Drawing on history for inspiration

Aug 6 2008 by Gregor White, Stirling Observer Wednesday

NEXT month sees Stirling Council libraries mount their third Off the Page book festival, with almost two dozen authors taking part from September 13-20.A programme of plays, literary discussions, creative writing workshops and more informal get-togethers for all book lovers to enjoy ensures there is something for everyone.Local libraries, community centres and village halls are all being drafted in as venues alongside the Albert Halls, Tolbooth and Stirling Smith.Programmes are available from libraries and many other outlets as well as online at www.stirling.gov.uk/offthepage and the Observer will be keeping you up to date with any last-minute alterations.To whet your appetite, we are running a series of interviews with some of the big names. The series begins this week with one of Central Scotland’s brightest talents, Janet Paisley.

WRITING in both Scots and English and covering the bases from poetry to short stories and scripts, it seems there is nothing Janet Paisley cannot or will not turn her literary hand to.

But, despite being first published in 1979, it somehow took the award-winning writer until last year to see the publication of her first novel.

Born in Essex but raised in Scotland and now living near Falkirk, Janet insists the form was not something she had been deliberately avoiding.

A mother of seven sons, she said: “I did decide when the birth of my second-youngest son nearly killed me – literally – that I had to get serious about the writing because it brought it home that you can’t rely on having tomorrow to do things and the first thing I wrote was actually a novel.

“Like most first novels, I suppose, it was quite autobiographical – not wholly but definitely drawing a lot on my own childhood and experience growing up in a small village – and I sent it to an agent who really liked it but sent it back with some advice.

“I rewrote it according to what he suggested and then he didn’t like it.”

After that, she said, she simply got sidetracked with other writing projects, as well as teaching and raising her family, having to wait almost 30 years to find the time.

“White Rose Rebel” is a fictionalised account of real-life character Colonel Anne Farquharson, a major player in the 18th century Jacobite uprising.

Janet had previously drafted both play and film versions of the story but she said turning it into a novel was still hard work.

“The way you tell a story in a novel is very different from how you write a script,” she said, “so in some ways it was almost like starting from scratch.

“Also when I sit down to write something I prefer it to be done in one sitting, the first draft at least. I don’t like leaving things.

“Obviously with a novel you have to sit at your desk for a long time, day after day after day.”

The book’s success is marked by the fact that it has already been optioned for a film by the man who brought “Captain Correlli’s Mandolin” to the big screen, though Janet says she will “happily” not be writing the script and that any prospect of it actually reaching cinemas remains “a long way away”.

Obviously spurred on, though, she has recently handed publishers her next novel, another historical tale with a strong female lead in the form of the little known Sgathach, “Scotland’s Boadicea”.

With a possible return to poetry after this, Janet says she is also looking forward to her Stirling appearance, though admits to some nerves too.

She said: “Fictional people are so much easier to deal with in a lot of ways but then real people, and how they behave, are what feeds the fiction.

“It does me good to get out from behind the desk every now and then.”

Janet will be at Bannockburn Library on Thursday, September 18, from 7-9pm. Admission is free but tickets should be booked by calling 01786 432383.

Local talent is a big part of Off the Page. Other names set to appear including Bridge of Allan journalist-author Kirsty Scott, in conversation with fellow freelance feature writer and novelist Fiona Gibson (Tolbooth, September 15).

The Guardian’s Scotland correspondent Kirsty replaces the previously announced Laura Marney.

Elizabeth Robertson, Vicki Clifford and Robert McEwen will discuss their Desert Island Books at Kilmadock Information Centre, Doune, on September 17.

Cambusbarron farmer, builder and autobiographer Robert McEwen also appears at the Stirling Smith on Thursday, September 18.

And the Smith is also the venue for Stirling University’s Professor Grahame Smith to discuss Charles Dickens’ links with Italy on September 17.