Carol McKay

2011-11-29T17:49:00.001Z

Three good publishing related news items this week.

First, my review of Morag Joss's Across the Bridge appeared in Northwords Now. A favourable review :) because I enjoyed it and what the author was trying to do. Northwords Now launch this issue with an event at the Scottish Writers' Centre on Thursday 8 December from 7pm.

Second, a surprise through the post! A copy of Le soir, quand je me couche: the French translation of As I Lay Me Down To Sleep. Really weird, seeing what you've written expressed in a different language through the filter of a translator whom you've never met. Thank you, Alexander Fox! I'm very pleased the book is out in France. And in one of the bigger sized paperbacks, too!

Third, an email telling me that Spilling Ink Review have accepted my short story 'Safety Glass' for issue seven of their influential e-zine. 'Safety Glass' is a difficult story in that it demands full attention from the reader as it's a bit of a puzzle. What happens when your protagonist's thinking is fuzzy? The story started out life when I imagined what it would be like to be a woman trapped between the two layers of a double glazed window (reading this as all kinds of metaphor) but it moved on to be about a woman trapped in a very different kind of glass. I'm glad Spilling Ink Review have run with the idea. It's a story I wrote at the same time as 'Grit', which was published in From Glasgow To Saturn e-zine.

What I did on my holidays

2011-09-05T17:08:00.000+01:00

Did we have a summer this year? Possibly not. Though my garden did produce a knee-high volume of grass, docks and buttercups so I guess we must have.

Craggy landscape, Northern Ireland, 2011

Now the new term is starting, I'm thinking back over what I did during the two months off. The good things included a trip to Ireland, which is where my dad's two grannies came from, and also where Keith's dad's family were from. We spent three days in Sligo and three based in Ballymena, so this was an all-Ireland trip and a very educational one for me, too, given it was my first visit to the island.

The biggest shock for me was seeing so many Union flags and NI flags with their 'red hand of Ulster', hanging from every lamppost in the main street as we drove off the ferry at Larne. There's clearly a strong desire to proclaim a nationality, there, and a separate one at that from the rest of the island. I think of the design for a new sculpture which is planned for the main road north from England to Scotland, with its shooting, revolving stars, and I guess the difference is that Scotland, now, doesn't feel under quite so much pressure of being overwhelmed and assimilated by its bigger neighbour. Though I see that Belfast has its own significant piece of architectural and stellar sculpture planned, too, as this link shows. No one turned up for a public meeting about that so I guess the flags might be statement enough for many. Enough on that from me.

Carol looking awkward at Bellanurly, Co. Sligo

In Bellanurly, just outside Sligo, we tracked down the field where my grandmother was born in 1888. I hope there was a house there at the time! Sligo town and the area around it were beautiful. So, too, were the north and north east coast of Northern Ireland. We had a very blustery day at the Giant's Causeway, which was atmospheric, and then blissfully clear and calm weather for our trip south towards Glenarm, the village Keith's father's family were from. Sadly, I managed to delete half of my photos while they were still in my camera (don't ask) but Keith took some. Here are a few:

Turbulent Garavogue River, Sligo, Aug 2011

Yeats' Building, Sligo, August 2011

The river that flows through Sligo is very lively. Perhaps it's tidal? There were plenty of swans on it, despite the currents.

The Glasshouse Hotel, Sligo, 2011

We also passed what might be Coole Park, setting for one of my favourite W. B. Yeats' poems, The Wild Swans at Coole. The building in the picture was donated by one of the banks to create a museum in recognition of the poet, who spent a lot of his childhood in Sligo.

Carol, near the Giant's Causeway, Aug 2011

Keith on a blustery day at Giant's Causeway, Aug 2011

One very good thing about my holiday was that I was able to take lots of notes and I've since written a 3000 word story set there. Lots of it is direct fact in that it uses real landscapes, weather and incidents, but it's fiction in that the characters are imagined and the central storyline is untrue.

Causeway flags

I really like the neatness of these 'flagstones'.

I've called the story 'Flags' and have sent it off to a magazine already. Normally, I'd leave it a while and then read it over and over again during editing. Fallow time helps defamiliarise it so the writer can discover it as if for the first time, coming close to what the prospective reader will experience. However, I've sent it off already. If it comes back with a thanks but no thanks, fair enough: I'll work on it again.

Also during the summer, I took the decision to step down from the steering group of the Scottish Writers' Centre. I was involved there for about eighteen months and found it to be hugely fulfilling. I've really enjoyed my time working with the others on the committee but I needed a break. Being a volunteer can be so demanding! Full praise for those who devote so much time and effort to help realise the vision they have.

The Scottish Writers' Centre has a full programme for the months ahead and I recommend a visit to their website - and to their events, which are mostly held in the CCA at 350 Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. I certainly plan on going along to most of them.

So that was my summer 2011. As for the poor weather - better to have downpours and few sunny days than no rain at all.

The background to this summer is that famine has returned to East Africa. I've long been a supporter of the great work done by Oxfam, and urge everyone to consider making a regular donation to them, if at all possible. Many a mickle maks a muckle - lots of us giving a small amount adds up to a great deal.

Yet, surely, in these days, we should be able to do much more than emergency responses? Surely 'capital' should be able to see and seize financial opportunities to provide solar-powered desalination plants and pipelines and to provide valuable infrastructure in Somalia and Kenya? Labour there must be cheap just as Irish navvy labour was cheap one or two hundred years ago when Britain's canals and railways were built.

East Africa could be developed just as Ireland itself was and just as 'the wild west' of the USA was, with private capital funding massive construction projects like railways, roads, electricity, plumbing. It was do-able then. A few people got rich on it and millions benefitted in the process. Why is it not do-able in East Africa now?

Carol and grand-daughter Mhairi enjoying the luxury of a lush garden, summer 2011.

If I Should Die Before I Wake

2011-07-20T20:08:00.000+01:00

In 2007, I worked with Eileen Munro, a former student on my Open University creative writing course, after she approached me for help in writing her autobiography. The year or more we spent on it had deep lows as she relived the upsets of her childhood (and as we read her Social Work and medical case notes together) yet it had much in the way of emotional highs and gusty laughter, too. In working together, we tried to create something that adhered as closely as possible to the truth, while crafting a story which would provide an engaging, honest and thought-provoking read.

After it was published in 2008, I told Eileen I wouldn’t be able to spend the same amount of time co-writing her second volume, given that I had projects of my own which I wanted to explore (and, as I subsequently found out, because my health was in freefall). I was pleased when I heard she was immersed in writing the follow-up. Now it’s available, here’s my review of it.

Eileen Munro’s If I Should Die Before I Wake was published in July 2011 by Mainstream Publishing, three years after her first book, As I Lay Me Down To Sleep. The second volume of memoir follows Eileen from the birth of her first child in difficult circumstances, through a continued exploration of the search for family life and a yearned after sense of belonging.

Eileen’s life story is a painful one because she was one of the generation of babies given up for adoption in the early 1960s when illegitimacy was universally stigmatised. In those days before abortion was legalised, young mothers-to-be were secreted away in institutions or with family members in distant parts of the country, to complete their pregnancies and dispose of their ‘mistakes’ through adoption before returning home to resume a ‘normal’ life. The theory was that the children born to these single mothers would enjoy a better life because they were adopted by a married couple who would be able to provide love and security.

As I Lay Me Down To Sleep told the story of the very different consequences for one such child. Adopted just after birth, Eileen might indeed have enjoyed a sweet life except that her adoptive parents became alcoholics who left her vulnerable to abuse. Her father was violent and her mother died in a drunken stupor when Eileen was twelve, after which Eileen and her sister were taken into care. A troubled teenager, Eileen herself became a single mother at the age of sixteen but passionately vowed she would keep her child and cherish him so he wouldn’t suffer physically and emotionally as she had.

This is the point at which If I Should Die before I Wake opens. We meet Eileen, still vulnerable, innocent of the adult world as any sixteen year old is, but steely with bravado. Unlike most sixteen year olds, Eileen had no home or family support. No mother to turn to for help in raising her baby and no one to help her keep tabs on rent and electricity bills. No one other than a social worker on the end of the phone, or the manager of whatever hostel she happened to find herself in.

This should evoke a feeling of empathy in the reader or perhaps a sense of outrage at her circumstances. That doesn’t quite happen in this book and I think it’s because Eileen does herself no favours by presenting every authority figure as loathsome. Universally wicked and evil, associated in her descriptions with stern morality and girdles, the women running the homes she lived in are cardboard cut-outs and this is one thing in this otherwise moving account of her life which irritated me as a reader.

Take Mrs Woods of Hove House, a woman whose very clothes were imbued with powers to humiliate and repress the young Eileen. ‘Staunch and heavily-girdled in Marks & Spencer’s good churchgoing clothing’, her ‘brown-patent square-toed and -heeled shoes remained unmoved, demanding my answer’. Mrs Linn, the health worker, is also presented as one-sided, biased against Eileen (‘seemed to take my fears as a personal attack on her authority, and she was determined that I would not undermine her’). Even Mac-Mac, a worker shown with a rare soft side, turns deceitful.

Eileen proclaims herself the injured party throughout, innocent even though she admits assuming the lead in breaking into another occupant’s room. And when she recounts the gruesome brutality she suffered from a partner who arrived in the middle of the night to find her with another man, the reader’s fellow-feeling shrinks a little in disbelief at her unconvincing explanation of why that man was there. There’s sparse evidence of the mature Eileen weighing this up in the memoir: not much in the way of taking stock of how her actions could have been misinterpreted.

Memory is, of course, subjective: two people witnessing the same event will write about it from different perspectives and with different attitudes and agendas. Who is to say which is the real truth? Eileen is entitled to write her truth as she sees it and to sculpt a narrative out of it.

