The inspiration behind Venturing North

There were a few things that sparked my ideas for Venturing North. 

Firstly, I had a couple key scenes pop into my head and I couldn’t stop thinking about them (no, really. It literally kept me up at night. Thanks, ADHD hyperfocus!). These were the opening scene in the carriage and the second time that Ursula and Elias get down and dirty. I started writing them out in Google Docs and the story slowly spread from there. 

I also wanted to incorporate my homeland of Scotland. Allerbrock is called the Pale City due to its world famous sandstone. This was inspired by Aberdeen of all places. I studied my undergrad there and found the stereotype of it being cold and grey to be misleading. Aberdonian granite has so much depth and warmth to it, and can look stunning when the light hits it just right. It has the moniker of Granite City for a reason. I liked the idea of a bright, pale town that stood out against the greenery all around it - hence Allerbrock our Pale City was born. 

The Scottish landscape in general influenced me. I remember looking out of the window on a slightly cursed trip to Arrochar one early February weekend and thinking, yes, this is how I imagine the world in my book. I tried to convey the complexity of the Scottish climate - colourful, cold, warm, damp.

I was also inspired by political history, namely community buyouts. Years ago, I was at an arts conference in Edinburgh for an old job where a speaker was talking about the buyout of the Isle of Eigg. Having grown up in a city without a car, I never really travelled around Scotland growing up and didn’t know much about the Highlands and Islands beyond what I learned in history. It was this talk, along with land ownership debates around the Independence Referendum in 2014 that sparked my interest in land reform. I had never realised how much of Scottish land was owned by landlords and it blew my mind to think that people didn’t own the land they had lived on for generations. I wanted to imbue my cosy spicy story with a bit of my own politics, which was the inspiration for the town buying the quarry. I wanted the people to Allerbrock to be given the same opportunity to thrive as the people of Eigg had. Here’s the link if you’d like to read more about community buyout of the Isle of Eigg. It’s a very life affirming read.

Finally, I wanted a story that was about sisterhood, where women of all walks of life would come together and support each other. I’m an only child but the female friendships I have in my life have kept me going on more than one occasion. I think it's so important to show women lifting each other up in fiction, as it’s what we do in real life. I have plans for the Woodruff sisters, so watch this space…