Culross I took time out to visit Culross last month. I’ve been many times, but as I’m now a member of the National Trust, it meant I had free entry to the Palace, so I wanted to revisit before it closes for the winter. It is described a a unique example of a merchant house … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 67
Catch-up It’s been a busy few weeks. Work has been full-on and fitting writing around it has been challenging. I’ve left the structural edit of The Clockmaker Conspiracy alone for now while I am now in the swing of writing out the draft of a follow-up to The Canongate Containment. I’m effectively doing NaNoWriMo in … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 65
Poetry It struck me the other day that I haven’t blogged about poetry. Looking at my book shelves I have a number of individual collections and anthologies which I dip into on a regular basis. Being Scottish, I was brought up with Robert Burns and had to learn by heart a number of his poems. … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 64
Doune Castle I revisited Doune Castle at the beginning of September. Those who are fans of the Outlander series, will know this was used for the fictional Castle Leoch, where Colum MacKenzie and his clan lived. As always I took a great many photographs, despite having done so on previous occasions. If you have watched … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 63
Castle Campbell I recently revisited Castle Campbell. With a backdrop of the Ochil Hills, it has a commanding view high above Dollar Glen and when standing on the top of the tower you can see why the location was chosen all those centuries ago. The architecture of the tower dates from the 1400’s, though it … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 62
Chapter One I hadn’t realised until I started the opening draft of the second book in my Will Logan dystopian crime series, that I spend around a week on chapter one before moving on and writing the rest of the novel in around four weeks. It appears I like to have a solid foundation on … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 61
The Clockmaker Conspiracy I donated blood, so this is just a brief note to say again, if you can then please do. I understand not everyone is able for good reasons, but if you are fit to do so, then please think about it and give it a go. You have nothing to lose, other … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 59
Canongate 2 In part 55 I blogged about the feeling a new novel was on its way and hoping I would be able to do NaNoWriMo in September. I can report I’m all ready to go. I had an idea for a second book featuring my Edinburgh old town detective Will Logan, so I put … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 58
CODI Edinburgh Fringe 2023 On Monday I performed my show ‘Cybercrime is not just for Criminals’ as part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It took place at the The Stand’s New Town Theatre in George Street and completed a run of three shows this year, the first being in … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 57
Number One The weekend of the 22nd and 23rd July saw The Kill Chain on a free promotion. I was delighted with how well the novel performed against some amazing reads. In the technothriller chart – which is right in my genre for this book – I reached number one in the UK, Canada, France … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 56
The Fiction Factory 