January, the month for setting goals and intentions. The new year brings opportunity – thoughts, ideas, plans. I’ve always struggled with new year resolutions, of committing myself to targets that feel contrived and anchored to a sense of scarcity. Resolutions seem to involve giving up on things or pledging to do things I don’t enjoy.…
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Back in January, I posted about my writing plans for the year (generally, I find, a good way to engender some sort of personal accountability around intentions). December feels like a good time to revisit some of those intentions – if only to remind myself that I’ve probably achieved more than I might think. 2022…
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In 2021, Isla, a student of creative writing at the University of the Highlands and Islands, asked me to share my experiences of writing my first novel Castles of Steel and Thunder in this author interview. I’m happy to say that Isla also seemed to enjoy the follow-up book, Pieces of Sky and Stone, and…
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One of the surest things about writing, or indeed any kind of creative pursuit, is the experience of rejection. Offering work up for any kind of scrutiny, be it through books, competition entries, submissions to agents or publishers – all of it entails the risk of someone saying ‘no’. Rejection isn’t as clear-cut as the…
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Earlier this month, myself and fellow writers Andrea Wotherspoon, Ian Leith and Charlotte Platt launched new book Finn and Friends at John O’Groats – A Collection of Verse and Stories. The launch marked the culmination of almost a year’s worth of work, which started with us meeting at John O’Groats to discuss how three new…
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Implicit in my writing plan for the year (which I wrote about in this post back in January), was a desire to focus less on social media and more on the other writing I could send out into the world. As engaging as social media is, events towards the end of last year made me…
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Back in January, when I wrote about my writing plans for 2022, I mentioned a project that I hoped would come to fruition before the summer. Well, here we are in May – and apart from wondering how on earth time passed so quickly – I’m delighted to say I have some new book news…
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Recently, I’ve been reading Landscape to Light, a collection of essays by the late Neil M. Gunn – who, in addition to being one of the 20th century’s foremost novelists, also hailed from Caithness. I’ve loved reading Gunn’s views on all sorts of things, and as well as finding his essays interesting in their own right, they’ve also helped…
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Leo Tolstoy once wrote that ‘spring is the time of plans and projects,’ but actually, so is January. I’ve spent the first weeks of the new year easing myself back into writing, and making plans for the year ahead. After a low spell at the end of 2021, I’m entering the new year feeling creative…
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As someone who is generally not a fan of ‘new year, new me’ narratives, I’ve entered into January with an odd sense of gusto for newness. The Christmas holidays saw me taking stock of thoughts and ideas, and I’ve spent the early days of January easing myself back into desk-mode with a few updates that…
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