It is the total intimacy with the memoir writer which readers enjoy: a sometimes prurient interest in sharing a wounded person’s hurts then, with the wounded person, learning to rise above them. There is a hunger for this kind of confessional memoir and writers, and commercial publishers, have a right to feed it. Perhaps as readers we're too worldly wise to hope for a 'happy ever after' but at least this chapter of Eileen's story ends, satisfactorily, on a note of lightness and optimism.

Busy events schedule

2011-04-11T16:57:00.000+01:00

Busy few weeks at the Scottish Writers' Centre.

Last week, David Manderson led the discussion on creative writing (higher) education. Very interesting. He gave a useful overview on the growth of CW courses in UK universities over the last 15 years. Some audience members asked what the value was, e.g. what good does it do a student to finish their studies with a pile of short stories when there's no market for them. Reasonable point in many ways but then, we could ask the same question about English Literature essays. There's a value in study; learning techniques of creative writing has the general educational value of developing a student's critical analysis. At a vocational level, it helps the student put craft ideas into practice. As an analogy, I think of driving. You can study theory and pass your driving theory test but that doesn't make you a good driver. Dave's novel's due out soon.

This coming Thursday, 14 April 2011, the fabulous Tom Leonard will be reading from his work. Definitely one to look out for. 7pm in the CCA Clubroom in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. Admission free! The SWC appreciates the support of the Scottish Book Trust in staging this event.

On Thursday 21 April at 7pm, David Kinloch launches his new poetry collection, published by Carcanet. It has the intriguing title of Finger of a Frenchman. That's one not to miss!

And on Thursday 28 April at 7pm, we've a special session on Iraqi Fiction, in cooperation with the Goethe Institut, Glasgow, and featuring Abbas Khider, Kusay Hussain and Sue Reid Sexton. As with other events, admission to this is free (though donations to help with the organisation of future events are always welcome).

The Scottish Writers' Centre operates out of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD.

Having mentioned Sue Reid Sexton, I'll also mention that Keith and I attended a launch of her novel Mavis's Shoe, which was published by Waverley Books in March to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Clydebank Blitz. I'm really looking forward to reading it. It's about a young girl who loses her sister on the first night of the blitz, when Clydebank, a shipbuilding town on the banks of the Clyde, just next to Glasgow, was devastated by enemy bombs. I used to spend my Saturday afternoons in Clydebank when I was just a little bit older than Mavis. Sue's reading was superb - completely evocative, thrilling and poignant. She had the great idea of using sound system to replicate the bomber alert and all clear sirens, which really made the blood in my veins curdle. She also partly dramatised sections of the novel, with three students from STAG theatre group reading the parts.

I've read the first chapter and am now eagerly trying to finish the Emile Zola book I'm reading (slightly struggling with) so I can get on to reading Mavis's Shoe! But I can't skip it because the Zola book is set in the flat plains of Beauce in France, close to where I spent last summer on the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and this is the area my main character in Spell in the South comes from, so it's useful secondary research :)

Catch Up

2011-03-31T13:13:00.003+01:00

Three months since my last post. This one will have to be a catch up.

I've been to several really worthwhile events connected with the Scottish Writers' Centre recently. One of these was the writers' groups' showcase competition. We held the presentation of prizes at The Mitchell Library at the beginning of March as part of the Aye Write Festival and, for me, it was especially delightful to play a role in The Mitchell Library again as one of the servants of the servants of art (as Prof Willy Maley would say). It didn't feel like decades since I had worked there! I'm sure the event's Green Room used to be WAG Alison the City Librarian's office where I went for my first job interview in 1974.

The competition drew entries from across much of Scotland, from Angus to Dumfries and from Edinburgh to Lochwinnoch. The six finalists inspired the audience with their very able readings. Here's a photo of the six winners with the two judges, David Kinloch (poetry) and Maggie Graham (fiction). Also shown is Irene Hossack of the Scottish Writers' Centre – a very able host for the event and a good friend. I'm grateful to her for this photo.

Left to right: Maggie Graham, David Kinloch, Carol McKay, Jack Hastie, G W Colkitto, Grace Fenwick representing Kriss Nichol, Nancy Holehouse, Theresa Munoz, Julie Macpherson and Irene Hossack.

On Saturday 26th of March, I took part with the Scottish Writers' Centre committee, in the Gaelic Book Festival at the CCA in Glasgow. Leabhar's Craic - books and banter - is an vibrant event which gives Gaelic speakers the opportunity to gather to chat about their passion for books and writing. We at the Scottish Writers' Centre are keen to involve Gaelic writers in the work of the SWC as our aim is to be inclusive across the whole of Scotland, representing writers in all the languages of Scotland. Our session at the Book Festival was certainly animated; we also had a feature and advert in the programme and we're optimistic about future liaison and cooperation with the Gaelic writing community.

And now, on to publishing news.I was very pleased to learn, recently, that Mainstream Publishing plan to bring out As I Lay Me Down To Sleep (which I co-wrote with Eileen Munro) as an e-book. I find that a very exciting development. They expect an increase in sales and publicity for this title once Eileen's sequel is published in the summer. I also learned, on Monday of this week, that Mainstream have sold the rights to the book to a French publisher which is also really exciting. Good luck to the translator! As I Lay Me Down To Sleep, French style, should be available in the shops in France at the end of 2011. And today, I received my royalty statement. We've sold over 45,000 copies since AILMDTS was published in August 2008.

Since I divorced my agent last year, I've been looking for a new one. I had some word back last week from one prestigious and reputable London agent. Sadly, there's no contract for me as things stand but the agent did express many positives about the book (A Spell in the South) and gave me lots of good feedback. It's disheartening, yet at the same time it's encouraging that he was prepared to spend so much time e-mailing me his response. The agent suggested some significant changes to the plotline. This strikes me as bizarre, given that I always thought I was quite good at plot! Certainly, it's much harder to handle plot in a full length work and the clutter that is in my brain has surely influenced my storyline. Anyway, the agent's going to think about it a bit more and get back to me with more detailed suggestions. Then it's up to me whether I follow them or not. The novel must have some strengths if he's prepared to be so helpful. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I'm happy to say that Chris Powici, editor of Northwords Now, the free literary magazine of the north, invited me to review a novel by Glasgow-based writer J David Simons. You can read my review of The Liberation of Celia Kahn here.

Lastly, Keith and I are investigating e-book publishing with a view to bringing together a collection of my short fiction. I've had ten stories published in literary magazines and anthologies over the last decade but it's very difficult to interest a publisher in a short story collection in the present economic climate. Yet, many of my students ask me where they can get their hands on my publications. With the advent of e-publishing and print on demand, and encouraged by the proliferation of small chapbooks by authors we admire and respect, Keith and I now think it's time we looked into this seriously. More on this later.

Out with the old; in with the new!

2010-12-31T14:59:00.000Z

31 December 2010. The last day of the year: it's that moment when you're caught between looking back and looking forward. It's been a good year for me, on the whole. My 2010 horoscope told me Pluto would stir things up and make major changes happen and I kind of scoffed at that but for whatever reason, major changes did occur for me. The biggest was finding out I couldn't live without taking synthetic steroids to replace the ones my body's stopped making. (The official diagnosis came in a letter from Hairmyres Hospital yesterday - 'The test confirmed that your adrenal glands have stopped producing the steroid hormones'.) At first, I was a wreck when I tried to come to terms with that but now, after two and a half months, I've accepted it. I'm still a bit afraid of slipping on ice and breaking a bone, since that would bring on shock, then an Addison crisis, then ultimately coma if not treated promptly, but other than that, I'm back to 'normal'. Except that I'm salting crisps and savouring bacon, olives, sundried tomatoes, blue cheese and anything else that'll give me a salt kick, given I've a sodium imbalance in my blood.

Enough of that. Let's say I'll face 2011 with new confidence.

And what of the good things? Looking back, there were lots. In March, my daughter Alison became engaged to Lucas, while he was visiting her in Tokyo. In May, I attended my first Open University graduation ceremony, taking my place in the procession and sitting in my robe with the platform party. Great to see the students being rewarded. They work so hard, packing OU degree studies into the neuks and crannies of their busy everyday lives. One of my former students, Jenny, was among them. She did very well.

In June, Alison came back from her year spent in Japan and it was great to see her again. I saw her briefly before I left to spend the month of July in France on the RLS Fellowship. I've written extensively about that time; it was indeed a one-off, life-affirming experience for me and one I'll not forget.

In August, my wee cat died, only two weeks after I came back from France. That was a sad time because she and I had lived together here for over thirteen years. My daughter Mairi asked me yesterday would I be looking for another cat and I said, 'No.' I'm not ready for cat ownership again. There's a negative and a positive reason for that. One is that cats and other pets tie you down and I've decided I need to be free of restrictions for a while. I'm not ready to give love to a new pet, yet, either.

Two weeks after Willow died, life gave me another good experience: my oldest daughter, Ruth, came home from living in Mexico City and came to stay for a few months with her dad and me, bringing her partner and their new baby. It was so good to have her back to stay for at least some time. She's now moved into her own flat not far away. Technically, becoming a granny to Mhairi fell outside this 2010 review because she was born in October 2009 but being a granny became reality this year because she was here, not on Skype but in three dimensions, filling my, at that time rather gloomy, house with baby noises, most of which involved laughter and singing. And lots of cuddles.

In October, I took ill. I was so glad Ruth was here, then. I don't know how I'd have coped emotionally if she'd still been in Mexico. It felt as if she was given back to me - returned to me, and to Keith, Liane, Mairi and Alison.

Being ill brought so many consolations. I had meaningful conversations and contact with so many people at that time. My family became closer. One week after I took ill, most of us gathered to celebrate Mhairi's first birthday and that was a very special day, in the circumstances. That felt like the year's real end and beginning.

