Finishing Touches in Scotland

(Photo © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures)

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her third and final report from this last weekend’s Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival, held in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child, her observations on the conference’s opening events, and her notes on Bloody Scotland’s first full day of activities.)

The schedule was lighter on Sunday and, as it turned out, I had already seen many of the participating authors in other panels the previous day. So I decided to attend Caro Ramsay’s event featuring the preparation of dishes taken from The Killer Cookbook, a 2012 paperback collection of recipes--supplied by crime-fiction writers--that she edited. I had heard from one of the scheduled panelists, Craig Robertson (Witness the Dead), that he was going to make blood pudding. How appropriate.

By the time the doors to the MacLaren Suite (where this panel presentation was to take place) finally opened, though, the program had changed. According to Ramsay, bustling behind a long table heaped over with glasses, spirits, jars of condiments, and fruits, the folks from Health and Safety had been along and determined that seven mystery authors cooking with high heat and sharp knives was not on. However, mixology was OK.

So two squads were lined up: Team Boy (Craig Robertson and Gordon Brown) vied against the women on Team Blonde (Lin Anderson, Alex Gray, Catriona McPherson, and Ramsay). Team Boy chose to make Tom Black’s Killer Margarita (Black being the husband of Sue Black, director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University), while Team Blonde tackled The Peter James Vodka Martini Writing Special. I looked about and no one else seemed to see the irony that in the middle of Scotch country, we were straining to sample tequila and vodka. Since there wasn’t quite enough booze, Team Blonde also made Aline Templeton’s Bloody Mary Tomatoes.

In the meantime, Alex Gray distributed scones served with raspberry jam and “squirty” cream (UK-speak for whipped cream in an aerosol can) that she had made earlier at home, while someone else was passing around “flapjacks,” oats mixed with dates and honey. Call it the Stirling Silly Season or just a Bloody Good Time; either way it was tasty chaos.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the party early to queue up for the festival’s finale: “At the Top of His Game,” a sold-out event showcasing author Lee Child.

If you have never had a chance to see Lee Child in a public presentation, do your best to remedy that sometime. By his own admission, he went into writing to be an entertainer, and he obviously feels right at home on stage. (Unlike, say, Jo Nesbø, who got his entertaining chops early on as a footballer and a rock star, Child admits that he has no musical talent; so, as he said, appearing at events such as these is his outlet.)

Author Peter Guttridge (The Devil’s Moon) once more acted as interlocutor, and he took Child down memory lane to his boyhood in Birmingham, England--which, Child readily admitted, could get quite obstreperous. In fact, Child was a bit of a “wide boy,” engaging frequently in fisticuffs (often to defend his younger brother, Andrew Grant) and sewing razor blades under the lapels of his school jacket (a defense against someone grabbing him by the lapels. As Child explained, “You only do it once.”). The surprise was not that he went to such lengths, remarked Child, but that he knew how to sew.

For a two-year-old festival, Bloody Scotland drew some impressive crowds. (Photo © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures)

These tales of a rough-and-tumble youth, Child admitted, inform the character of his series protagonist, Jack Reacher.

At one point, Child was asked whether it was true that he “planned to end the Reacher series after 21 books, an homage to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee.” Child acknowledged he had always planned such an ending, but now that he’s nearing 21 books (this year’s Never Go Back being his 18th), he isn’t so sure anymore. He said that he had plans to kill Jack Reacher off in an appropriate manner--say, having him take a bullet meant for someone else and then bleeding out in a motel bathroom. Now, he reckons he may not do that. Instead, Reacher might just stroll into the sunset, giving Child’s daughter, Ruth (now in her early 30s), a chance to pick up the franchise.

Another thing learned from this event: Child is a thoughtful wordsmith in that he considers writing a one-on-one experience with each reader. Yes, many people may buy and read his books, but when you pick up any of his Reacher tales, it is really the two of you communing. He finds that meaningful. And I think it shows in the writing.

So that concludes Bloody Scotland for 2013. Next year’s festival will convene on September 19, the day after the referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom is held. It should be an interesting time.

READ MORE: “Video: Bloody Scotland 2013,” by John Dingwall
(Daily Record).

