as it might sound, made me so happy to be married to someone who gets me, writing books for a living, and so very glad to be alive. Next up is celebrating Taking London. Might pop some champagne for that one.

By Daventry B J (Mr), Royal Air Force official photographer. Public Domain.

If you've watched The Crown, you know one of Taking London's heroes. Peter Townsend (not The Who guitarist) flew Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. The gripping, action-packed details can be found in TL. Suffice to say, the man was a great pilot. He survived several near death experiences in aerial combat.

Townsend later got married and divorced. He then fell in love with Princess Margaret, sister to Queen Elizabeth. It makes sense that a royal would fall for a dashing war hero, particularly one who received national recognition as one of the nation's best pilots. As Churchill stated, Townsend was one of "The Few" who saved Britain from Nazi invasion.

But that was not to be. The Queen denied their request to be married, citing his divorce.

Read all about what came next in the final pages of Taking London — on sale in stores everywhere on June 11. And if you're in Southern California that week, stop by the Barnes and Noble in Aliso Viejo on June 15. I'll be speaking and signing books starting at 2 p.m.

The California State Track Meet is being held this weekend in Fresno. I am not there. Qualifying for state is tough, with five straight weeks of do-or-die meets. Despite having the best coaching season of my career, none of my runners got through. Split seconds made the difference. That's track and I'm not complaining. Records were set, personal bests were improved, the runners are all excited about the future.

There's this wonderful convergence of great kids, beautiful places to run, and fellow coaches with a great sense of humor that make coaching a fantastic way to spend the afternoon. I am eager to get back at it. Cross country practice starts in mid-June.

And yet . . . this past week of having extra free hours in my day has been awesome. I get done writing at noon, practice my guitar until it's not fun anymore, then head out for a couple hours on the trails or a strength workout. I throw the ball with Sadie the retriever (Django the hound refuses to fetch). I read a little. Maybe stop at the local for a pint. It's all very calming.

Because right now I need calming. Taking London, as you've all read a million times in this space, comes out June 11. Two weeks. I did a count of the books I've written the other day and came up with twenty-nine. They're all special (some less so, to be honest. I always want them to do well but it feels more near and dear to my heart when my name's the only one on the cover), but it feels like there's a little more riding on this one.

James Patterson long ago told me it was important to play on the big stage. That's how I'm measuring Taking London. Only the big stage matters. Lots of very good books by very good authors populating the bestseller lists right now. I've been there a dozen times before and I want to be there again.

But it's like that great Jackson Browne song about the load out:

"People, you've got the power over what we do. You can sit there and wait or you can pull us through."

Pre-order to get your copy on June 11.

I mean, books aren't concerts, but it's definitely the readers who choose the books and tell their friends to give it a read. I like to think that I'm personally responsible for dozens of sales of Gentleman in Moscow and Dispatches because I've either given copies as gifts or recommended them. Great writing deserves a helping hand.

We shall see. Right now I'm sitting on my back porch. The fountain is on, bringing forth that amazing sound of gurgling water. The dogs. A pencil and manuscript for Taking Midway, patiently waiting for their edit.

I'm writing this on a Saturday morning. There's no practice because the season is over so I have these couple extra hours to fidget with a few messy pages. I can't wait for you all to read Midway, but that's a year from now. In the meantime, there's Taking London, poised to leap out into the world on June 11. Believe me when I say it, this one's special.

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Turning points are hard. It's nice to be a solo act again but that means working without a net. Thus, I typically spend an hour in the darkest hours of the night running through a mental checklist of worry and uncertainty. The monsters that ignore me by day pounce on my chest at night, happy to remind me that writing offers no guarantees. I counter with arguments about Taking London going on sale in three weeks. It's a gorgeous book inside and out, a spectacular cover wrapped around a riveting story. They ignore me.

Coming June 11, 2024. Pre-order here.

Instead, the monsters say I haven't come up with a new book yet, laughing at the few flimsy ideas I've floated past my agent. I'm not sure whether the next should be a Taking book or a standalone work. The most recent idea was a travelogue about chasing the Springsteen tour around Europe for a month this summer. The demons chuckle, even after I remind them that Chasing Lance did quite well at the cash register. For the sake of a return to slumber, I agree with them, knowing I'm looking for an idea that transcends a niche audience of aging rock and roll fans.

The pillow cramps my neck. The monsters push down harder on my chest. I roll onto my left side to shake them off, then my right.