On the writing front, I've had a quiet year, if you discount the month at Grez in France. I gave up my agent and am looking for a new one. It's the same old story. Waiting for responses; waiting for something to happen. Since August, I've hardly written anything. Since October, I've been recuperating emotionally and physically. I've gone from throwing myself into applications for jobs I don't stand a chance of getting - just to make me feel alive - to despair at having to continue to live for yet more years. Amn't I finished yet? Can I not just go, now? One of my daughters told me I haven't done everything yet. I may have raised all my children to adulthood, had some successes with my writing, loved a man and been loved in return for over thirty years and lived to become a granny, but my daughter said, 'You haven't become a granny to my children yet,' so I think I'll try to stay!

So, what will be my projects for next year? In terms of writing, I'm going to have to push myself to create and to promote my work. For Christmas, Keith bought me Dragon voice recognition software, which I'm training to understand my Scottish accent. I'm hoping that will help me combine, very simply, the condition of being a layabout and all the images, thoughts and stories in my head. I'm also hoping to be able to go to visit my daughter Liane, who'll be travelling to France to spend an academic year there, after the summer. And I've taken up knitting for the grandchildren who might be born in the future.

To all who read this: please take care of yourself this coming year and try to fulfill some of your dreams. Or at least take a baby step towards them. Happy New Year!

The real story

2010-10-28T13:13:00.001+01:00

The girl stood on the burning bridge.
Her lip was all a-quiver.
She gave a cough; her leg fell off
and floated down the river.
child's rhyme

Okay, so forget all that 'woe is me' nonsense. A dose of reality. Here's how it happened.

It was an autumn day. Carol was taking the train through town and country, through October landscape, through tree-heads tinted copper and gold, to New Lanark. She was heading for a conference of the OU Arts Fac in the lovely New Lanark Mills Hotel. She passed the new mosque at Holytown and was impressed with it as an object of beauty; she passed over the river gorges and through the site of the former Ravenscraig steelworks, now a forest of young trees; she passed through towns and farmland until Lanark, whereupon she took a taxi down into the river valley where Robert Owen and David Dale had built their massive cotton mills in the early 1800s, providing for their workers a self-contained village with arts and education and quality of life for when they weren't required in the mighty river-fuelled mills.

The hotel was plush and yet homely. Colleagues were bright, not seeing one another from one year end to the next (all teaching work being done by correspondence or online). The tea tasted strange and Carol felt hungry but she'd had an early lunch and anyway, some chocolate bought at the village shop at closing time would help tide her over till dinner.

The sessions presented held her interest. She particularly enjoyed the 45 minute poetry reading, slides and chat by Chris Powici, a colleague in the creative writing courses and editor of the free magazine 'Northwords Now'.

The chocolate tasted funny, even though it was well within its sell-by date so she only had a few squares and then, during the quiet time before dinner, she took a walk alone around the grounds of the hotel and village. The pavement was wet with autumn rain. Dark evergreens and dying deciduous clothed the hills on either side of the river. She watched how the water pummelled down over the 'linn' waterfalls. White froth on black substance. The river vibrated through the rocks beneath her feet. The air was cool and moist but not uncomfortable and there was a lushness in the dank decay of pine needles and autumn leaves.

Dinner passed off well in chirpy conversation. The soup tasted a bit funny and she wondered if there was wheat in it. She regretted stipulating only 'gluten free' and not also 'wheat free'. She was hungry and ate every spoonful, having given away the bread. The fish came next. The food all looked so tempting, artistically set out on the plate and attractive through colour and texture. There was a bit of a strange flavour going on in the fish but everyone else was eating and she ate it all, too.

Buoyed up on two glasses of wine and good conversation, she climbed the stairs with the others and enjoyed the evening session in the conference room, where line manager Elaine entertained and informed about Aird, an 18th century Glasgow-based music printer. Thereafter, Carol went to the bar with Chris and Carol A, and both Carols caught up with chat in a table to the side (thanks for the malt, Chris - that's two I owe you).

On the way to bed, her stomach felt uncomfortable. Maybe the fish had tasted odd because there was a little shellfish sauce? Or maybe it had been the soup?

At three in the morning, Carol was sick. Everyone's been sick. Everyone knows what night-time ill-health is like and everyone gets on with it. So did Carol. But her arms and legs were so weak, now. She almost couldn't make it back to bed. And then, in bed, she almost couldn't make it out again. And the phone was dead. Something wasn't right.

Outside, in the darkness, the river pounded its way between the banks, cutting off the little island and dragging at torn-off twigs and branches.

By 8.30 on Saturday morning, Carol knew that something was wrong. She'd known for a long time. Now, she wanted to go home. She had no mobile signal in the valley and the direct line to the outside world wasn't working. Besides, there was her baby grand-daughter at home and if Carol had food poisoning, or a virus, she didn't want to take it home. But she wanted Keith. So she phoned reception and asked if anyone else had been sick. But no-one had. It wasn't the food. So she asked for an outside line and told Keith she needed him to come for her.

It was nearly an hour before he arrived. She almost fainted when she went to the door to let him in. Back in bed, she almost couldn't move. He helped her dress then on her insistence he fetched a wheelchair from the hotel staff. It felt ridiculous to make such a fuss over sickness but this wasn't right. She knew it. It wasn't normal. But what could it be? Food poisoning? Winter vomiting bug? No-one else was suffering.

Keith wheeled her to the car and then went back to sort out bills at reception and to leave a message for the conference organisers.

Carol slept for two days. All through Saturday and most of Sunday, while Keith and the others went to Glasgow to paint the new flat, Carol slept. She woke and slept again. It felt like a hundred years. She asked for water with sugar and salt in it and then fruit juice and tea. The two days passed.

Get a grip, she told herself. You've been sick, now get over it. She forced herself to get up late Sunday afternoon. She made herself a mug of chicken stock and felt better for it. She took it back to bed with her. When the others came back, she said she'd take some dinner. She ate a few mouthfuls. She sat up with them for half an hour then had to lie down again. She tried again later, picking at another few mouthfuls and staying up for an hour before going back to bed and sleeping through till morning. Almost peacefully. She must be getting better. It was only logical. She'd eaten; she'd sat downstairs with the others.

But it wasn't normal. At five in the morning, panic speared her. All down - inside - both legs were tingling. She'd been aware of it earlier and had changed position but now it was stronger. Her legs were leaden and tingling. She could move her toes. So there was no need to panic. She sat upright on the edge of the bed and her arms were tingling, too. This was something she'd no experience of. Her body felt normal but her arms and legs were losing power. Keith said she'd been lying awkwardly. Lie down and go back to sleep. But it wasn't normal.

Keith's alarm went off at 6.30 and she was sleeping. He brought her tea. In the dark, when he'd returned downstairs, panic pierced her again, waking her fully. Her legs had gone. She couldn't feel them. As if the blood had drained out of them. Her arms were blunt as if her hands had gone. She couldn't move them. Well, she could if she exerted her will to do it. The skin round her mouth was numb and tingling. Her neck felt strange. Keith would be leaving for work. She had to stop him. What could it be? Botullism, e-coli, food poisoning. All the thoughts rushed through her. Addison's.

Addison's?

She'd read about it two weeks previously. She'd been trying to find out a connection between low blood pressure, weariness and coeliac disease, all of which she had. Yet the doctors had told her they couldn't find anything wrong and the coeliac was under control. She knew Addison's - and e-coli - were life threatening.

She listened; the baby was awake. She wouldn't disturb her.

Keith! she shouted. Keith! Keith! Keith! Keith! Keith!

He ran upstairs - she heard him. She batted him with blunt arms to make him move, to make him listen, to make him get her an ambulance. Confused, he couldn't believe her. Told her to calm down.

Get me an ambulance! I want to go to hospital!

But what'll I tell them? What'll I say is wrong with you?

************************************

He phoned the doctor. NHS 24 eventually sent round an ambulance because between them all they thought I'd had a stroke. My speech was slurred. The paramedic arrived and pricked my finger, soon determining that my blood sugar was low - 2.8 when the normal range was between 4 and 7 or so. Like in a diabetic hypo. He gave me a tube of sugary gel to suck (I could make a whole lot of little fairy tale and other suggestions from that little scenario but let's not go there) and I perked up a bit. The tingling stopped. Two ambulancemen wrapped me in a blanket and took me downstairs in a chair, out into the new day's light to the ambulance, which was waiting there, cream and green against the blue cloud-streaked October sky. Children waited at the corner, thrilled at a break in the routine of going to school.

A and E at Hairmyres was jumping, filling up with doctor's Monday morning referrals. I was seen immediately then stabilized and put in a corridor. I would have waited in that corridor for ten years and have been happy. The registrar and consultant diagnosed me. 'Do you always have such a good tan, Mrs McKay?' 'Well, I spent the whole of July in France but that's two and a half months ago and my tan keeps getting darker.' I remembered peering at the whites of my eyes in the mirror, wondering if I was going to turn yellow and die of liver failure like my mother. Keith stood by my hospital bed, reluctant to leave me. 'I should've listened to you. I will from now on,' he said, voice shaking.

Addison's Disease. An auto-immune disease (i.e. like coeliac, thyroid and others) in which the body turns its immune system against itself. In this case, my adrenal glands were targeted. By the time an Addison Crisis happens, the cortext around the glands is 90% destroyed. The adrenal gland cortext supplies the body with steroid hormones that regulate defence against infection and other functions basic to life. Mine were now 90% depleted.

I had two injections of steroids and sparked instantly to life. I couldn't stop talking. I talked all over the registrar when she was testing me to see if the shortness of sugar and oxygen in my limbs had caused any damage. I couldn't find the tip of my nose to touch it. And I have a big target! Since that day, I've been practising!

So now I need to take these tablets if I want to live. My natural life ran out on that Monday morning, 18 October 2010. My life now is artificial. It's my old body but it's not my electricity that controls it. I'm lifeless. I'm a construct; a creation; a monster. But a cuddle still feels like a cuddle. A conversation with family still feels like a conversation. The steroids are making me crazy (bipolar mood swings). But I'm still me. And I'm born new again.

**************************************

Carol would like to express her thanks to the staff at the wonderful New Lanark Mill Hotel, who showed her such kindness during her illness.

