First post in over three years

This blog was established in March 2007, but I last wrote in it on the 10th of February, 2009, to announce the launch of Glencoe Mountaineer. At the time I was in the middle of my first complete winter climbing season in the Scottish Highlands, and although it didn't turn out to be a very good winter--a massive thaw hit only a week or so after the launch of the blog--it laid the foundations for future adventures.

2009 was a year of remarkable things, but I was so busy savouring every golden moment the mountains gave me that I found very little time to write fiction.

That began to change in 2010. My brother James gradually took on more of the responsibility of looking after Glencoe Mountaineer; today he runs it entirely and the blog enjoys massive popularity during the winter months. The longer I lived in Glencoe, the more my perspective was warped by the close proximity of the mountains I loved. The remarkable became ordinary, and I think for a while I completely forgot what it was like to be someone who dreamed about the hills because they were a world apart. The time came when I knew I had to leave in order to rekindle that sense of wonder and reverence.

Meanwhile, I staggered through the first draft of my long-suffering novel, The Only Genuine Jones, never quite able to find the time or inclination to really throw myself into it with the heart it deserved.

The magic returned when I moved away, and once again I was able to see the mountains in the way I used to see them: symbols of adventure and story, no longer just the irregular lumps of geography where I climbed to have something to do on my days off.

That brings us up to date. I'm now based in Lincolnshire, trying hard to get The Only Genuine Jones published and conducting research for my second work of historical fiction (at present under the working title 1848). I intend to use this blog as a platform for writing about the process of writing itself, and hopefully if I manage to publish OGJ it will transform into an author website! In this blog I hope to write about what I'm reading, my progress with both OGJ and 1848, books, history, and mountaineering in general, and probably a fair bit about the technology I'm using to write!