A Bloody Embarrassment of Riches

Swedish crime novelist Arne Dahl attends Bloody Scotland 2013. (All photographs in this post © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures, used with permission.)

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her second report from the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival taking place this weekend in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child and her observations on the conference’s opening day.)

It was an unusually (at least for Scotland) sunny Saturday morning, the first full day of Bloody Scotland. Time to attend my initial panel discussion, “Dark Deeds,” featuring authors Denise Mina (The Red Road) and Louise Welsh (The Girl on the Stairs), and moderated by Peter Guttridge (The Devil’s Moon). After each woman read a short passage from her latest novel, Guttridge asked them if they consider themselves “crime writers.” Both demurred. Mina said she writes detective stories, but was a member of the “church of crime.” Welsh sees her writing as a form of stealth politics; she points out inequities and prejudices in society without writing a manifesto.

Both women also write in other media: Mina is currently composing graphic-novel versions of the books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (which include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Welsh has written plays and opera librettos. Both enjoy those diversions from the task of crafting books; writing graphic novels, plays, and operas are collaborative endeavors. Mina suggests that being solitary for the 18 months or so it takes to turn out a novel can make you “mental.”

At noon I moved over to a different presentation, this one titled “New Nordic Noir” and focusing on Swedish author Arne Dahl, a pen name used by Jan Arnold. I’m not sure about the “new” part; Dahl wrote his set of 10 books, five of which have been dramatized and shown on the BBC, almost 15 years ago. Because of that TV exposure, Dahl is incredibly popular in the UK; unfortunately, the Swedish Arne Dahl TV series has not been widely broadcast in the United States.

You could say that Dahl (who, as Arnold, was already a “literary” writer) decided to try his hand at crime fiction during a fever dream. In the early 1990s, he suddenly found himself with the flu and a high fever. Lying in bed, he tried to read the works of Franz Kafka, which he acknowledges now was probably not the best choice. Frustrated, he turned instead to Faceless Killers (1997), the opening installment in Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander mystery series. That experience convinced him to try his own hand at crime-fiction writing. Two of the 10 books he wrote over a 10-year period have been translated into English: The Blinded Man (published in the States as Misterioso) and Bad Blood.

(Right) Queuing at Albert Halls for the next event.

Dahl told his audience that he had no idea he’d become so fond of (or so rich from) penning crime fiction. He’s already produced three books in a second, “Opcop” series, this one involving international crime and a detective with Europol.

The 2013 Bloody Scotland festival is certainly an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the renown of its attendees. (Where do I begin? Denise Mina, Val McDermid, Jo Nesbø, Stuart Neville, Lee Child, and Louise Welsh--whose The Cutting Room is probably one of the best Scottish crime novels of all time.) However, I was still excited to sit in on the “Keeping Secrets” session with Charles Cumming and Chris Morgan Jones.

I haven’t yet read any of Morgan Jones’ works, but Cumming is the natural successor, at least in my opinion, to John le Carré. (Last year, Cumming’s A Foreign Country won the inaugural Scottish Crime Book of the Year award. Cumming, who lives in London, was born in Scotland.) Morgan Jones began writing fiction after he’d spent more than a decade working for Kroll Inc., an international risk-management firm based in New York City. His protagonist, Benjamin Webster (The Jackal’s Share), is a former journalist turned investigator for an international corporate intelligence firm.

Morgan Jones pointed out that corporate intelligence investigators are very much like spies, but instead of working for the state, they’re employed by multinational corporations. And also like spies, they often fall afoul of the laws in the countries where they operate. They are ripe for being set up and arrested for obtaining confidential material, especially in Russia and China. Morgan Jones himself worked in Russia and feared that same fate.

Cumming claims he never worked for either of England’s intelligence services (MI5 and MI6), but he tried to. I guess, we’ll have to take his word for it. But he did say that writing so much about spies and espionage matters can make you feel, well, a bit paranoid. He told his audience that a friend of his, a “spook,” texted him while he was in Spain, wishing him a happy birthday. Right away, Cumming was completely convinced that the flat he’d rented was bugged. Until he remembered that he had mentioned he was going to Spain to celebrate his birthday. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Browsing the bookshop at Bloody Scotland.

