Veil of Time (39 page)

The way physicists, theoretical and otherwise, have evolved in their thinking about time doesn’t seem to have trickled down to mainstream thinking much. We are still plodding around with this clunky notion of time as a road with mile markers that we pass and finally fall off. It’s a bit like believing the earth is flat. No one thinks it’s flat anymore, no
more do the physicists see time in two dimensions. Time isn’t a thing at all, but a perspective. When H. G. Wells wrote
The Time Machine,
his protagonist had to actually get into his contraption and fly backwards along the clunky road, but that’s not how I see Maggie and her experience through the veil of time. To me, she isn’t going anywhere but simply making a shift. Some theoretical physicists think that at every moment every possible outcome is lived out somewhere in a parallel universe. So maybe all Maggie has to do is take a step to the right or left, just as you have to do to see different dimensions of a hologram.

Are you writing a sequel to
Veil of Time
? Can you see Maggie’s future?

I have almost finished the sequel to
Veil of Time
. It is called
Druid Hill
. So, yes, I see Maggie’s future quite clearly as far as that book goes. In the third book in what seems to be turning into a trilogy, things will turn quite strange for Maggie, more strange than I think I will know how to write about for quite some time.

What has been the most exciting part of the publishing process so far?

I came to the final act of getting published after many years of desert wandering. For the longest time I was just a
vox clamantis in deserto
, and no one was listening. It took so long to find an agent, and all the while I was writing novels, honing my craft, waiting in “silent desperation” (to steal a phrase from James Taylor). As I said, my agent couldn’t sell my first novel, and then when I got the offer from Simon & Schuster for
Veil of Time,
it was like stepping into one of those parallel universes—for a while I was going through the paces without really believing it was happening. I think it was when I got the cover art that it really slammed into me that my book was in fact going to come out and be read by more than just me and a few friends. That was pretty exciting. Receiving installments of my advance in the mail hasn’t been bad either.

What’s up next for you? Are you working on any new novels?

Apart from the sequel to
Veil of Time,
I am working on the screenplay, because I have faith in another parallel universe where authors are allowed to turn their own stories into movies. I also have a little story about a wild mustang that I would like to get out into the world before we kill them all off. I have several other novels about Scotland waiting in the wings, some of which I will have to rework, but it is a goal to see all of those in print. Another thing that looms large on my horizon at the moment is the Scottish vote for independence in 2014—if my stories can further that cause even slightly, then I am a happy woman.

AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY TALITHA MCDOUGALL JONES

Claire R. McDougall
, a native of Scotland, graduated from Oxford University and lives now in Aspen, Colorado, with her family. After an early start as a newspaper columnist, her career in creative writing moved through the genres of poetry and short stories to settle on Scottish novels. Visit her on the web at
www.clairemcdougall.com
.

FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
authors.simonandschuster.com/Claire-R-McDougall

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Cover photographs by Ilona Wellmann/Arcangel (woman); and Mark Owen/Archangel (landscape)

ISBN 978-1-4516-9381-2

ISBN 978-1-4516-9382-9 (eBook)

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