Tag Archives: Moniack Mhor

Moniack Mhor and the making of a book

Scotland’s creative writing centre, Moniack Mhor, is a very special place. I’ve stayed there twice in the last few years, and those two weeks were hugely influential in the writing of What You Call Free.

I’ve been working on this book for a very long time! I began writing it in 2013, although the idea had been there for much longer. In 2016 I entered it into the Bridge Awards’ Emerging Writer Award and was delighted to be ‘highly commended’, and to receive a grant towards a Moniack Mhor retreat as a result.

The format for the tutored courses is a perfect combination of workshops, one-to-one tutorials, evening readings, and as much thinking time, writing time, good food, good wine and good conversation as you could possibly want. With some trepidation, I chose a historical fiction course led by Isla Dewar and Margaret Elphinstone, and travelled to Moniack. Although I am used to having my non-fiction words published in different forms, my fiction writing had always been a private and solitary enterprise. I had never done a creative writing course or joined a writing group, and had rarely shared or spoken about my work. I learned a great deal on that course, but I think its real significance lay in giving me permission and confidence to think of myself as a fiction writer. It was a completely new experience to speak the language of fiction with other people and to discuss my writing and my dreams. The book I was working on – at that time called Sackcloth on Skin – was a bit of a sprawling, multi-strand, multi-timeframe mess, but my first visit to Moniack Mhor encouraged me to believe not just in the book but in myself as a writer.

Eventually I was ready to send it out. There were some positives – a couple of longlistings for example – but then came the stream of rejections from agents and publishers. If you have ever put yourself through this you will know how completely demoralising and destructive it is. By the end of 2018 any confidence I’d discovered at Moniack was fast disappearing. And yet, I couldn’t quite bring myself to give up on this story. I still believed in it, but something needed to change. My choice seemed to be either to self-publish the book as it was or to change it drastically. I decided to try removing everything but the 17^th-century storyline, and rewriting it as a historical novel.

It should have been devastating but it was actually quite cathartic! By the time I had cut out everything I no longer wanted, the book was about half the length. It was much easier to see its weaknesses, and where the historical story needed development. Around the same time the Moniack programme for 2019 dropped into my inbox. I hadn’t planned to go back, but a course on ‘Finding the heart of your novel’ led by James Robertson and Cynthia Rogerson caught my eye. Could Moniack work its magic a second time?

I signed up, and then left the book aside until June 2019, when I returned to Moniack with a mutilated half novel! I was worried the course might not live up to my first experience, but it was a wonderful week. As before, the setting, the people, the generous help from the tutors and the encouraging atmosphere all combined to help me to understand how to take the book forward.

I spent the rest of 2019 rewriting, and by the start of the year was ready to begin the daunting prospect of sending my novel – now What You Call Free – out again. But this time I had more experience, and the support and advice of writer friends made on that course. In summer 2020 the book found its home – with Ringwood Publishing, an independent Glasgow based publisher who publish an exciting range of Scottish fiction and non-fiction. It should come out early next year. There’s still a long way to go, but I will be forever grateful to Moniack Mhor for helping me firstly to believe in myself as a writer and then to understand the book I was writing.

This has obviously been a really hard year for Moniack Mhor, but they continue to offer online courses and opportunities. Check them out, and support them if you can!

www.moniackmhor.org.uk

A Fresh Chapter

‘Bible Talk’ by James Robertson | The Bottle Imp

Pitching my novel @XpoNorth

Sackcloth on Skin: try everything!

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The motto for 2017. Try everything.

This is the year that I will try to find a publisher for Sackcloth on Skin. I’m arriving at this point about a year later than I perhaps expected to, but I think that’s probably a good thing. In some ways not much has happened in the past year – but I’ve been through the book several times and it’s much better for all that editing than it was a year ago. And most importantly, Moniack Mhor happened. I wrote about my week at Scotland’s creative writing centre here. It definitely helped the book, and perhaps more significantly it helped my mindset as a writer. It was the first time I’d shared this book with anyone else, and it was such an encouragement to realise that people seemed to believe it was worth something. It also took away some of my impatience and stress about what should happen next.

