Sara Sheridan Thinking Quotations

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think.

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.