I reach over and lightly touch Calene's shoulder, just for physical contact. She's in a deep sleep and has no idea I'm calming myself with her energy.

After a few seconds I pull away my hand and roll onto my back, taking deep breaths to chase away the negative voices.

I remind the monsters there's money in the bank. They swat that aside, looking for something dark and lonely to add dread to the mixture. I fight back, trying to replace worry and fear with hopes and dreams: Taking London will rocket up the bestseller lists, the new idea will reveal itself (hopefully very soon) in a way that make it seem predestined, Taking Midway is being written with a complexity I wasn't capable of ten years ago. I don't dare mention Calene's cancer — that unlooses a whole new army of monsters. A man can only take so much.

Finally, I drift back to sleep. Yet Monster Hour continues. Ridiculous dreams, usually something about walking through a crowd and realizing I'm not wearing pants. That's always a winner.

Then the pale light of dawn shines through the bedroom curtains. No monsters. I am eager to be at my writing desk, putting words on the page, working without a net in all its glory. A brand new hardcover Taking London stands on a bookshelf with my other solo projects in a line of books dating back to 1993. I inhale hopes and dreams, thanking God that I'm such a lucky man.

And begin to write.

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Mark your calendars: June 15. 2 pm. Barnes & Noble in Aliso Viejo, California. Just in time for Father's Day, I'm doing a talk and signing for Taking London. It's a treat to stand in a bookstore and talk about any new book I've written, but this one's special. I feel like I've written at a really high level with TL — action-packed storytelling that will keep you turning the pages. "Top Gun meets the Nazis" is my elevator pitch.

Karen Cutler, store manager at Aliso Viejo, was kind enough to give me this prime time spot. Hopefully, a slew of shoppers desperate for a last-minute Father's Day gift will stumble into the signing and breathe a desperate sigh of relief that they have discovered the most perfect Dad gift ever.

Now, about the little speech I'm to give. Fifteen minutes max. Q&A afterward. I am very comfortable in front of crowds. Public speaking no longer demands a quick glass of Chardonnay to calm the nerves (it's the opposite: drinking and speeches are a recipe for disaster). I speak each day to the forty or so young runners comprising the distance squad at Santa Margarita Catholic, a no bullshit audience if ever I've seen one. So why am I feeling a little jittery about the June 15 signing?

Maybe because I've used a variation on the same bookstore pitch for twenty-five years, describing my journey from cubicle-bound corporate lackey to realizing my dream of writing for a living. It's solid, but overdone. I want to do something new. I may actually write out the speech beforehand, rather than just making it up as I go. I seem to have a talent for this, but I have learned through other speaking engagements that the words are funnier and more profound if they're scripted.

Maybe it's that me and Taking London have been having this little romance for a couple years, conducted within the silence of my office as I lovingly chose each word. A bookstore signing is a final way of letting go, allowing the world to wander into my office and join the party, so to speak.

Whatever. I'm nervous. Join me if you can on June 15 in Aliso Viejo. 2 pm. Let's see how this thing shakes out.

Party on.

I am not an organized person. My office is in chaos, my car is my closet, and I leave so many clothes by the side of my bed that I sometimes long for a valet, as if I were Lord Grantham — if only to help me fold and put away clothes.

When I coach, however, I don't have that option. I'm standing alongside the track or somewhere up in the stands, far from that extra hoodie in the Rover or a couple bucks for a water at the snack bar. Thus, the Coach's Backpack.

Before listing what's inside, let me tell you about the backpack itself:

It is made by Adidas. Black. Many zippers and compartments.

It was given to me as a gift for speaking to a group dedicated to college football several years past, so the embroidery on the bottom pocket shows a football player. I toyed with taking it off a long time ago but left it. Call it my homage to counterculture thinking.

There is a mesh side pocket and an insulated zip side pocket. I put my phone in one and a cold water bottle with a couple Clif Bars in the other. The outer front pocket with that football player stitched in maroon zips. Inside is a lacrosse ball (for rolling out the plantar fascia), SPF 50 sunscreen, a small exercise band, and two rolls of athletic tape.

I stuff an extra hoodie in the more forward of the two main compartments. There is also a smaller inner compartment here, where I store a backup stopwatch, a twenty-dollar bill, two pens, a sharpened number two pencil with an eraser, and notecards in case I have a book idea mid-meet.