Growth cycle

2010-10-27T11:44:00.002+01:00

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
William Blake. Songs of Experience. 1794. 'The Sick Rose'

On Monday 18 October, 2010, my natural life ran out. A paralysis of weakness floored me; my legs and arms were not my own. By degrees, deadness moved from my feet, to take my legs, my hands, my arms, and teased filaments of numbness into my brain and jaw. If not for immediate medical help, my life would have ended that day, electrical power slipping away from me.

I have become a monster. Maybe I always was. I have become a monster powered by an electric charge which is not my own because my own ended: my body was no longer able to sustain it.

Within an hour of being taken to hospital, artificial life surged through me, rippling and crackling as the juice from two hypodermic syringes lubricated my circuits.

Electricity is a flower. Within an hour, new life bloomed through my arms and legs as the water of life irrigated my dry fields.

From that day, I'm not me. I'm a construct: an artificial life force of measured proportions, restlessly contained in decaying flesh and blood. I look at my hand. It's detached from me. It's part of the body I used to inhabit. An act of will moves it. I have to reconnect the life I've been given with the flesh I used to have. I can learn to do this.

But there are doubts.

I'm not me. I'm a Gothic monster created, not through the efforts of an inquisitive, solitary scientist experimenting with lightning, but through the perceptiveness, skill and commitment of medical teams based in Hairmyres Hospital. Good people, from the paramedic and ambulancemen who gave me first aid, to the highest consultants fusing with me through barrierless eyes, to the ordinary workers in all the wards, doing all the cog in the machine jobs, who took care of me.

And through the wonderful support of Keith and my family.

I'm not me. Not the me I was. But I am.

Snippets

2010-08-20T20:22:00.001+01:00

Today, my blog post is a mix of snippets.

First, some good news - my Open University students' results came through. I can imagine the bolt that hits them as they open the email. For me, the email informs me the results for the group are up on my OU homepage. I, no doubt like them, click on the link without hesitation. Then my eyes run down the list, checking one student's results after the other, holding my breath and sometimes gasping as the numbers reveal the final results. Funny how seeing each name brings back a visualisation of each student and what they've shared with me of their aspirations and their day to day life. I'm very pleased that they achieved their goals. There may be slight disappointment or even heartache for one or two but I'm confident all of us have taken away something good from the shared experience of A215 Creative Writing.

Next snippet is that my participation in the Scottish Writers' Centre event at Word Power Books in Edinburgh last week went very well. It's a lovely venue, intellectual yet intimate. Donal McLaughlin, as ever, was an expert host, generous in his praise and quietly assured in his manner. I was very pleased to see my daughter Alison and her friend Fliss in the audience, smiling with real delight. I kicked off the reading with two extracts from my draft novel A Spell in the South (of France), then Gerrie Fellows treated us to some of her poems spanning her early publishing in New Zealand, all the way up to poems she's working on now. Final reading spot was for Maggie Graham, who read from her novel 'Sitting among the eskimos' and from some newer material she's been working on. Her work was entertaining, uplifting and gave us something to mull over and wonder at, all in one go.

Less good this week was the demise of my wee cat, Willow, who had been full of health in May this year but slowly dwindled. She dropped from 4kg to 2.7kg then in her last few days she was nothing but fur and bones, wee soul. I can't believe how much I miss her. There are so many valid reasons for sorrow in the world yet I'm sobbing for my cat. Ah, Willow. She was thirteen and a half years old. I would tell you about the tarot readings I've done for her but you'd think I was a fool.

:-)

Here's something good to look forward to -

On Wednesday 25 August, my good friend Donal McLaughlin is reading at the Edinburgh Book Festival from 4.30 - 5.30. More info at http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/claire-keegan-donal-mclaughlin

Donal McLaughlin. Photo c. Marc Gaber, Riga

Sadly, I can't go. But the reason's good: my daughter Ruth is coming home from Mexico City after five years, with her partner and their baby. They're going to be staying with us (Keith and I - the family home) until they find a place of their own. Reasons to be cheerful!

Reading at the Edinburgh Festival

2010-08-10T10:15:00.001+01:00

I've been involved with the Scottish Writers' Centre for about six months, now. We've recently been drawing up plans for our next season of events for after the summer, to be held at the CCA in Glasgow. More on that very soon.

On 18 August, the SWC presents a reading by 'some of its own' at WordPower Books in Edinburgh as part of the Book Festival Fringe. I'm very pleased to be invited to share the platform with two writers who've contributed substantially to the creation and success of the Scottish Writers' Centre - Gerrie Fellows (Window for a Small Blue Child) and Maggie Graham (Sitting Among the Eskimos). SWC stalwart, Donal McLaughlin, will do the introductions so I know this'll be a friendly and relaxed atmosphere and I hope to see some Edinburgh friends at the event, for an hour of poetry & fiction. There's more information on the Scottish Writers' Centre blog.

WordPower Books is at 43-45 West Nicholson St, Edinburgh EH8 9DB. Our reading will be held from 3 - 4pm and admission is completely free. Incidentally, the Word Power website gives full details of the Edinburgh Book Fringe programme: http://www.word-power.co.uk/

Towards an ending

2010-07-28T09:57:00.000+01:00

Only a few days left of my stay here at Grez-sur-Loing. Twenty-seven days have come and gone and in three more I'll go home. I'll never have a garden like this one again; I'll never have this field of green and green water accessible through my window or a minute's walk away through the door. I've been taking film footage with my camera - too shaky to show it here. I've also taken sound recordings with it, documenting the morning wake up of the immediate neighbourhood of collared doves, jackdaws and wood pigeons.

My word count now is up to 27,000. I don't say it's perfect; it's anything but. Yet having written that makes me feel as if I've done what I came to do. All the other things - the trips to Paris (to see the catacombs, which we missed both times), Fontainebleau with its chic and glamour, Nemours, much more down to earth and friendly; the walks to Bourron; the long trek to Intermarché in the mid-day heat, then having a picnic on a bench between the shop's double set of doors and a crazy route home; the dinner at the long red dining table; the hours spent sitting by the green gloss of the river; the sharing of work and discussions over art and culture; tasting Doux-chene Fermier goats cheese with ripe figs and apricots; the marvelling at the flair with a foreign language which the Swedish and Finnish artists show - this is a bonus as big as the word count. Bigger. This is one-off life-enhancing experience.

Here are some final photos from Grez and the surrounding areas. There's a Gite de France property in the village, so maybe - like the swallows who've all fledged now? - I'll be back.

Carol outside the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. Marina and I climbed the 300 steps to reach the dome.

Les jardins du Luxembourg in Paris, just outside the French Sénat.

The living room at the Hotel Chevillon.

Idyllic writing room.

Carol and Marina in the red dining room.

I'd like to record my thanks to Creative Scotland (formerly Scottish Arts Council), the National Library of Scotland and all involved who gave me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by awarding me the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, 2010. With a nod to Lou and the others who wander here, too.

14 Juillet at Grez-sur-Loing

2010-07-16T15:59:00.000+01:00

It's now mid-way through my 31 day stay at the Hotel Chevillon as recipient of a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. Mid-way and yet I feel as if I've been here all my life.

Keith stayed for almost a week but if he'd stayed longer, as we would both have liked, I wouldn't have given time to my writing and that is the point of being here, so leave he had to.

Since then, the paper journal I'm keeping has filled with various thoughts, impressions and musings. None particularly given by a 'muse', perhaps, but valid nonetheless as a record of my time here. I've also taken dozens and dozens of photographs of views ranging from the vast open plains to the tiny world of a grasshopper. Wild flowers, sewn (presumably) at the edges of the fields, also feature in my photographic record. Each photo is a souvenir but also a tool for research to draw on when writing.

For the last week, I've set to work on writing the novel, the idea for which won me this fellowship. I've taken a huge sheet of paper (A2?) and have plotted out the entire story on a time-line. I know what's going to happen, now, and how it's going to end. All I have to do is write it! I like to plan my writing because once the plan is done the writing comes a bit like following a recipe or a knitting pattern. Or maybe the instructions that come with flat-pack furniture from Ikea (whose furniture fills this house). With writing - unlike with furniture from Ikea - there's always room for a little spontaneity, so the story as it's planned may not be the story that appears eventually on the page. Those damned, insistent characters will go and do something their author doesn't expect!

So far, in the last four days, I've banged in almost 10,000 words. First draft stuff, sure to be whittled down, but it's good to see the numbers in the left hand corner of the screen mount up. And there's so much time, here, with so few distractions!

One distraction I did manage to find was the 14 Juillet celebrations. The little town of Grez-sur-Loing knows how to party. This photo shows the Place de la Republique early in the evening. After the majorettes had performed and everyone had eaten their fill of Moules Frites Fraiches and whatever the bar had to offer, the dancing began. Oh, the open air French family parties I remember from the past, when we lived to the south in Cap d'Ail! The air balmy but milder in the evening and heavy with lavender scent. The teenage girls unable to keep away from the dancefloor while the teenage boys are out of sight, frightening the townspeople by firing bangers, firecrackers, or whatever they're called. Then, the mothers and grandmothers dancing with the youngest ones while the fathers and grandfathers stand around, as strong a presence as the earth and winning points just for being there. And this Grez party was just like the ones I remember from the south, except that there was no Keith for me to dance with, along with the rest of the older couples, after the children had gone to bed!

At eleven o'clock, the crowds flowed over the bridge and through the forest, young ones carrying paper lanterns held out on canes, half a mile or so to the lakes where the fireworks that followed mirrored themselves in the placid water. While the swans and ducks, presumably, hid their heads under their wings and tried to sleep!

At Grez-sur-Loing

2010-07-08T16:48:00.000+01:00

And so we arrive, Keith and I, after the two day drive from home to here. Much delayed by two hours spent in 'bouchons' on the Paris road network - in 35.5 degree heat - we push our way through the heavy, double-height gates and into the courtyard. It's 8.30 in the evening; the stones of the raised terrace are hot from having banked the day's heat. Though we're still far from the river, the relative cool and shade on the terrace are as welcome as a dip there.

