So, my friend Dr Doug asked to borrow my trail camera (bought for photographing wildlife) to solve A Mystery. Mrs Doug went to put her shoes on the other morning and found 15 peanuts in the left one. She was slightly mystified as they don’t even have peanuts in the house. A mouse! thought Dr Doug, so they left the peanuts in the shoe that night and sprinkled flour on the floor so the mystery marauder would leave tracks.

Next morning: No tracks. 13 peanuts in left shoe. Perhaps they’d miscounted? Ah… No… Also 9 peanuts in right shoe. Levitating mouse? Elves? Benign poltergeist? Bring on the trail camera.

to be continued…

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I was in Paris for a few days holiday recently – first time I’ve been for several years. If only all station restaurants looked like Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon, where we ate one night…

Someone clearly said, ‘I don’t want an inch of this left undecorated. Give me mirrors, gilding, murals – then double it.’ Truly fantastic and not a bit like Waverley…

But it’s not only station restaurants that ooze French chic. We stumbled on the window display of the local pest control company… And now I can’t find a way to get it off my stupid phone and into this post!!! Grr… Will have to put it on Instagram instead; yes, I have joined the 21st century. I can promise there will be no downward dogs or avocados – unless avocado is the garnish for a cocktail I haven’t met yet…

 

The thing about research is that you have to find out much, much more than eventually makes it into your book, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. And sometimes you have to leave out some of your favourite discoveries.

This is a picture of a favourite I had to regretfully accept wouldn’t make it into print in the book I’ve just finished. Meet Captain John ‘Kitty’ Moisant and his pet – and co-pilot – Mademoiselle Fifi. Captain Kitty was an early aviator so devoted to his cat that she accompanied him on many of his flights (she may well have been the first cat to fly across the English Channel). He sometimes carried paying passengers, who had to cope not only with Fifi sitting next to them, but with the litter tray that Captain Kitty had installed in the cockpit for her convenience. (And you thought Ryanair was bad…).

Sadly, Captain Kitty died in a flying accident in 1910, but, looking on the bright side, Fifi wasn’t in the plane at the time, so was able to attend his funeral in this rather fetching mourning outfit…

Actually, I feel Fifi deserves her own picture book… What’s not to like about a cat aviatrix?

I love researching for non-fiction books. Of course, there are things that don’t pique your interest as much as you would like (for me it was developments in aircraft design), but, equally, you stumble across some fantastically strange facts.

The book I’ve just been working on (more on that soon) led me to the fact that the first spacecraft (The Soviet Zond 5 mission) to go round the back of the moon and return safely carried two tortoises (sadly not wearing tiny helmets like the one in the photo). Who would ever have thought that tortoises were the first creatures to see the far side of the moon? And what really fascinates me about it is that, given how long tortoises can live, they might still be alive out there somewhere… I haven’t been able to find out what happened to them, so if anyone knows…

Finding it difficult to sit down at the desk? Turned procrastination into an artform? Trying to ignore a deadline? Maybe, like me, you need a Guilt Buddy.

The Guilt Buddy is that person who will send you the email that triggers your conscience, or your ambition, or your determination to just get on with it and write! You need someone you can trust to know how hard to poke you, and when. I know some people swear by computer programs that set you deadlines, but I’m not about to surrender to an algorithm any time soon. Instead, I have Rosemary, and she has me, and she is the reason why I have given myself a slap and begun to blog again. And it’s NOT a way of procrastinating to avoid the real writing; it’s in addition to it, so there.

Thankyou Rosemary!

Now, why don’t you lot find your own Guilt Buddies and let me know how it works out for you?

James Marchbank

This is 14 year old James Marchbank, whose story I told in my most recent book A Secret Diary of the First World War. Along with thousands of other teenage soldiers, he fought on the Western Front from 1914-18. The book has been out for several months now, and I’ve moved on to other projects, but I can’t get James out of my head. The difference between him and those other thousands is that he was – aged just 14 – fighting legally, with everyone aware of just how young he was. This was because he had already enlisted in the Territorial Forces (1/8th Battalion Royal Scots) as a boy drummer and bugler. In all my research, I didn’t come across anyone else in this situation, and I now wonder if he may have been the youngest legal serving soldier on the Western Front. I’m not quite sure where to head or who to ask to find out more about this, so if anyone out there has any ideas…

I may be the world’s worst user of social media… People look aghast when I say I don’t have an Instagram account, hardly post on Facebook and have given up blogging on my own site. I’d like to say all this is about to change, but we all know I’ve been here before, don’t we? However, I’m nothing if not optimistic (or do I mean unrealistic?) so here goes…

Actually, it’s a good metaphor for the whole messy business of writing. If I’d been put off by the years of stories that didn’t work out, and books that kept getting rejected, I’d still be dreaming of being an author, instead of being at work on my 20th book. So… I will try to channel that persistence. And come up with posts people want to read!

Watch this space – I’m just off to find out how to open and Instagram account. Once I find out what Instagram actually is…

I swear the book festival only finished about 10 minutes ago, and suddenly it’s the 20th of September.. Who stole 1-19??? Admittedly, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get to grips with the garden (running out of ideas for what to do with apples now…) and generally catching up with myself. And getting Student Son back to Dundee. And I have been arranging a number of author visits for the autumn, which you can find on the Events page. And talking to a publisher about a new book, which has then involved a lot of reading about World War One. So, actually, I suppose that’s where it’s gone, now I come to think of it.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a fun and informative weekend at the Scotswrite conference, catching up with various writer chums and listening to words of wisdom from lots of people in the publishing industry. And there’s a gin tasting. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Okay, sorry about that. I can seldom resist a pun even this bad. Here I am with the rest of the vampire-hunting crew, just about to entertain 70 primary school children for an hour during Schools’ Gala Day at the EIBF! Prof MacHelsing and I were a bit nervous, since we’d never previously delivered this workshop for more than 30 pupils at once, and never at all with pupils as young as most of them were. However, ably assisted by Jonathan and Mina Harker and the lunatic Renfield, all went according to plan and Countess Dracula was unveiled. We’d forgotten the garlic and the stake, so we just had to send her off home with everyone else, but she promised not to bite anyone…

I meant to blog regularly about the Book Festival, but I was so involved attending and taking part in events that it didn’t work out quite as I had hoped. However, the dust is beginning to settle now, so it’s time for me to look back at some more high points. Simon Callow talking about Wagner, Bettany Hughes on Istanbul, Joanne Harris on Norse mythology… Trying to listen to the Unthanks against a background of torrential rain, rock music from another venue and the Tattoo fireworks… Seeing every one of the Book Festival staff dressed up for the Where’s Wally theme on Schools’ Gala Day… A L Kennedy reading from her latest book; I completely agree with the audience member who was trying to convince her to voice the audio version… Talking to author Marcus Sedgewick (a bit of a hero) in the yurt… Staring in awe at the vision that is Sarah MacIntyre in full performance rig…