Sharing the Story

Hard to believe it’s been six months since my last letter and harder still to stuff in all the news without giving you indigestion. So - pick and mix from the smorgasbord!

I keep telling people that being Writer in Residence for the Cairngorms National Park is my dream job, and so it has proved. The focus of the role has been delivering the project Shared Stories: A Year in the Cairngorms, encouraging people to write about how we and nature thrive together. It has taken me all over this extra-ordinary landscape and enabled me to meet so many interesting people as I have led workshops and hosted drop-ins. The most recent event was Forest Fest at the Highland Folk Museum. You can read all about it and the other work on my blog, Writing the Way.

Young friend at Forest Fest

But the role hasn’t always been easy. In the noisy, crowded information highway it can be a challenge getting news of the project to a target audience; some events had to be cancelled because of low numbers, but then I kept meeting people who said they would have come if only they’d known! Or, sometimes the audience is captive – like in a school – but sceptical. Mostly, though, I’ve found people responsive and enthusiastic. One pupil evaluation ticked both project aims in one breath: “I enjoyed going outside as it made me inspired!”

Kingussie High School pupils by the River Spey, looking at the Cairngorms

But probably the most challenging aspect has been my own writing around the project themes. The freedom to explore was both a welcome opportunity and a source of anxiety. Would I produce work that was good enough? (What’s good enough, and by whose measure, anyway?) What should that body of work be? What do I want to show for myself by the end of the year? So far, the writing has included articles for several publications, including Northwords Now and BBC Countryfile Magazine, as well as my own blog posts. They have been a valuable way of charting my Cairngorms experiences, but I knew I wanted to push myself into new territory creatively. In particular, I wanted to use this year to develop my poetry, and that has proved both stimulating and difficult. Surprise, surprise, it’s not easy to write stuff as good as the work I most admire. But I’m learning a lot from trying.

Carl Sandburg said, “Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.” There is something inherently un-natural about its creation, but the finished work should feel as fluent as mother-tongue. That is art.

Festival Fever

Speaking of art, what do you get when you combine a woolly mammoth telling dirty jokes on a unicycle with a beer-bottle wind band from Barbados? (Not the plot of my next novel, I assure you.) It’s probably a show on the Edinburgh Fringe, and one of the quieter ones at that. I’ve just spent three days in the dizzy city last week on my annual festival jaunt, but am clearly getting too old for all the usual revelry. Happily, I did get to two plays: The Red Hourglass by the hugely talented Alan Bisset (not for arachnophobes) and Red Dust Road, the stage adaptation of Jackie Kay’s moving memoir of finding her birth parents. This year, however, I spent most of my time in the tented cloisters of the Edinburgh International Book Festival where I was the Chair for three children’s book events. They were all for 5-8 yr-olds, so my job was easy and fun, simply introducing the authors and thanking them at the end. It was a great insight into the creativity and hard work of Mike Nicholson, Sibéal Pounder and Harriet Muncaster, and heartening to see how much children still love books. Around those events I enjoyed attending several talks and interviews in the adult book programme as well as meeting lots of writer pals, old and new.

With Mike Nicholson

Sibéal Pounder and fans

Harriet Muncaster, author & illustrator

You may remember that last year I started writing my own book for kids, aimed at the 8-12 year-old bracket that publishers call ‘middle grade’. My former book group at Kingussie High School all read the draft, gleefully corrected my typos and met with me to give incredibly valuable responses. “Use more commas instead of ‘and’ all the time.” “I LOVED the wolf cub!” I was also extremely privileged to have feedback from my friend, Linda Strachan, who has written extensively for kids and teens. Everyone seemed to like the book and their suggestions weren’t too onerous, so I managed to finish and send it off at the end of July. My agent, Cathryn, said she would read it on holiday, which seems incredibly generous, so I await her response.

My beloved book group and literary advisors

And yes, I’m still awaiting news of Colvin’s Walk. It’s dispiriting, but there is nothing to report. I just have to keep working on new things (like being a sea animal on land) and hope that the right match with the right publisher comes soon.

Meanwhile, I’ve kept busy with other projects alongside Shared Stories. In February I ran a workshop for Highland Lit called ‘Do You Read Me?’ about feedback on our writing, and in May had my third visit to the Moniack Mhor Young Writers group. I’ve also made two visits this year to the Bugle creative writing group organised by the Bethany Christian Trust in Edinburgh, who work with people experiencing homelessness. I was struck by the honesty, originality and skill of the work that emerged there.

The Bethany Bugle Group

The year has also involved considerable work in my post as Co-Chair of The Society of Authors in Scotland, including a presentation at The Scottish Book Trade Conference, trips to London for Management Committee meetings and my first London Book Fair. I finish that role at our AGM next month and will be glad of a bit more time. Finally, a highlight of my summer was attending Solas Festival again where I met wonderful people, danced the Charleston and led workshops on spiritual journaling and creative writing.

The Solas Groove

Coming up, I will be giving a talk at Ness Book Fest on Friday 4th October called A Sense of Place about my “encounters with people and the natural world in one of the most treasured - and controversial – areas of the Highlands.” And for anyone near Pitlochry, there will be a series of three workshops at the John Muir Trust Wild Space there on Monday afternoons, 30th Sep, 7th and 14th Oct for the Shared Stories project.

Thanks for reading this far and, more importantly, for walking the way with me. The interest and support of folks around the world makes all the difference.

Namaste,

Merryn