Quoyloo Quill

                                          Sorry for the partially misleading title, this has nothing to do with Captain Kirk or Star Trek. As those familiar with this blog may know, my brother is called Jim. The heading is the inspiration for a talk I'm preparing for a book event in Wick, early October. It is being organised by Wick writer Glyn Salisbury and more on this may follow in future blogs. My talk, as you may have surmised, is on writing historical fiction - or at least my experiences of doing so. Hence the quick sand warning in the photo! Historical fiction is a broad church, so to speak. My first novel The Organist (Yolk Publishing 2016) can be described as a historical love story, set in 1911/1912. I wanted to set it just before the Great War and as I first had the notion to write it in 2012 I thought a hundred years before that was a good place to beg...

  I first met Val on Shapinsay, about four or five years ago, at the Elwick Bookwrights writing group. She spoke with great enthusiasm about the memoir she was writing and I was keen to learn more about it. It therefore gives me great pleasure to share this blog from Valerie. My Walk of Faith by Val More I really felt I wanted to share my experience of what recovering from an addiction is like, what my life was like leading up to it, and then how wonderful life can be after it. I grew up on the beautiful island of Hoy. I have two wonderful sons and three grandchildren, who I'm very proud of, along with my daughter-in-law Deanna. Looking back on my life, I have had lots of ups and downs, but it has made me into the person I am today. Writing this book has opened up a lot of old wounds, but on the whole I'm glad I have done it. I now live on the island of Shapinsay with my wonderful husband Andrew and our animals: Ben our collie dog, 3 cats, goats, turkeys, chickens and ducks - a...