The rain is streaming down the window of my office, it’s cold enough to cause brass monkeys some anguish and I find it difficult to grasp that just two days ago I was being slapped around by midges in Wigtown.

I was in Scotland’s National Book Town for a writers gathering, the Wigtown Writers Gathering to be precise, although keen observers will already have deduced that. Treat yourself to some of the good tobacco from the slipper on the mantlepiece.

I was invited to impart my wisdom to other writers in two 75 minute sessions. So what did you talk about for the other 70 minutes of each session, I hear you ask? I’ll treat that jibe with the all the contempt I can muster.

It was a great day and the fellow scribes listened politely as I first talked about ‘Writing a Life’ – basically how I pour what I’ve gleaned from thirty years in the news trade and twenty years of researching and writing about crime into my fiction. I also talked about the heady excitement of taking the plunge and writing full-time.

The second session saw me discussing researching and writing my non-fiction. The idea of research can scare some people but really it’s mostly common sense and an inquiring mind. Or nosiness.

It was a great day, I met some interesting people, and Alan Bissett even asked if he could use one of my lines in his show later that night! Maybe I should invoice him.

And Wigtown is a fabulous place. As I said in an earlier blog, I stayed overnight Thursday so took the opportunity of the lovely weather to snap some shots. You’ll find some of them in that earlier blog and I’ve added a few more below. The midges, though, were a surprise because I didn’t think they were biting yet. However, that could just be a piece of disinformation they’ve circulated to lure us out.

And during a break in the day-long gathering I managed to wander round the bookshops. I bought some Greg Isles books – Michael J. Malone tells me he’s terrific – and David Simon’s ‘Homicide’. I love the Wigtown bookshops and have never yet come away empty-handed.

The event itself is one that should be emulated across the land (as long as they engage me to come along, of course. Hey – it’s my blog, I’ll sell myself if I want to). It gives local writers the chance to meet and quiz other writers from outside their circle and also the opportunity for us all to learn something. The organisers must be congratulated on creating such a vibrant and creative corner of Scotland. Thanks, Carolyn Yates, for asking me along.

Special mention must go to author and stand-up Ian MacPherson, whose keynote speech on this authoring business was one of the funniest things I’ve heard in an age. I was simultaneously nodding and laughing so much I felt like that dog in the insurance adverts.

I may even have drooled a wee bit, too.

Wigtown Church

The wetlands

The Martyrs Stake