At the last possible minute I sneaked into the late-afternoon panel discussion “Fresh Blood,” which featured three recently debuted Scottish crime novelists, one of whom was Malcolm Mackay (whose second novel, How a Gunman Says Goodbye, would later win the 2013 Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award). The other two authors at the front of the room, Lisa Ballantyne and Matt Bendoris, have each published their first novel.

Ballantyne’s The Guilty One is a dual-narrative work about a London solicitor who is defending an 11-year-old boy accused of murder. The case brings up memories of the solicitor’s own violent past.

In Killing with Confidence, Bendoris--who’s employed as a journalist for a Glasgow newspaper--has created a serial killer who uses American self-help techniques to be better at his job, a detective with Tourette’s syndrome, and an overweight, technophobic reporter. The woman sitting next to me during this panel presentation told me that Killing was the best book she’s read so far this year.

The final, 6:30 p.m. Saturday session was “Dare to Thrill,” with Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. The line to get into the 1,000-seat Albert Halls auditorium for this event stretched around the block. Peter Guttridge served as interlocutor, and his introduction provided the startling fact that a Nesbø book is now purchased somewhere in the world every 23 seconds. Nesbø himself talked about his career leading up to becoming a writer: football star in high school, stockbroker, rock star. What was most interesting was to learn that, even after he became Norway’s biggest rocker, he never quit his stockbroker day job. Nesbø would work until the markets closed, catch a plane to wherever he was set to play his next gig, then perform, go back to his hotel for a few hours of sleep instead of partying, and get up the next morning to hop the first flight back to Oslo in order to be seated at his desk when the markets opened again. He kept up this pace, he explained, because he did not want to turn what he loved to do into a job.

(Left) Norway’s Jo Nesbø

Nesbø said that his protagonist, loose-cannon police inspector Harry Hole, is always trying to be a better person. But the author doesn’t see himself as a political spokesman; he sees himself as an entertainer, a storyteller.

He was asked about the coming film version of his novel The Snowman (which was released in an English translation in 2010). It seems Nesbø was disappointed that Martin Scorsese bowed out of the project, but he said he’s not in a hurry to find another director. As a storyteller, he contended, it’s very important to wait for the right director, someone who can best bring the story to the big screen. Nesbø added that the film does not have to be an exact replica of the book. He said he would not like to have anyone interfering with his telling of a tale, so he does not expect to interfere with the film’s director. Once they find one.

Finally, he warned that Harry Hole fans might have to wait a bit to find out what happens to the character, after the book Police is released by Knopf on October 15 of this year. Nesbø’s next novel, due out in Norway next spring, will be a standalone called Sønner (Sons).

“Goodbye” Says Hello to a Prize

Malcolm Mackay being honored during this weekend’s Scottish Crime Book of the Year ceremony. (Photo © 2013 by Alex Hewitt/Writer Pictures, used with permission.)

Our hard-working correspondent at the Bloody Scotland convention, Nancie Clare, reports that Malcolm Mackay has won this year’s Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award for his second novel, How a Gunman Says Goodbye (Mantle).

Also shortlisted for that commendation were Dead Water, by Ann Cleeves (Pan); Pilgrim Soul, by Gordon Ferris (Corvus); The Red Road, by Denise Mina (Orion), The Vanishing Point, by Val McDermid (Little, Brown); and Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin (Orion).

Congratulations to Mackay as well as the other nominees.

READ MORE: “Lewis Man, 31, Wins Top Crime Writer Award,”
by Emma Cowing (The Scotsman).

Settling in to Stirling

(Editor’s note: Below, Nancie Clare files her inaugural report from the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival being held this weekend in Stirling, Scotland. Be sure also to read her interview with Lee Child, which was posted yesterday.)

On Friday night, two of Bloody Scotland’s original organizers, Lin Anderson and Alex Gray, were joined by fellow Scottish crime novelist Quintin Jardine to open this second-annual conference with a session entitled “Bloody Minded in Bloody Scotland.”

