Sunshine

Coffee and Writing in the Garden

Chapter Six begins to take shape

Completing Chapter 5

Completing Chapter Five of Lore out in the garden :)

Started Chapter Five

8,654 words into Lore

Writing Outdoors

Raggerty and Pinoccio

Two of the scariest things from my childhood were Raggerty from Rupert Bear and the old illustrations from my 1961 edition of Pinoccio. These images stirred terrifying concepts in my young mind and have brewed in my head for decades. They now form the inspiration for the third chapter of my third novel, Lore...

Morning Writing

Cat Love

Editing Lore...

Merman Research

I love this image of a merman. It is exactly how I envisioned the creature washed up at the start of my new novel Lore. The drawing is by Arthur Rackam and you can find more of his great artwork here.

Folklore Research

Lore - Making a start on my 3rd novel

Lore Begins...

Holidaying in a remote region of the Isle of Skye, overlooking the sea. No internet, mobile phone or even a TV signal for a week! Lovely to be able to switch off from the world and just chill though. Also, this lack of modern distractions can make for a very creative experience.

Conjuring up fresh ideas for a new novel at Greshornish, Skye

There is something very hypnotic about the sea. Watching its waters stirs the imagination. And with a window seat with a view as magnificent as this, you can bet I spent a good few hours just watching the waves and wildlife that lived here:

My window view for a whole week :)

Whilst I already had an idea for a short story about a merman planned out, having so much free time to just sit and ponder, I fleshed out and expanded upon that tale and soon had the beginnings of a full length novel concocted in my head.

Merman Inspiration

All, and I mean all, of the original ideas behind my fiction writing occur to me whilst I am out walking in the wilds. My muse is obviously the outdoors type. This past weekend, whilst taking a walk along a lonely stretch of coastline, I happened upon this particular scene:

The scene that set up an entire short story

The picture shows a large log/tree stump that had been washed ashore on a particularly high tide. Now, my eyesight is not at all good these days, but the lack of clarity in my sight does, I believe, make food for creative thought. For example, it can take a little while for me to work out exactly what it is that sometimes catches my eye on my countryside walks. My mind then engages in a little creative whimsy as it tries to focus on the object it tries to delineate. In this particular instance, I wondered if this object washed up on the high tide line might have been a seal. Then I realised it was too big to be a seal- it being of almost of sea-lion dimensions. But, of course, exotic animals like sea lions never get washed up on the U.K. coastline, do they?. Hmm. I then wondered what other wonderful creature it would be fascinating to discover washed up here. The thing looked large, with a tail and a torso, maybe? As I neared the object, it turned out, as it so often does, to be something far more mundane than my imagination had fired me up for - a great whacking log. But my creative juices had been stirred and I had myself a rather late night when I got back home as I jotted out the rough outline of  a story of an old fisherman who stumbles upon the washed up body of an aged merman!

I am rather proud of the fishy little tale I conceived after this foreshore walk. I have always wanted to write a tale of Selkies and Mermen/Mermaids and often enjoy a bit of reading on their folklore. The story is now fully fleshed out and will be next writing project when I complete work on Edn™...