Some books start with an idea. Mine started with a place I had never seen.
A sculptor who really lived
The narrator of Ludovico is John Flaxman, and he was a real man: one of the great sculptors of his age, a member of the Royal Academy, someone who walked those rooms when they were lit by candles.
When I started researching, I found him and knew I had my voice. Who better to tell a story about art that refuses to stay still than a man who spent his life giving shape to stone?
My Flaxman is not the historical one, not exactly. I took liberties. This is a Gothic tale, not a biography. But his spirit is there: the patience, the devotion, the quiet belief that making something beautiful is worth a lifetime.
The idea that wouldn't leave me alone
Once I had done the reading and learned all I wanted about the Royal Academy, it was time to find the idea for the novel. And the idea simply came. I don't know why, but suddenly I couldn't stop thinking about it: “What happens when a creation won't obey its creator?”
There is something I always do with my stories, published or not. I need to have the whole book complete in my head before I sit down at the computer. I need it clear, start to finish, before I type a single word.
This story arrived that way, from beginning to end. I love mystery. I love quality horror, the kind with a reason to exist.
In the story, Flaxman becomes assistant to a mysterious professor at the Academy, Ludovico Sarti, a man whose paintings seem almost alive. Then, one day, they stop seeming.
I have always loved that moment in Gothic fiction when wonder turns into something darker. Mary Shelley knew it. The old ghost-story writers knew it. Admiration and dread are neighbours. We stand in front of a great painting and feel something looking back. I wanted to push that feeling until it broke.
Writing it around a day job
People sometimes imagine authors in quiet cottages with endless mornings. That was never me. I wrote Ludovico the way I have written all my books, in the gaps: evenings after work, weekends, the hours other people spend watching television.
I work in tech, and I like my day job. But the stories don't care about my schedule. They arrive when they arrive, and I have learned to keep the door open. Small chapters, written one by one, growing from a simple summary of what has to happen. Slow work, but it adds up.
The strangest chapter of all
Then life did something I couldn't have written.
Years after those first notes in Buenos Aires, I moved to London. The culture that had been calling me became my home.
One of the first things I did in the city was spend a good amount of time at the Royal Academy. I took every visitor from Argentina there. For me each sculpture has a special meaning. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Academy's first president, is part of my story too, and standing in front of his statue, I got goosebumps.
This year I wondered whether the novel could find a place in the Academy's own library. It did. The Royal Academy accepted a copy of Ludovico for its shelves.
Think about that. A story I dreamed up about that building, from thousands of miles away, now sits on a shelf inside it. Flaxman went home.
If that isn't the best argument for writing the thing you're afraid to write, I don't know what is.
Ludovico: A Tale from the Royal Academy of Arts is out now, published by ETMW Publishing. If you like your galleries candlelit and your paintings restless, it's waiting for you.
by Walter Rodriguez
November 13, 2025