Anderson and Gray talked about the event that prompted them to take the uncharacteristic step of organizing their fellow Scottish crime writers for the first time in 2012.

It was uncharacteristic, because the Scots as a people--and Scottish crime writers in particular--had long felt a sort of collective insecurity when getting together with their peers to the south, in England. That was true, at least, until a gathering of authors in Lincoln, England, about three years ago, when Anderson looked around her and thought, Bloody hell, there are a lot of Scottish writers here. We should have our own festival. Anderson reminded the audience of something Ian Rankin once said, that “Scandinavia doesn’t necessarily have better crime writers than Scotland, they just have better PR.”

She and Gray certainly live in the right country. Scotland has a slate of festivals celebrating just about everything: the arts, science, sports, and combinations thereof. The Scots did not, however, have a crime-writing festival. Now they do. And this year’s conference is bigger and better-organized than last year’s (which I also attended), and the historic city of Stirling--nestled between the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, on the River Forth--is a perfect location in which to hold it. After all, atmosphere in Scottish crime fiction is key.

Author Jardine took the presentation in a different direction, talking about the challenges of working with longstanding series and integrating into fiction actual changes in Scottish law enforcement. His protagonist, the bloody-minded Bob Skinner (Pray for the Dying), is a chief inspector in Strathclyde, on the country’s west coast. But with this year’s formation of Police Scotland, a national force, Jardine explained that Skinner can now aspire to greater career heights.

Gray, who pens a Glasgow-based series about Detective Superintendent Lorimer and psychological profiler Solly Brightman (The Swedish Girl), reminded the audience that inspiration for criminous yarns is frequently drawn from recent cultural and political developments. She noted, for instance, that the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be held next summer in Glasgow’s new national stadium. Now, what if someone were to plan to blow up that facility ... You could almost see the creative wheels start turning.

One thing that seems very important to the organizers of Bloody Scotland, and to established authors among its attendees, is encouraging new Scottish crime writers. There appear to be a number of them on hand at this year’s festival, including Outer Hebrides author Malcolm Mackay, whose second novel, How a Gunman Says Goodbye, has been nominated for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year. Mackay will also feature on Saturday afternoon’s “Fresh Blood” panel, together with Matt Bendoris and Lisa Ballantyne.

And next year, in addition to its Book of the Year award, there are plans afoot for Bloody Scotland to add a prize for Best Debut Novel.

* * *

While they were discussing new Scottish crime writers, Anderson, Gray, and Jardine also touched on the elephant in the room: J.K. Rowling, who as everyone now knows, produced this year’s The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It turns out that Gray was among the well-known Scottish authors who read an early, uncorrected proof of Rowling/Galbraith’s work and blurbed the finished book.

On Saturday, I ran into Gray at breakfast and couldn’t help asking whether she’d known, while she was enjoying that tale, who had actually concocted Cuckoo’s Calling.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “David Shelley [Little, Brown’s group publisher], had sent me the uncorrected proof from what he called ‘a fabulous new writer named Robert Galbraith’ early in 2013. I read the book and thought to myself, Why bother if a debut writer can write this way? I thought [Galbraith] must be an academic.”

It was Gray’s opinion that The Cuckoo’s Calling ranked up there with the best mysteries she had ever read, and she said so in her blurb. Then this last spring, she received a note, supposedly from Galbraith, thanking her for her kind words and telling her that “he” was a big fan of Gray’s own books.

After Rowling was outed as the actual writer, Gray received another note, this time on Rowling’s distinctive golden owl stationary. The contents of that missive are private, but Gray’s pleasure at receiving it is not: she’s thrilled that Rowling has joined the ranks of Scottish crime writers and is looking forward to her next offering in the field.

A Child’s View of Scottish Crime Fiction

(Editor’s note: Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival, is set to take place in the ancient town of Stirling--equidistant from Glasgow and Edinburgh--beginning tomorrow, September 13, and concluding this Sunday, the 15th. Among the attendees will be Nancie Clare, co-founder of Noir Magazine and the former editor-in-chief of LA, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, who will send The Rap Sheet reports from that convention. Her first contribution is below: an interview with Lee Child [born Jim Grant], author of the award-winning Jack Reacher series.)