Dominating the terrace area is a tree whose crown of branches is so thickly packed with leaves that it looks like a great green pompom. The buildings on three sides of the terrace hold the upper garden like a sturdy chest with arms extended. Slightly dilapidated, slightly ageing, but with an air of permanence, the Hotel Chevillon welcomed us into its cour and its coeur.

We look a bit frazzled in these photos but that's because of the heat and the drive's long exhaustion. These two are taken on my mobile, just to record that we've finally arrived.

There's no one else here. The manager, Bernadette, has been in constant phone support while we were travelling but as we our delays grew longer and longer, she was unable to wait. The only other Fellow in the Hotel - a Finnish poet - is out. Imagine, then, walking through the doors and 'unpacking' the present that is Chevillon: the cool hall with its white walls and twisting, polished wooden staircase; the palacial sitting room with its blue and amber coloured glass and luxury furnishings that are a curious mix of antique and modern; the red dining area with its long and elegant table set with a red cloth and candles, and everywhere - on the walls, on the dressers - paintings and sculptures donated by the Fellows who've stayed here before us.

A note and an envelope containing keys and a welcome from Bernadette are on the bureau. Our apartment is on the first floor - up that grand but tired staircase and along the narrow wooden corridor. Our feet squeak on the seasoned wood as we walk past doors that are all locked. We arrive at apartment three, wondering if Robert Louis Stevenson himself might have lived here, and we step in to our two room flat, which is basic, clean and white. White walls, white bookcase and appliances, white painted French windows opening out on to the terrace and that tree, and white curtains. Two pine armchairs and a table that doubles as a desk (or vice versa) give the room some colour and the floor under our hastily kicked off shoes is cool blue. And of course, we are drawn to the window, opening it wide to let in the fresher air. Strange that that only picture I have to show this view is one taken two days later when the heavy rain came and removed all that excess heat from the air!

Perhaps the greatest surprise on that first day, after all the build up and all the expectation, is seeing the air filled with swallows. The garden is full of them, their flightpaths intersecting in what look like haphazard flightpaths without a control tower or collision. Graceful black and white birds slip through the air, crossing, rising and dipping, up into the height of the blue air till only a curve can be seen of them, then soundlessly down to feed their young in the wattle and daub nests clinging under the eaves and glued in to the corners of the window frames. They've come for the summer and so have we.

Lucky

2010-06-15T17:48:00.000+01:00

So excited. I've won one of this year's Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowships and will be spending the whole month of July living in the Hotel Chevillon at Grez-sur-Loing, seventy kilometres S.E. of Paris.

The Fellowships have been awarded by the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council for the last dozen or so years and I've applied at least twice before, so I'm really thrilled that this time, I've been successful.

The Hotel Chevillon is run by a Swedish consortium as an artists' retreat now but in its nineteenth century heyday it was a hotel or lodging house which was often frequented by writers and artists. Robert Louis Stevenson met his wife, Fanny Osbourne, there and the Glasgow Boys (Scottish painters) also spent time there.

It's so daunting to set myself into anything approaching the category that these people fell into. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Two reasons - I'm neither a man, nor one from an upper class background. In the nineteenth century, my ancestors would only have been able to stay at Hotel Chevillon if they were making up the beds or seeing to the horses. It's a measure of how far society has changed that I can be awarded an expenses-paid stay there and it's in that spirit that I'll be approaching it.

What am I looking forward to most? Being there. Writing. Experiencing the French experience again. Walking by the river. The quiet and the leafiness. The forest of Fontainebleau. Visiting the chateau of Fontainebleau. Experiencing the French experience again. Writing. Being there.

I was awarded the fellowship to enable me to carry out research into a more northern French way of life than that I experienced when I lived in the South of France. I've written one novel set near Nice on the Cote d'Azur and this trip will help me write authoritatively about the region of France my main character is from.

More on this in another post.

Hieton Writers' Group, Hamilton

2010-04-25T10:07:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, when the days seemed longer and the weeks were full of promise, I facilitated writing workshops once a fortnight for a lovely group of writers in Hamilton. Lovely - but also talented, intelligent and warm-hearted.

Since that time, I've worked almost exclusively on teaching The Open University's creative writing courses online. Online teaching suits me very well: the OU's courses provide high quality learning; I can plan the working hours to suit myself; and I can break for coffee or eat lunch in front of the screen and no-one notices. It also suits me because I meet people from different parts of the UK and beyond. One element that is missing from most online teaching is face to face contact with writers - with only two dayschools a year on my OU courses.

For this reason, and to meet up again with old friends, I was delighted to accept an invitation by Hamilton's Hieton Writers' Group to run two workshops this April.

On an unseasonably bright April day, I took myself down to the grand blond sandstone building which is Hamilton Town House and introduced myself to the group. It was super to catch up on news with those I'd known previously and I was impressed at the way the group has developed, with a considerable number of new members, all of whom were keen writers and willing participants.

During the two classes, we looked at how to boost flagging language when writing about spring and summer, and how to boost our portrayal of momentous moments by using all five senses to help us visualise in close detail the people and places.

We worked on several exercises over the two weeks and I'm hoping to be invited to their end-of-year performance this June to hear them at their polished best!

George, Joey, Ian, Rita, Teresa, Jean and Eileen standing behind Sandra, Nan, Barbara and Jean.

InterLitQ

2010-04-18T09:23:00.002+01:00

Very exciting event at the Scottish Writers' Centre last week. Entitled 40 Glasgow Voices, it celebrated a special focus on the area by prestigious e-zine International Literary Quarterly. Founding editor, Peter Robertson, travelled from his home in Argentina to finalise arrangements and co-host the launch, which took place at the CCA on Thursday 8 April 2010.

40 Glasgow Voices is a special feature within issue 10 of the magazine. As the home page says: This will be the first of many features, to be published in the review, exploring the literary vibrancy and scope of different geographic locales.

Glasgow-based writers invited to appear in this issue include Anne Donovan, Zoe Wicomb, Jim Carruth, Des Dillon, Rodge Glass, David Kinloch, Laura Marney, Edwin Morgan, Gerry Loose and Suhayl Saadi. Reading on the night were six writers reading the work of seven contributors. Sue Reid Sexton read from her own novel but also read from a piece she has been co-writing with Kusay Hussein, originally from Baghdad and now living in the UK. Gerry Fellows, Alan Riach, Peter Manson, Sheila Puri, Jane Goldman and Ewan Morrison also read on the evening and all were warmly received. MC for the night was Donal McLaughlin, who has a Liam story in the feature. Full texts and fine visuals are available for all contributors on-line.

Also worth noting in InterLitQ is a feature called Volta: A Multilingual Anthology. Volta is a poem by Richard Berengarten. Over issues 9 and 10 of InterLitQ, this poem has been translated into 82 languages. This is truly something remarkable and surely a feat like this could only be accomplished by a magazine that spans the globe electronically and is international in its scope. And all of this, accessible without charge around the world. Definitely a site to support.

Well done to all involved for such an animated launch night at the Scottish Writers' Centre!

Marching through 2010

2010-03-28T13:32:00.001+01:00

Is it March which comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb? I'm thinking of reworking this epithet and likening March to a cheetah - the fastest animal over a short distance. It's time for me to glimpse over the cheetah's sleek shoulder.

News: I've joined the committee of the Scottish Writers' Centre. It's interesting stuff. We've been meeting in Glasgow, for steering committee meetings and for the monthly events programme that's off and running this spring, featuring writers like Donal McLaughlin, Gerrie Fellows and a tribute to the late American poet William Stafford. Forthcoming events include a celebration of Mexican poets and a look at the International Literary Quarterly's special Glasgow supplement. Looking forward to both of these. Hey, but that's me glancing forward rather than back! What we seek, as the Scottish Writers' Centre, is a focal point for Scottish writers and writing, the first dedicated literature venue of its kind in Scotland. Our aim is to provide a social arena where writers can meet and share ideas and experiences as well as a facility which can provide basic services for writers - performance and workshop space, writing pods, a cafe, a writer's flat and bookshop and to be at one and the same time national and international in outlook.

News: the Scottish Government's Literature Working Group produced its report on future literature policy in Scotland. In an act of admirable transparency, the entire report is available to all on-line. Published to great dismay, perplexity and provoking fiery debate among writers and publishers, the Goring Report (committee led by Rosemary Goring) calls for a network of dedicated writers' centres throughout Scotland. Wearing my former hat underneath my present one, I'm delighted to see their suggestion that public libraries be designated writers' centres - or at least a writers' centre should be designated within libraries in seven parts of the country, thereby providing fairly local centres. As a former librarian, I'm thrilled at the proposals to reinvigorate our libraries and, in particular, to boost their provision and promotion of Scottish literature. As a writer (and as a former librarian), I'm perplexed by the suggestion that there should be seven centres. Why seven? Why not one in each of Scotland's local authorities? Another point that struck me as very strange is the suggestion in the report that Literature Development Officers be appointed to promote literature throughout these seven areas. At no point does the Working Group suggest (or even seem to consider) that this is - should be - a core function of the public library service. I do support other proposals, such as making the teaching of Scottish literature compulsory within schools, with a compulsory question at Higher exam level.

These are my own views; the Scottish Writers' Centre will submit its response to the Report and welcomes input from those interested.

News: With my new found freedom (from self-imposed restrictions) I've now been attending montly meetings of Weegie Wednesday and great fun has been had, as well as valuable and exciting networking opportunities. Weegie Wednesday is Glasgow's literary salon for informal sharing of interest and information. Held in the Universal Bar - a nice, sociable place for literary chit-chat and serious literary liaisons - Weegie Wednesday features two or three ultra-brief presentations and lots of time for flesh-pressing. All fully clad, perhaps I should add. At February's meeting, the most valuable speaker from my point of view was Bob McDevitt from Hachette Scotland; March's meeting gave me an opportunity to meet Martin Belk of the innovative One Magazine, Willy Maley, who established the Glasgow University Creative Writing MLitt (with the late Philip Hobsbaum), and Ian Hunter of Read Raw Ltd, a writers' collective whose sole aim is to promote writing and writers in Scotland.

