I’m delighted to have an article on the Scottish History Network blog today. It describes the effect of growing up at Tarbat Ness Lighthouse, with its centuries of history right beneath my feet. I write about a grassy mound just outside the lighthouse complex that I thought might be a Viking burial mound, but was… Read More
writing
It’s been three months since I wrote anything. I completed the first draft of my Roman Britain historical novel, Pax Caledonia, on the 31st of December last year. Since then, I’ve done a quick read-through, passed it out for review, then implemented the easier corrections provided by my beta readers. But that’s it – typos… Read More
In the beginning, there was the school jotter. My first stories were scribbled in pencil in half-used lined school notebooks, liberated at the end of the year, with their boring English or History notes ripped out, leaving the covers floppy and the staples loose. Then there was the typewriter. When I was 16, with delusions… Read More
On 31st December 2016, I completed the first draft of Pax Caledonia, my children’s novel set in Roman Britain in the aftermath of the battle of Mons Graupius. This was my ninth completed novel – completed to first draft, at least. Five years ago, I’d started loads of novels, but never managed to get beyond 15,000… Read More
This is my fourth year of writing up the status of my books – see 2014, 2015, and 2016. So what’s been happening this year? Let’s take a look. The Beast on the Broch In January I submitted sample chapters of what was then called The Dragon on the Tower to new independent Scottish publisher Cranachan. A… Read More
When I was eight, our family moved to Tarbat Ness Lighthouse, where my dad was a lightkeeper. This wasn’t his first posting – his first lighthouse was Inchkeith, on an island in the Firth of Forth, but for that assignment he’d go out to the lighthouse for a month, then come back home to Edinburgh… Read More
I’ve always been fascinated by the Pictish Beast. The Picts left behind very little of their culture, with the exception of the amazing carved stones you can find across Scotland, and while most of the animals on those stones are recognisably snakes, wolves, eagles, salmon, and so on, two-fifths of the creatures carved on the… Read More
When I was at school, a long, long time ago, one of my favourite subjects was History. But for me, the older the history the better – the World Wars and the Russian Revolution, the agricultural and industrial revolutions, these were all very well, but what I really wanted to study was the dawn of… Read More
Yesterday was the Wolves and Apples event in Leicester, a one-day series of workshops and talks run by Leicestershire-based Mantle Arts concentrating on children’s writing – picture books, middle-grade, YA. The event was targeted at “emerging writers”, which is a great term – I hate calling people “aspiring writers” because if you write, you’re a… Read More
The excitement is over – the beast has been released. I’ve done my short promotional tour of Scotland (and Newcastle), and now there’s nothing left to do. Except stop looking at the Amazon rankings, because that way lies madness! So far it’s safe to say that The Beast on the Broch hasn’t set the world… Read More