Lee Child is packing his bags for Scotland (although where he keeps luggage in his elegant, minimalist New York City apartment--featured in a recent New York Times piece--is a, um, mystery to me) to attend this weekend’s second-annual Bloody Scotland. He is scheduled to close that festival on Sunday night with a sold-out event titled “At the Top of His Game,” a look at Never Go Back, his 18th book featuring the redoubtable Jack Reacher.

Although Reacher is most certainly an American; Child (born in the West Midlands town of Coventry) is not. He never took out U.S. citizenship, saying, “I identify more now with the U.S. But in principle I like the feeling of not really belonging anywhere. I’ve grown addicted to the feeling of being an outsider wherever I am. I feel at home more in New York than anywhere else. But ultimately I prefer not to feel at home anywhere.” And if it seems a stretch that Lee Child, an English author who writes about his American character Jack Reacher in New York City, should be traveling to Scotland, consider this: According to Child, “Reacher is part of the American military culture and American military culture, especially the Army and the Marine Corps, is a very Scots-Irish culture. Scots-Irish are generally the world’s most belligerent people. And this is my own heritage.” And, of course, fans of crime fiction are everywhere.

I spoke by phone with Child about a week before his departure for Scotland.

Nancie Clare: Which Scottish writers do you read, have you read, and/or do you want to read?

Lee Child: It’s always about the new people for me even more than the established people. I read the big three: Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, and Denise Mina. I like them very much as writers and people. But what I always try to do is find the new guys; this tsunami of talent that is always chasing after the established people. For me it’s always about finding someone with his first book out. Those are the ones that are always fun to meet, because you can be looking at a lifetime of reading pleasure right there. There’s one in particular, Malcolm Mackay. I don’t know whether or not he’s going to Bloody Scotland. I believe he’s from the Orkney Islands. He’s written a great book about Glasgow that I enjoyed very much.

[Mackay’s How a Gunman Says Goodbye has been nominated for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2013. The winner will be announced on Saturday, September 14, during the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award Dinner. Mackay is in some pretty exalted company--he’s competing against Child’s “big three”: McDermid, Mina, and Rankin, as well as Ann Cleeves and Gordon Ferris.]

NC: Which if any Scottish writers, mystery or otherwise, have influenced you?

LC: Well, the obvious one is Alistair MacLean. For a thriller writer of my generation, my background, Alistair McLean was essential. A bit of an object lesson as well. He moved to Switzerland and became a drunkard. That’s always something to avoid.

NC: So he was an influence and a cautionary tale.

LC: Yeah, both. ’Cause influence can be negative or positive; often both at the same time.

NC: Last year at the inaugural Bloody Scotland, Val McDermid and Craig Robertson both, independent of each other, made the point that Scottish crime writers--“Tartan Noir” practitioners--see themselves as completely separate from their English counterparts.

LC: Scotland is a completely separate country and it is a completely separate culture, and they’ve had a long-simmering colonial relationship with London. I think it’s the north of England as a whole. England is not monolithic; England is basically London when you talk about cultural dominance or political dominance or economic dominance.

Scotland comes out of a different place in its heritage and that shows up in the crime fiction ... [It] has bred two strands that coexist: there is the wildly lyrical poetic imagination [and] also a very pragmatic, practical people.

NC: McDermid also said that Tartan Noir writers see their line of descent through James Hogg, [Arthur] Conan Doyle, and William McIlvanney and not the middle-class sensibilities of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

LC: My father’s Scots-Irish and I identify with that far more than I would do with Agatha Christie. In fact, I’ve never read Agatha Christie. I’ve never been a fan or interested. I’ve read Dorothy Sayers extensively, but as a cultural document--I think the books are fine stories, of course, but they are far more interesting as slices of history; she was writing about a very particular time and place.

NC: This year, like last year, there is a healthy representation at Bloody Scotland of Scandinavian crime writers--Arne Dahl and Jo Nesbø, to name two. One of the running comments last year was that “Edinburgh is closer to Oslo than London.” And the point was made that there was a close kinship between Tartan and Nordic Noir.