So, lots of good things, keeping me busy this month. Add to the mix my continuing to work with the Open University, encountering much in the way of thought-provoking and moving writing from my students in A174 and A215, my own studies in Spanish, and you have the reasons I've been absent from my blog page. Though being addicted to Facebook comes top of that list.

To end, I'll pass on my happiness at the announcement, yesterday, of the engagement between my daughter Alison and her beau, Lucas. He presented her with a white gold and emerald ring at Yasukuni Jinja shinto shrine in Tokyo, with the cherry blossom just beginning to open on the trees around them. Cherry blossom represents love in Chinese culture but in Japan it represents the importance of understanding the transience of life. Like the blossom, life buds, blooms and fades. Like the blossom, it's finite: precious; to be lived and cherished. Emeralds represent luck and enduring love. Amen to that.

In “Sentenced to Fifteen Years: The Story of Creative Writing at Glasgow since 1995″, Willy Maley reflects on the Creative Writing Master’s at Glasgow University, which he co-founded with Philip Hobsbaum « interLitQ

2010-02-02T22:37:00.000Z

In “Sentenced to Fifteen Years: The Story of Creative Writing at Glasgow since 1995″, Willy Maley reflects on the Creative Writing Master’s at Glasgow University, which he co-founded with Philip Hobsbaum « interLitQ

Reading and writing (events)

2010-01-25T13:30:00.001Z

I've had some interesting discussions with fellow writers recently about my views on venues for creative writing and reading events. Following on from these, I had the pleasure of being invited to take part in the 'Reading the Leaves' event at the café Tchai Ovna in Glasgow's west end. It was a good company and a good night. Thanks to Dave Manderson for organising it. I met and chatted with fellow writers Jim Ferguson, Sue Reid Sexton and Graeme Fulton, whose readings held the audience's attention.

It's a funny thing, reading aloud. Especially when the audience comes to the writing cold, i.e. without a copy of the text in front of them or in their memory. I'd love to be a performer who can capture the audience's attention and also parry with them, bringing in a bit of playfulness. It always feels too serious when I do it but then that's the way I am, I guess. At Tchai Ovna, I read the short piece I have in the Luath Press anthology 'Written Remedies' about a woman who finds creative expression and satisfaction through dance, despite being blind. During this reading, I enjoyed that lovely sensation of having the audience in the palm of my hand. Or, if you will, of seeing myself as the conductor of their emotional response. A nice feeling! And powerful!

For my second piece, I read a short extract from 'Frozen Waste' - my story in the first edition of Gutter - and while that started well, I could feel the audience drifting when it came to the dialogue section, though also, perhaps, because the illustration of the character's psychological split was a little too difficult to get across in what was just a glimpse of the story. There's definitely a difference between writing that succeeds on the page and on the stage.

A few days later I went to a book launch held at the Glasgow Print Studio gallery. Lovely venue - even if the photos on display at that time were a little mawkish as they documented the artist's coming to terms with death. The writing event was to celebrate the publication of Fugitive Bullets. As always, I find Jim Ferguson's work entertaining, intellectually satisfying and emotionally fulfilling. Jim really has talent. He's a clever performer, too, who works one to one with each audience member, though they're sitting in a group.

Last week, I attended the first of the new monthly events staged by the Scottish Writers' Centre, this one in the CCA in Glasgow. The spotlight for this inaugural session was on Donal McLaughlin, whose short story collection An allergic reaction to national anthems is published by Argyll. Donal may have lost his childhood's Irish accent but his voice has lost none of that purring quality. He draws on his Irish-Scottish childhood experiences for his stories but much else besides. Given what I've said, above, about my own reading, I found it interesting that he was able to differentiate clearly between the voices of multiple characters in his stories: that's a true gift, as all the textbooks unite in warning writers away from using more than two or three characters in a short story (other than mentioning very minor characters, of course).

Particularly interesting in Donal's session was the variety, given that he works as a literary translator as well as author. So, he read his translations of poems written by one of the Second World War's many displaced people: Stella Rotenberg, a woman who has lived in the UK for seventy years and is now in her nineties but who still writes in her native German. Moving poems, simply expressed and direct, and beautifully translated. We can express so much more truth when we write in our mother tongue, I believe - which is why I encourage my students to experiment with writing in their own dialect, whatever it may be. Writing in our own tongue opens up areas of our experience which we have overlaid and suppressed through adult life. A talented literary translator must enter into that other writer's experience, adopt it as his own, then express it through the heart. As a displaced person himself, in a sense, Donal seems able to identify with the original writer's quest for expression. He ended his session with a reading from a novel by the recent Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Herta Muller.

Snow

2010-01-08T14:15:00.000Z

Four weeks of snow and bitter cold. Today, the temperature at 9am was -13c. I've gone into a state near hibernation. Good time for thinking, eating, drinking sloe gin. I took this photo at 4pm on 31 December 2009 from my bedroom window. Moon rise over Lanarkshire. Full moon on the last day of the year. I like it!

In search of a Scottish Writers Centre

2009-12-03T10:17:00.006Z

Oh, for a warm and dry centre for Scotland's writers. Or several.
Earlier this week I attended my first DiScOmBoBuLaTe (or is it dIsCoMbObUlAtE? DiScomBoBulaTe?) at The Arches in Glasgow. It was a great show. I've rarely seen such a crowd at such a gathering. Probably having a proper bar, there, helped. Guest readers included Ryan Van Winkle, whose banter with the audience had me laughing (not just me, of course) and whose poems had the right kind of mix of attention grabbing wit and sincerity that are ideal for performance. Headlining the evening was Bernard Mac Laverty, that most delicate of writers (despite his labourer's hands) who managed - though perhaps only just - to pull off that no-no of short story writing, a packed livingroomful of characters.

I've got so many bones I could pick with the event but that would be negative when my overall reaction to the content was positive. Oh, go on. I have to air them. Controversy is the haemoglobin of blogging.

First - why is it that so many Glasgow-based writers think the whole world should be measured by how poorly it compares to Glasgow? As a Glaswegian, may I just pass on this advice? 'Get over yourself! Everyone else shares the same emotions, the same big heart and small mindedness as Glaswegians, in equal measures, and everyone else is a mix of good and bad just like a typical Glaswegian! Get off your pedestal: you're just one city in a crowded world of cities; no better, no worse - just normal. Get yourself a bus pass, fellow Glaswegian writer, listen to your fellow travellers and look at the view from the windows.' Thank you.

Second - football is enjoyed by many people the world over. This grumble is closely related to the first one, so I'll stop here.

Third - what is it about people who grew up in centrally heated housing in privileged western society? Why is it that slummy venues like The Arches are popular? Mildew on the ceilings, bare brick walls, cracked cement floors whose only covering is the pebble dash of chewing gum? The chill of damp that seeps in through your clothing and the spores of mould that penetrate your lungs? Is it just my impression, or is there a manifest desire among those who grew up in comfort to relax in dirty, slovenly, shabby places? (While I'm on the offensive, let me also mention Tchai Ovna, a place which also celebrates live literature but whose soft furnishings give rise to repressed memories of squats and student flats and tatty, flea-infested, bug-infested housing. Not mine, of course. We were always clean *ahem*. As I'm sure theirs are, she said, worrying about libel.)

There seems to be some kind of reversal, here; it must be a generational thing. My parents were raised in crowded beds set-in behind doors or curtains in crowded rooms in crowded room-and-kitchen flats off wooden lobbies in crowded, TB and whooping cough infested tenements - in Glasgow, coincidentally (see first grumble). They yearned for cleanliness, clean lines and space. A square of carpet, perhaps. Cups that were shop-bought rather than exchanged in return for old clothes in a barter with the rag-man. Only two to a bed instead of three.

Now, two generations later, maybe each having their own bedroom with ensuite has led to a feeling of loss and isolation. Maybe that's why so many of today's twenty and thirty year olds seek out cheek by jowl crowding in damp, dingy dungeons like The Arches sub-railway-station.

Could be, of course, that they flock there because there's almost nowhere else to see established and establishing writers in performance. Fair point. So, what we need is a dry, warm, eco-friendly, modern, twenty-first century Scottish Writers Centre. Step forward the supporters with your money, your skills and your enthusiasm proffered in the palm of your hand...

Not good, not bad - but different!

2009-11-14T04:30:00.006Z

When you've been fed a diet of film and TV stereotypes about Mexico, from the innocent mouse Speedy Gonzales with his cry of 'Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!', to the ubiquitous seedy, untrustworthy bad guy from spaghetti westerns, tipping his sombrero back from his face with the troublesome end of a gun, you have to blink a few times when confronted with the reality. Hey - Mexican people are just the same as my people.

Sure, there are differences. In my role as a woman on the doorstep of la troisieme age, the kinds of things that strike me as really different from my British upbringing are connected with home life. I present them here, these Mexican ways, not to say they're wrong. Just different. Examples:

Babies must not be exposed to the air. They must be obscured by a blanket when in the outside world. The blanket must be draped over the baby, e.g. if baby's in the mother's arms, the blanket will be draped over him from the mother's shoulder.
Should baby be outside in his pram, the hood must be up and the blanket - or a jacket, if no blanket is available - should be draped over the opening so the baby is hidden from view - and air.
Air is also dangerous in the cot. Blanket must be balanced across the cot sides, encasing the baby within a safe tent-like cocoon. It is acceptable to leave a gap at the top so that the parents can see the baby's head.

To a Scot like me, these practices seem bizarre. Maybe it's to avoid the sun; maybe it's to protect the children from Mexico City's serious air pollution. Or maybe it dates from before the virtual eradication of malaria-carrying mosquitos by DDT forty-odd years ago. I could see that protecting a baby from them would make perfect sense.