But I can’t sit in this waiting room for ever. Three or four years ago I decided it was time to stop dreaming and to actually get on and write this book. Now once more it’s time to stop dreaming and get on and look for a publisher. I may not succeed, but I need to try. And I am under absolutely no illusions about how difficult that will be, and how resilient I will have to be to cope with rejection. I remember how tough it was trying to get War Classics published, and that wasn’t part of me in the way this book is.

When I was speaking about publication at Moniack Mhor with one of the tutors she said ‘try everything’. Not in some scattergun approach – I have a very clear plan of who I want to approach and why – but if one avenue doesn’t work out try another. Don’t give up. So that is my plan for 2017. Try everything.

I have a plan, but unexpected opportunities may come along. On 6 January there was a twitter event held by XpoNorth offering the chance to tweet a pitch for your book. In the spirit of Try everything I had a go. And guess what, it didn’t change the world, it didn’t lead to a publishing deal – but it was fun. I’ve only dabbled in twitter before so even the process of composing my tweet was an absorbing challenge, and reading all the other tweets was unexpectedly addictive. This was mine:

@florajo14
1688 woman in sackcloth, pregnant, betrayed. Grief as Renwick hangs. 2013 roadtrip thru Scotland’s spiritual landscape. Love echoes. #xpob

So 2017 is the year I will try to find a publisher, and the voice in my head repeats Try everything. Deep breath … bring it on!

Moniack Mhor: a spacious place

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Moniack Mhor is Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre, nestling in the hills near Beauly. Throughout the year it offers a wide range of courses and retreats. Last week’s Historical Fiction course was led by Margaret Elphinstone and Isla Dewar, with James Robertson as guest reader. It was both a privilege and a pleasure to be there, thanks in part to the generous support of the Bridge Awards.

The centre is ideal for its purpose, full of character with stone walls and a wood burning stove and a spectacular setting. The weather was typically Highland, ranging from stunning blue skies to a mist which clung to the landscape for a whole day, and then a storm which shook the windows as we shared our work on the final evening. My room was simple, with a plain wooden desk set at the window overlooking the hills. Whenever possible I worked with the window wide open – a spacious place indeed.

The course offered practical workshops in the morning which were both fun and demanding, and one-to-one tutorials with the tutors in the afternoons. There was plenty of opportunity to think, to walk and of course to write. It was great to spend time and share ideas with such a supportive, fun and interesting group of people.

I’ve come home rested yet challenged, inspired and encouraged, with increased confidence in what I am doing and a determination to build more protected writing time into my week. I also came home with a ‘to do’ list relating to my novel Sackcloth on Skin, but the way the mind works is a strange thing. Two days after returning, with conversations and words and ideas still replaying in my head, I suddenly saw a fresh way of resolving something which has bothered me about the book. If only I could have had that thought while I was at Moniack, with the chance to talk it over with others … but on the other hand it’s good that the creative process wasn’t left behind with the peace and the scenery! So there may now be a bit more rewriting to be done than I’d anticipated, but hopefully in the long run that will be a good outcome of having spent my week at Moniack Mhor.

More soon ….

Emerging Writer Award – Sackcloth on Skin

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I’ve had another project going on in the background for the last two or three years: my novel, Sackcloth on Skin. It’s set partly in seventeenth-century Scotland, with a smattering of St Andrews in the 1990s and a 2013 road trip thrown in, and explores Scotland’s spiritual landscape and heritage.

In January I came across the Emerging Writer Award, a joint venture between Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre and the Bridge Awards, and decided there was no harm in applying. I sent them the opening few pages of the book together with an outline of the whole novel, and was overjoyed to be awarded ‘highly commended’.

http://www.moniackmhor.org.uk/writers/the-bridge-awards/

There’s a long way to go, but it’s great to have a vote of confidence in what I’m doing with this book.

Very kindly they have awarded me a subsidy towards attending one of their courses, so I’ve booked on a course led by some of the writers I most admire and am somewhat nervously anticipating that experience! I’ve always been very much a solitary writer, particularly when it comes to my fiction, so opening up about this is extremely daunting – but it has to happen.

Looking forward to being able to share more as the months progress.

Flora Johnston

Writing and researching Scotland's history