Dear Bernard Cornwell, I recently picked up your Saxon Stories series to read and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed reading them! I hope there will be more in the series! I am currently partaking in writing a piece of historical writing for one of my units for my university degree as historical fiction always fascinates me. I have to write about a Viking for my final piece, as I love that period of history, and of course I have used historical facts as well as fictional aspects to make it come alive. As a point of interest therefore, I was just wondering how you yourself like to write your novels. Do you like to research your period on what you are writing about first? Or do you personally prefer to write your piece first, delving into the deep end, and worry about all the historical facts later? For myself, I like to use a combination of both, a little research, and then write creatively before researching some more to check it all makes sense. Thank you for your time, Meg.