Here are some others:

A baby - no matter how new - who is not wearing earrings must be a boy.
Baby clothes must be washed by hand in a separate sink and kept separate from the adults' washing. You may use the washing machine to rinse and spin but not in the company of adult laundry.

I've clearly been spending a lot of time around a baby. And navel gazing. But there are other domestic curiosities. Examples:

Dishes are washed in the sink under running water.
Lunch is the main meal of the day and is eaten about three o'clock.
House windows can be opened to let in the heat. (But watch out for the air)
Ground floor windows are secured de rigueur with immovable iron grilles. Try importing that habit to Scottish tenement flats and see how long it is before another fire in tinderbox city leads to a landlord prosecution.

In addition to these cultural differences are some which seem to me to make perfect sense. Examples:

Cleanliness is paramount. The recent Swine Flu scare has led to an even higher campaign for people to wash their hands regularly. When visiting a selection of public toilets (I am a woman with her foot on the doorstep to la troisieme age, as I said) not one person coming out of a cubicle skipped out of the loo without first giving her hands a good scrub. Compare that with Glasgow's Buchanan Bus Station toilets and I know who will get my rosette.

Water is abundant and comes out of the tap; drinking water is sold and delivered in blue plastic water-cooler butts by men shouting, 'Agua! Agua pura!'
Apples and tomatoes can be washed in tap water before eating but lettuce and strawberries have to be steeped for ten to fifteen minutes in tap water supplemented by eight to ten drops of some kind of iodine disinfectant. (Ruth told me strawberries can have a bug in them that paralyses your brain but I think she was joking. I think she was.)
Fruit is so abundant and inexpensive that a blender becomes an essential everyday item, enabling the simple preparation of fresh papaya juice to drink with lunch, strawberry milkshakes (minus the brain-freezing bug, of course). And with entire stalls in the markets filled with red tomatoes, there's never any need to open a tin to make tomato sauce.

All in all, it's an interesting experience. I guess it's true what they say: travel broadens the mind. It certainly exercises it.

Perhaps the most interesting of all is the poor - a far cry from 'the improvident poor' of Britain's past, and probably even present (but I'll leave that discussion for another day). The poor in Mexico City work for their living. An endless, thankless round of labouring, hand to mouth.
Whether they're on the minimum wage of 50 pesos a day (£2.50), perhaps in a smart uniform, guiding you as you park your car in the posh new shopping centre underground carpark; or whether they're threadbare and threading their way between cars stopped at the traffic lights, offering for sale a selection of phone cards, disposable lighters or chewing gum; or whether they're spraying your windscreen with soapy water from a soft drink bottle then squeedgee-ing the foam away for a few pesos a car before the stampede begins as the lights change, they're working to earn their way. Even four and five year olds tout beads or simple toys round the restaurant tables, constantly appealing. In both senses. Surely someone must buy their charms.

As I type this, I can hear, in the near distance, sirens wailing, aeroplanes and helicopters passing and the spiky punctuation marks I've been told are probably gun shots. Perhaps some stereotypes may hold good.
But I haven't yet heard a mouse shout, 'Andale! Arriba!'

Interspersed with this text are some photos we took in one city oasis called Parque Mexico.

City of contrasts on the Day of the Dead

2009-11-08T15:00:00.019Z

Mexico City - or DF as it's known here - continues to enthrall and perplex with its fast paced, pot-holed highways, its polished modern office towers and local streets strung with black wires and leafy trees. As much of a Jekyll and Hyde city as Edinburgh (on a much larger scale), it feels as if there's a battle going on in its streets between its colonial Spanish past (the monument above is to Christopher Columbus) and a will to use its major petrol resources to build a city to rival any in the lands of the major powers. TV adverts several times a night extol the virtues of the present government in its fight against drugs, the organised crime that control them, and to build a secure and prosperous nation for all of Mexico's inhabitants.

With baby Mhairi Itzel now more settled and sleeping peacefully whenever she's in the car, or out in the fresh air, we were able to spend a few hours exploring the city streets and ended up having a traditional Mexican lunch at the Cafe de Tacuba - a lavishly decorated dining hall with a vaulted ceiling, walls hung with ornate framed, full length portraits of eighteenth century Spanish worthies and wall panels painted in frescos or tiled with gaudy, glorious Mexican craftsmanship. It being Day of the Dead (when all the dead have come back overnight), the waiting staff were dressed as nuns.
After lunch, we drove to the main square - the Zocalo - but didn't find it festooned in orange from the marigold ofrendas to commemorate dead loved ones. The few that we did see had had their petals scattered by the tail end of hurricane winds that had hit the Pacific coast. Despite that, the vast Zocalo, thronging with people enjoying one of the few open spaces in this crowded city, is worth visiting for its ornate Cathedral and its traditional healers, whose rhythmic drums, aura-cleansing smoke and hopping dances alter the passer-by's mind state through a bewildering sensory immersion.

And back home, we had our own little ofrenda, commemorating my late mum, dad and brother - all Scottish - and Aldo's Mexican grandparents. Little would they have expected they'd be linked after they'd gone, in beautiful little Mhairi Itzel.

Greetings from Mexico City

2009-11-03T23:26:00.008Z

One week into my three week stint in Mexico City. My daughter, Ruth, had her first baby ten days ago and I've come over to try to give her a bit of moral and logistical support.

It's wonderful to watch Ruth and her partner Aldo with their petite daughter (or should that be 'chiquitita'? Wonderful to see the tenderness and the patience. Little Mhairi Itzel (one name Scottish, one Mexican, as a nod to her heritage) is cuter than cute with her head of long black hair that won't lie still and the depth of those liquid, navy blue eyes. I've opened a book on whether she'll have brown eyes like her dad, or blue-grey like her mum, once her true colour comes in in a few weeks.

Like all new babies, she's finding her first few weeks of life a bit strange. So, she's at her most content at the breast and at her least content during the night when she finds herself alone and awake and doesn't know what she's supposed to do. Bath-time is a mix of fun and terror for her, I think. She adores the water - so close to what she knew for nine months in the womb - and has begun to be able to anticipate it, uncomplaining when 'sus padres' undress her in readiness for her swim, but can she squeal when it's time to come out and get dried! Ask the people on the floors above this flat!

Though, actually, the neighbours make their own share of noises. Dogs barking, clicking heels on the stone tiled floors, voices in the entrance hall. And, of course, the Elvis aficionado directly above us! Ah, Mexico City - home to 25 million people!

Crazy, crazy, chaotic city. A curious mix of poverty and excess. Of colonial hangovers in tree-lined streets and flat roofed houses with balconies, and ultra-modernity in the skyscrapers of the petrol and telecom giants.

Workshop at Clarkston Library

2009-10-08T08:36:00.007+01:00

The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival is running till 22 October. It's a super event, now in its third year, and already it's grown to be a significant cultural event with activities across the country. The aim is to transform attitudes to mental health and it's about time too. With headlines in the last two weeks about a vulnerable mother commiting suicide and taking her daughter with her because of constant derision and abuse by local bad boys, and two fourteen and fifteen year old care-home residents leaping, hand in hand, 180 feet to their death from the Erskine Bridge, it's clear that mental health issues often go unseen and that those suffering loss of hope or emotional pain often feel unsupported.

The thing that struck me when I was browsing the Festival brochure, though, was how up-beat the events are. The accent is on the positive: about self-expression through the arts and about having fun with it.

I was invited to run a creative writing workshop at Clarkston Library as part of East Renfrewshire Council's contribution to the Festival. What an experience! All good, from my point of view. Nineteen people turned up to the workshop, whose age ranged from Teenage to Third Age. Nineteen people is a massive turnout in creative writing workshop terms and with the workshop scheduled for one hour, an intensive - and I think entertaining - session followed.

Favourite of the evening was probably my collaborative writing exercise. This simple ice-breaking exercise has gone down well wherever I've run it, in university settings, Ladies Who Lunch writing groups and even among Spanish school children learning English language at the British Council School in Madrid. The principle is this: group the participants into threes or fours; give each person in the group a sheet of A4 paper with a different single line of prose on it, e.g. 'I jumped out of bed. Who was banging on the door?' or 'The smell hit me first.' (Although ' "My dear Lucinda," James said, tilting my chin ever so gently up towards the light' is also surprisingly popular!); tell everyone to read what's written and add the next sentence, then pass the sheet of paper to the person on their left; after about four or five sentences have been added, (depending on the time scale) announce that the next person to write on each sheet has to bring the story to an end.

After this, the group should read all the stories produced by their group and the facilitator can either ask each group to choose one favourite to be read aloud to the whole workshop, or if time permits, all the stories can be read out, e.g. all the 'smell' stories written by the different groups can be read one after the other.

This exercise works well as an ice-breaker because people are forced to engage with the others at the table. It works well in creative writing terms because it shows that stories can be generated out of nowhere, from random prompts. It also counters any reserve people have about showing their writing to others, and any fears of rejection, because these stories are all collaborative - so everyone in the group has played a part in any weak ones, but they've also all played a part in creating the strong ones, too.

At Clarkston Library, this exercise lasted almost twenty-five minutes but it was definitely the favourite of the night. After this, we looked at individual writing. I asked the participants to look at their hand and to write about it for a few minutes. This writing wasn't for sharing (I told them at the beginning). We discussed the kind of things they'd written about - i.e. how much was about observation of the physical 'object', looking for fine details, and how much the prompt made them delve into memories. Several actually looked forward through the generations, taking the connection of 'my hand' and linking it with the hand of a grandchild. In a workshop specifically geared towards mental well-being, this kind of exercise begins to open up the idea of discovery of 'self'. The short duration of the exercise (and the fact that it's followed a fun, collaborative one) keeps the introspection light.

