The Long Journey

On Leaving Essex to travel up to Helmsdale in the highlands of Scotland, we knew was going to take us a few days. First of all, we had never done such a long journey before so it was a bit of an adventure. The sat-nav my sister had lent us for our trip came in handy. The first part of the journey north was familiar as the route we took was the same when travelling to Whitby, North Yorkshire. But soon the landscape began to change.

Dunnet Head: An old Mill.

Growing up next to a working mill in Essex I had to stop and take a photo of this building. To me it looked to have the same stance as the water mill where my father worked in the 1970’s

Molusham Mill in Essex.

There were many ruins of crofts, and buildings I wished we could have stopped to explored but unfortunately our time was short.

On Friday 8th September, in the evening, we listened to Glyn F. Salisbury talking about his writing journey and how his father had inspired his interest in writing. Glyn and I met online after he joined my online writing group in 2017. I set up the For Writers Only Clubhouse in 2016 after my friend Nicky suggested I would be good at running a Facebook writing group. For Writers Only is more of an online magazine rather than a group. Its a place to find interesting articles, chat, share information or anything to do with books, writing or the publishing world.

Glyn set up his physical writing group in his café as a place where like-minded people could meet and talk about books and writing. He would share with me his book news in my online group and send a copy of his book ‘Treading a Dark Path to me. Glyn and I had never met in the real world but had chatted a couple of times over the Internet. During this time, he had gone through a difficult time after his wife had passed away and the closure of his café. Glyn and I joked about me joining his writing group, but as he lived in the highlands of Scotland, and I in the south of England that was impossible. To allow me to attend one of his writing group meetings Glyn created a spiritual me as you can see in the picture below in 2017. He even provides a glass of wine and a notebook. As you can well imagine it was lovely for me to finally meet up with Glyn and Carolyn in the real world.

Carolyn and IGlyn and I

In his presentation, Glyn shared the story behind his adventure series, R.U.N.E. It consists of three books, totalling over 250,000 words. Additionally, he mentioned a standalone fourth book, Beneath Loch Ness, which is connected to the trilogy. He also discussed his book, The Wrath of Wick, which sparked the inspiration for his nine-part Warlock Saga. Glyn also gave us an insight into how he designed his book covers.

Glyn is an author who gives talks and readings from his books to the residents in the local nursing homes as well as running his own writing group. Hopefully, Russell and I will be able to return to Scotland and attend another book festival in the not-to-distant future in person again.