Oh, and a spike wrench.

I was at a professional meet one time, standing next to the track. One of the runners dropped down and fiddled with her shoe just before her race. "Do you happen to have a spike wrench in that backpack?" she called over to me.

Yes, I did. Threw it to her. She tightened her spikes. Race saved.

The second of the two main compartments is for the morning LA Times, which I'll read before the first event of the day and then throw away.

I also print out thirty to forty pages of my most recent manuscript and stuff them in here. During that long break between the 1600s and the 800s (I'm a distance guy; the sprints are my down time), I'll find a spot alone in the stands and edit. Even in a crowded stadium, I have no problem shutting out the noise. I wrote my first three books when our boys were very young. If I could shut out Lion King videos and Dexter's Laboratory, I can shut out the sounds of a track meet.

I think the season ended yesterday. Maybe not. A couple kids ran fast but only qualified for the State Prelims as alternates. The backpack will stay in my car until cross country starts, where I will restock.

Oh. I forgot the batons. I carry two in that front pocket. For some reason I cannot explain, the world is a better place when a relay baton is within reach.

Fast planes, deadly dogfights, brave pilots: the Battle of Britain has no shortage of heroes. So as I sat down to write Taking London, the first challenge was figuring out which individuals would help tell the story, Winston Churchill was the obvious choice to be a primary character. He's the tentpole on which the narrative rests. Air Marshal Hugh Dowding was also indispensable. Though relatively unknown in America, his brilliance has led to monuments and postage stamps in his honor in England.

Who else? I knew I wanted to portray the action through the pilots themselves. Choosing the handful that would use their own words to share what it felt like to be in the of the fighting proved extremely difficult. Scores of fliers wrote memoirs about their time in the cockpit during the summer of 1940. All provided insight, emotion, and detail. In the end, I selected five men, a few each from Spitfires and Hurricanes. You'll see several of the candidates in the photos accompanying today's post (see below). All worthy and courageous. See for yourself who made the final cut when Taking London hits stores on June 11.

So that was pretty much the book. Technical details, romances, and details about life and the death in the sky filled out the story. I sent it along to my editor, thinking I was done. But an odd request came back:

Can you find an outsider to also tell the story? Some individual not part of the action but able to tell us what it feels like to see and hear the sights and sounds of the fight?

This proved a master stroke, adding a whole new dimension. I chose two true outsiders: American ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and journalist Edward R. Murrow. I can't wait for you to read what they bring to the drama.

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(Photo credit: Martin Dugard at The Royal Airforce Museum)

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Five weeks until Taking London goes on sale! You can find it online as well as book stores and big box stores everywhere.

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When I signed the contracts to write a book about the Battle of Britain, my first thought was that it would be easy to research. Plenty of other books about the topic. Lots of museum displays. Actual BoB aircraft still flying after all these years, as I knew from a previous visit to the Imperial War Museum's Duxford annex. But after reading Len Deighton's Fighter to better understand the story arc and begin to contemplate a way to tell the story from a unique perspective I realized I had a problem: too much information.

So as part of the sifting and sorting process, i planned a preliminary research trip to London. My cross country team at Santa Margarita HS was traveling to Hawaii for a meet that same week. The plan was to fly to Honolulu with the squad, then fly all the way to London for a week. Calene was going to do the Hawaii leg, then fly home. Her cancer diagnosis was six months old and she didn't think she'd have the energy to join me. But a couple days before the London flight, sitting in our room at Turtle Bay with the sounds of Pacific surf just outside the window, she changed her mind. The queen had just died and it seemed like a special time to be in London. I called United, rebooked her ticket, and on to Heathrow we flew.

Best research trip ever. Churchill War Rooms, air museums, and we even stood in line with thousands of others to pass by the queen's catafalque as she lay in state. Callie wore a stocking cap to hide the hair loss from chemo. She never took it off as we rode the Tube, ate in pubs, and walked the city.

But when it came her turn to stand at the front of line and pay her respects, she bravely whipped off her beanie and curtsied to the queen, not caring at all that the BBC was broadcasting the sight of her beautiful bald head to the entire world.

We're not British. But Elizabeth plays a role in the book. Just being there at that time in history gave us both an emotional attachment to London which later carried over into what I finally wrote. I've never felt more connected to a book than Taking London.

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Forty days until Taking London goes on sale! You can find it online as well as book stores and big box stores everywhere.

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