After some discussion of observation and of sensory perception, I distributed a few signs of autumn to each table (wild rose twig with ripe hips, opened beech nut pods and fallen leaves, hawthorn, twig of elder berries) and introduced the group to Japanese haiku. Again, they were told that this next piece of writing wouldn't be shared, though time did allow a few volunteers to read aloud.

Writing about one's hand and writing haiku seem to me to work particularly well in writing groups where mental well-being is the theme. It's important, always, to gently warn against delving deeply into harmful memories. Writers are generally not qualified counsellors. However, it's clear that introspection can be a significant part of the desire to write. And part of the healing process. Writing helps us process our life experience and helps us come to terms with the past. It doesn't work when people become bogged down in going over and over old wounds and writing group facilitators should always warn against this. As the old song says, 'You've gotta accentuate the positive.' Keeping a writer's notebook can help with this because in it all the fleeting impressions of each new day can be jotted down. And the little observations of the natural world that are recorded there can be developed into haiku: an art form that encapsulates a moment of serenity and change. Of course, adhering to the strict form (17 syllables over three lines of 5, 7 and 5) and the care over word choice in such a restricted poem allow an opportunity to struggle to express an idea, an image, an emotion - in a vessel which is ultimately polished and beautiful: a little piece of perfection created by the writer alone.

My thanks to Gillian Hamilton and East Renfrewshire for inviting me to give the workshop. Thanks to her colleague Alison who helped out on the night. Thanks, too, to all the participants, whom I hope enjoyed the whirlwind tour we took of creative writing. And finally, thanks to Live Literature Funding, operated through the Scottish Book Trust, which operates a subsidy which enables local authorities and community groups to engage writers like me to take part in events like this with a professional level of remuneration.

The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival runs till 22 October.

The academic year begins again

2009-10-01T19:07:00.004+01:00

It's always such a buzz when the list of names arrives. Eighteen strangers, all with their individual histories, horror stories, happy times and hopes. The course I teach is managed online and there's a lot of technical 'stuff' to get through before the real studying can begin. Sometimes, students can be put off by this, yet, year after year, these same students look back with satisfaction not only for having passed the course but for having passed the ICT initiation, too!

Creative writing. Navel gazing? A way of making millions? A desire to express the thing that hurts the most (and maybe expunge it)? With creative writing courses so widespread now, the odds of all these students achieving fame are remote yet some will reach it. For the others, creative writing won't pay any bills but it will bring rewards and riches. The non-financial kind. The most important kind. The 'human' kind. Like all creative pursuits, writing should first and foremost be a way for all of us as individuals to explore this experience of being alive and being human, here, now, in this place and time. No other person has the same experience or the same view of the world and that makes each of those eighteen people whose names are on my list of new A215 students unique. I'm looking forward to reading about their life, experience and imagination over the next eight or nine months and to helping them take a step nearer achieving their writing dream.

Tides and currents and family

2009-09-18T09:08:00.004+01:00

What a crazy week. On Saturday, my two youngest children moved into university halls forty miles apart. We moved them both on the same day and all went well till a lorry went on fire on the motorway. Hey, what's a couple of hours' detour and delay when the sun is shining on Airdrie and Armadale and your passenger is eager to start her new, independent life? And how empty was the house once we got home? I swear, I think I saw a tumbleweed blow by the empty bedrooms out of the corner of my eye.

Monday came and with it the disappointment of a too-thin letter from the Scottish Arts Council, posted second class. Yes, all that effort and emotional investment, only to find out there was to be no Writer's Bursary for me this time. I did receive one in 2002 and it made such a difference to me - financially as well as psychologically. This time, I was hoping to be able to drastically reduce the number of hours I work for the Open University so that I could concentrate on writing a novel set in the present but with historical mini-narratives within it. Needs a lot of research time. A lot of alchemical dream time to be able to integrate facts gleaned from historical sources with creative visualisation, imagining the character in his environment. What can he hear, smell, touch, taste, see around him? Ach well, nae luck. File 'Salt and sand' at the bottom of the pile for a wee while.

Yesterday (Thursday) we had a case of Facebook-inspired near hysteria after a fairly cryptic comment was posted by my son-in-law Aldo. Dear Aldo. It really wasn't his fault but those of us waiting for news of my daughter Ruth's pregnancy 7000 miles away interpreted it as meaning Ruth was in labour four weeks early. After many fairly anxious hours and several attempts to contact them - and some further inconclusive messages on Facebook - all was revealed. Indeed, it was a matter of fertility but only of the imagination. Ha! Well, the time will come and we will be waiting!

Sprinkled through the crazy week were many skype webcam calls to daughter Alison in Tokyo. Ah, poor Alison. Missing her man. How fate teases us! She met him and fell headlong down the well of love three or four months before she was due to spend her year in Japan. As Rabbie Burns said so much better than I can - the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley!

Throughout this week, while the ripples and swells of my daughters' lives have tugged and carried me, the deeper current has allowed me to make more of a return to writing. I'm working on a fairly light, contemporary novel set in the south of France and I'm aiming to write 5,000 words a week over the summer. Last summer I wrote 42,000 words of it and so far I've taken that up to 69,000. The target is 80,000 but as I always have to edit my writing hard to remove loadsa gibberish and flabbiness, I suppose I really need to aim at 100,000. Hmm. With OU work starting again late September I guess that's not going to be easy. However, until January I'm only teaching one of my usual two courses so I'm optimistic I'll be able to get there. More on 'A spell in the south' in a future post.

Writing tips - Do something different!

2009-09-01T16:17:00.003+01:00

It's hard to be sparkly in your writing if you don't feel sparkly in yourself. If you're looking for inspiration or motivation to write, these tips might help you.

Do something different!
Go for a bus-ride to see what you can see (and smell, and touch, and hear).
Take a walk in the daylight.
Sit in a crowded fast-food shop to sharpen your ear to young dialogue.
Find a tree and hug it (and describe in your notebook exactly what your senses picked up).
Lie on your living room floor for five minutes. Ask yourself, 'what if...?'
Take a walk in the dark.
Read a short story.
Spend half an hour on a noisy station concourse.
Give yourself a break. No one can produce sparkly writing all the time!

A (temporary) farewell to Alison

2009-08-28T10:18:00.004+01:00

Curious mix of emotions this week. My second oldest daughter, Alison, sets off for Japan on Sunday morning. She's studying Japanese at Edinburgh University and it's compulsory for her to spend third year abroad, so she's going to university in Tokyo for ten months.

She's always been lured by Japanese culture and it's been her ambition to travel there since she was in Primary School. Or even earlier. In my mind's eye, I can still see her sitting in front of the TV as a three or four year old, watching the Japanese animé Dragonball Z. She's been hooked ever since.

So - safe journey, Alison. Bon voyage and when you think about all the loved ones you've left behind, remember the metaphor from that John Donne poem I sent you - 'Our two soules therefore, which are one, Though I must goe, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.' (A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning)

Or, hey - why not think of Leonard Cohen's words? 'You know my love goes with you, as your love stays with me. It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea.' (Hey, that's no way to say goodbye).

Looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing all the photos!

2009-08-09T09:28:00.000+01:00

I'm very pleased about the new Gutter magazine, partly because it looks so ... literarily respectable (?) but also because my story is the first, immediately after the editorial! That feels very special and is a great boost. Thanks, Adrian Searle and Colin Begg!

The launch night went well. Loads of people were there and Mono was buzzing. I actually saw a couple of friends, too, which was fun. In particular, I saw David Bell and Catherine Baird, two writers I've worked with through the OU and North Lanarkshire Council. I also chatted briefly with Elizabeth Reeder but couldn't stay for a long catch-up.

On another note, last week brought lots of other good news. My seventeen year old twins, Liane and Mairi, got their exam results. Having already secured their places at university through their fifth year (Higher) results, their sixth year (Advanced Higher) results were less essential but of course if you put in the work, you want to do well. Anyway, Liane got Advanced Higher Music and Advanced Higher French, both at band A, and she got an A for Latin Higher, too (and passed philosophy and classical studies 'units'). Mairi got A bands for Advanced Higher Maths and Advanced Higher Physics, too. She also got an A for Higher Chemistry and for Higher French at the same sitting. So, their results couldn't have been any better and my heart couldn't be more happy for them. Well done, girls!

Guttered

2009-08-04T09:20:00.000+01:00

Looking forward to Thursday because that's when the first edition of Gutter Magazine comes out and my story Frozen Waste is due to appear in it. Launch is to be held in Mono, the vegan café-bar-restaurant in King's Court in Glasgow at 6.30pm. Big names like Scar Culture writer Toni Davidson and Ewan Morrison were asked to write stories for this first issue and people like Alan Warner, Kirsty Gunn and Kathleen Jamie are on the editorial board, so here's hoping the mag attracts lots of critical attention. Freight Design are publishing it and they do a great job with everything they touch. They did the 'Knuckle End' anthology a few years ago, too.

Anyway, the launch will have some free drink and nibbles, some short readings and socialising. Looking forward to it. 'Frozen Waste', incidentally, was written as a first draft about six years ago but every now and then I pulled it out of the drawer and tidied it up, cutting it down from its original 4000 words to try to squeeze it into various shapes of magazines and competitions. When I saw Gutter's mission statement and requirements, it struck a chord with me as it fits a lot of the themes and socio-political issues I'm interested in so I gave the story another little spring clean, slimmed it down to 3000 words and sent it off.

Here's the Gutter website: http://www.guttermag.co.uk/

2009-08-03T17:01:00.000+01:00

Hey, well, here we are. Summer 2009 and I've finally got round to setting up this blog, which I signed up for months ago. What does that suggest for the future? Regular posts or what?

I've chosen this photo because it looks like a kindly me, maybe a slightly granny-ish look, and that's probably appropriate. But never judge a book by its cover!

Over the next wee while, I hope to be able to use this blog to keep in touch with friends old and new, including former students from my classes with The Open University. So, if you're reading this, why not get in touch and let me know how you're doing? I'd love to hear.