LC: I honestly don’t think there is. Yeah, obviously Scotland is remote and northerly, you can get to Oslo quicker than you can get to London, but I don’t think that necessarily proves or really provides much of a cultural link. I think that in two different ways. First of all, Scottish crime fiction has progressed dramatically. It’s a very healthy, wise tradition especially at the moment and in the last, say, 20 years where you are seeing exciting new voices. (By the way, in the same way I think we’re going to see, very soon, crime fiction coming out of Northern Ireland.) The Scandinavians--and this might be a jaundiced opinion on my part--I don’t think they’ve shown the same progression. Forty, almost 50 years ago, there were two tremendous Scandinavian crime writers from Sweden, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. They wrote the 10-book series about Martin Beck. That was such a great series that I think it would be pretty difficult to argue that there’s been much progression since then. I think Scandinavian crime fiction is less lively than it’s made out to be. And their concerns are different than Scottish concerns. I think what is common, especially to the Swedish and Norwegian crime fiction, is that they have these very well-developed welfare states. The Scandinavian idea of “stateism” is very different, very much earlier, than the British idea. And so much of that fiction is about one’s relationship to the state: the welfare state, the government. That’s where the fascination of Scandinavian crime fiction is, the tension and the dilemmas and the conflicts are “what is the state doing?” “What is the government doing?” “How are they controlling our lives?” And that’s never really been a feature of Scottish crime fiction. Scottish crime fiction has depended on a much more free-form, lawless society where the government is either corrupt or nonexistent and the fascination is about the criminal element among dense populations. So I see it as a completely different feel, completely different lineage, really not very much relationship at all.

Plus, and I don’t know if this is suitable for the piece, but there’s an issue with the cultural acceptance of Scandinavian crime fiction in Britain and America. It’s about people who are somehow ashamed of reading the genre, [but who] think there’s some extra merit--it gives them a “get out of jail” card or something--if it’s Scandinavian. There is some kind of middle-class acceptability about it. They really want to be reading Ian Rankin, but somehow that’s too down market, so they have to find an alternative to Ian Rankin that is somehow approved by the newspapers, let’s say.

That disappoints me. I think people should get over that and read what they want to.

NC: But nowadays with e-readers and iPads, often you have no idea what people are reading because you can’t see the covers.

LC: That’s the truth and it really ... it’s definitely helped me, because I fall into that same category: people are ashamed to be seen reading one of my books, even though they love them and enjoy them. People are so insecure, image-wise. And, of course, e-readers mean they can do that in anonymity.

NC: Lyndsay Faye [Seven for a Secret] told me a funny story about a question you answered at the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate about combating writer’s block. You said, “I’ll tell you how to combat writer’s block. Don’t be such a pretentious wanker. That’s how you combat writer’s block. What? Do truck drivers get ‘driver’s block’? ‘I don’t feel like driving my truck today.’” I wanted you to comment on that.

LC: Yeah, that’s how I feel. It’s difficult to talk about [writing] as a job, because people want to hear that it’s wonderfully joyful and creative and spontaneous and you just pluck this stuff out of the air. Which absolutely you do, and it absolutely is a wonderful, creative, just fabulous thing to do. But it is also a job and you have to take it seriously; you have to show up and do it. If you waited around for the muse to strike, you would be waiting around forever. There are many days when you don’t really feel like going to work--we’re all in the same boat. And my point was: everyone has a job, everyone has days when they don’t really want to go and do it, but you have to. A truck driver who doesn’t really feel like working today has no alternative. So he goes and gets in his truck and he starts the motor, clips his seat belt on, and those muscle memories kick in and off he goes. It’s the same thing for a writer. There are some days when you feel bad, you don’t want to do it, but you sit down, you boot up your computer, you open the file and the muscle memory gets you into it and you do your work.

Yeah, I feel people who talk about the muse and writer’s block and all these airy-fairy things ... they’re not serious. Especially for genre professionals, like us who are doing a book a year. It is a job and you have to do it. You’ve got to deliver. To complain about writer’s block is self-indulgent and, to some extent, pretentious.

NC: So, it’s off to Scotland for you then ...

LC: I’m looking forward to being there, and hopefully I’ll take away something good to read.