No rest for the wicked. And so tomorrow, first thing, to a Creative Loop meeting at BBC Scotland’s Pacific Quay to talk about the recent trip to Namibia, and then on to my old alma mater, Strathclyde University, for a one-day creative writing conference. On the bill, key speaker and an ex-classmate of mine, Louise [...]
Sometimes the work you get involved in is interesting, sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes it’s life-changing. As my friend and ex-colleague John Collins says herejohnco.co.uk/2011/05/22/thoughts-en-route-home/ the Namibian trip is among the latter type. And he’s got the photo to prove it. Wonder where things will go from here?
So here it is – news of last week’s visit to Namibia. Windhoek means the place where the winds meets, and we were glad of the breeze in the 80 degree heat, though to the Africans we met it was the dead of winter. That’s me on the balcony of a bar overlooking the city, [...]
The cover for the novel is with me. Sorry, no sneak previews. But it looks great.
In the meantime, I’ve been away for the last six days walking the Rob Roy Way, seventy-three miles from Drymen to Pitlochry with stops at Aberfoyle, Callendar, Strathyre, Killin, Altarnaig and Aberfeldy – Rob Roy and the MacGregor clan’s traditional territory. Fantastic views from the hills onto hidden lochans, glens that nothing but the birds ever see and strenuous walks over the peaks.
Rob Roy’s someone I did a bit of work on a couple of years ago. He’s very much a figure overlaid by other legends, the apocryphal one of Robin Hood among them. Indeed, there’s work to be done on legendary outlaws who stand for resistance to authority among the oppressed, figures like Jesse James, King Arthur, Big Foot, Sitting Bull, Rob Roy and Robin of Sherwood himself, to argue that these types of historical figures become legends precisely because people need to believe in them.
I won’t be doing it though. Too many other things to get on with.
But that’s him at the top of the page. He was no oil painting, as they say – although this is an oil painting of course. And here’s the kind of Romantic portrayal of his stamping ground that became part of his popular image.
He was said by some (Walter Scott) to have abnormally long arms, and everyone is agreed (and his name of Red Rob confirms) on his bright red hair. He wasn’t the MacGregor chieftain, but the chief’s uncle, but his qualities of leadership led his proscribed or outlawed clan to the battles of Glensheil and Sherrifmuir, where he played something of an ambiguous part, restraining his troops until the worst of the fighting was over, and retreating before it was finished.
He also seems to have been both a Jacobite and a Hanovarian spy – a double agent, in other words. But then, if you were in his position, stuck between two warring dukes (Montrose and Argyll), and on the borders of two different languages, religions and cultures, you’d hedge your bets too. And that was precisely what he did right to the end, even on his death-bed, converting to Catholicism just before he shuffled off this mortal coil.
Not so much a warrior after all. But a great politician.
But it’s the legend that’s important, not the truth, and that’s what people go in search of when they walk the hills.
Back to work tomorrow. Oh well. Here’s to the next holiday!
The title’s decided, the proofs are (almost) complete.
Photographs and the cover are on their way.
It remains now to plan and launch the book. And open out this web presence in an entirely new way.
But I can’t do it all at once, or even say what it is that’s on its way. But it looks – from all soundings – like it’s going to be pretty big. A bestseller already, by all accounts.
In the meantime, it must remain a mystery, like whatever’s on this angel’s mind.
Wonder what she’s thinking about?
Last night to the Creative Loop Student Media Festival, the first but surely not the last two-day series of workshops, competitions and training meetings for students of audio, games, animation, design and fiction in Scotland, and saw one of the best, mostly-tightly organized and enjoyable celebrations of today’s upcoming young talent I’ve ever seen.
With students winning prizes from colleges and Universities across Scotland, from Aberdeen, Abertay and Adam Smith (Glenrothes) in the east to the RSAMD, Cardonald College and Reid Kerr College in the west, it was a truly representative collection of the best of today’s young media producers all gathered under one roof in the CCA in Glasgow.
Gary Tank Commander presented the awards and proved yet again that the ‘back channel’ to success is well and truly open.
I’m looking forward to getting the University of the West of Scotland involved next year, by hook or by crook.
This Saturday I’ll be one of fifty or so writers of all shapes, colours and hues attending this conference at the CCA in Glasgow.
Run by the English-based National Association of Writers in Education and their writers’ development unit The Writer’s Compass, the conference seeks to bring writers together to workshop and discuss the oldest chestnut there is in the author’s life: how to make money from it.
Morning and afternoon sessions will do just that, with input from Creative Scotland, the Scottish Book Trust, Canongate Books, literary agents and professional writers who actually make a living from their work – well, some of the time, anyway.
And hard on the heels of this up-beat, encouraging stuff comes the news – just out – that NAWE itself, which promotes and extends Creative Writing through its biggest employer, education, has suffered a 100% funding cut from 2012.
Part-time employment, self-promotion on-line, half a dozen strings to your bow instead of just one … Time to turn the next page indeed …
