2025 - AWARDED CREATIVE SCOTLAND FUNDING

I disappeared for a while. 2024 has been spent writing a book and relocating deep into the Scottish Highlands. Did I mention I wrote a book? I wrote a book. I am still writing it. And unless I publish the thing, I will continue writing it forever. Which is fine.

I have been awarded Creative Scotland funding to write even more for 2025.

What does that mean? Well, I want to be totally transparent here. It means £11,000. It also means my life is changed.

Relief is a funny thing. My first reaction to the funding email was to cry – obviously. I was alone, so it was ok. Don’t tell anyone, ok? My second reaction was to go pay outright for a £900 Calor Gas tank refill, then go online and imaginary shop for a second sports bra (decadent) and a three-pack of hiking socks (madness. Do I even have 6 feet?). I even put the socks in the imaginary digital basket. But I did not buy them. Not yet. That sort of footwear decadence will have to wait until I am more secure in my new found wealth. Later, I walked around my exorbitant rural corner shop and considered buying artisan beer and cheese with a nice font on the packaging, as opposed to the stuff boiled in a vat out of E numbers in an industrial estate in the midlands and dyed orange and canned (applies to both cheese and Beer). I didn't buy anything, though.

Truly, it was the celebration of the ages.

Like most of us who write but are otherwise devoid of any skill, I have spent most of my life doing part-time work where I can get it and living on my overdraft to spend time writing. This is all my own terrible/fabulous ‘decision making’ (yeah, let’s call it that), and I have zero regrets. Because I wrote my book. I am writing my book! And it has been nice to support the industrial cheese brewing industry of the UK for so many decades. I would also like to extend my thanks to NatWest. All the exceeded overdraft bank charges when I was at my lowest really gave me vigour. Thanks guys!

I am intensely thankful to other creatives who have made writing possible, most of all Helen Denerley, the sculptor. Writing last year happened entirely because I was lucky enough to be offered months – months! - on a writing residency, by Helen. She is the best human in the world. She makes dragons. She can make a bird out of a teaspoon. If that is not God, I don’t know what is.  

If 2024 was good, writing in 2025 is happening because of the generosity of Creative Scotland. I could not be more grateful, and I mean that with such raw honesty, I don’t know how to express it except through reference to exquisite cheese. Like I said, I’m a writer. I’m good at this.

So, as I begin to decompose into my old age, in a house with a full Calor gas tank, one bra, no hiking socks, and only a few plans to one day burn down NatWest, I know that the financial fear is still there and I’m not secure enough yet to buy proper old-farty-man Beer or the posh cheese -  I do know that if I have a financial emergency this year, I will be ok. I’m safe.

I don’t need to be scared about money in 2025 because of Creative Scotland. That means I can write every day.  

It is snowing heavily outside, and a blackbird is taking a snow bath under the Calor gas tank. You made that happen, Creative Scotland! Last night it was -13 on my hill, and the boiler outlet pipe thing froze, and as I Googled for help and poured hot water onto plastic, sobbing, and Google advised me, ‘WARNING - keep the heating on all night, or you are screwed!’ I was, once again, so so so so so thankful that Creative Scotland exists.

This is where my love letter to Creative Scotland should end.

Now, to go write.