Where have all the months gone? The same place as all the other months I suppose, into the space that only memory can reach. I've been heavily involved in Scottish Centre for Geopoetics work particularly our Atlantic Islands Festival and Geopoetics Summer School in July which were very successful with fruitful connnections made with musicians, film-makers, writers and others. We had a reunion of sorts last night in Edinburgh at a wide-ranging as ever Kenneth White lecture at the National Library of Scotland. I woke up this morning with lots of ideas whirring around for future writing projects and after tomorrow night's performance of Magnetic North's Walden play here on the island, which I'm delighted to say is sold out, I've got clear water ahead to get down to some serious study and writing.

But before I do, I've been thinking a lot about the business of writing and how difficult it is for most writers to make any kind of living out of writing their books. Instead they do all kinds of other jobs and write in what little time that leaves them. That's why I went to the trouble of sending my views on this to the Literature Working Group set up by Scottish Government Culture Minister Mike Russell which is to make recommendations about a new approach to public funding of writers and publishers in Scotland by the end of the year. Here's the first part of my submission:

Literature in Scotland: A New Approach

Much more needs to be done to enhance the quality of literature in Scotland and its international standing. For too long literature in Scotland has been underfunded in comparison to other arts provision and other areas of UK and Scottish Government spending. Although we have some world class writers and plenty of books are being published, very few writers are able to earn a living from writing and the digital age as well as online and chain bookstores are presenting significant challenges to publishers.

The remit of the working group which has been asked ‘to recommend a new approach to public sector support of literature’ is very welcome since radical changes are required to the way that writers and publishers are funded in order to meet these challenges. The current system of supplementing market forces with publicly funded bursaries, prizes and awards will not adequately nurture and sustain the growth of the kind of high quality literature in Scotland which will enhance its international reputation and bring cultural, social and economic benefits to the nation.

Surely it is unacceptable that a great writer such as Hugh MacDiarmid lived in poverty throughout most of his life and that an internationally recognised living author like James Kelman tells us that he has never been able to make a living from his writing alone? Few writers derive much of an income from book royalties which are set as low in some cases as 7.5% of the net book price and they have to undertake other work of many different kinds which drains away a considerable amount of time and energy from their writing.

What writers need is a system of financial and professional support at all stages of their working lives which will enable them to concentrate on their writing and to produce the best quality work possible. Such a system should not discriminate against authors on account of their age or the kind of books they write but should be designed solely to encourage excellence in all fields.

A New System of Funding

1. There are plenty of new writers emerging all the time whether as a result of their own efforts or of their participation in the proliferation of writing groups and creative writing courses. What these writers need most is the time to work at their craft, professional mentoring, sufficient outlets for their work in literary magazines, free-sheets and online, and some financial assistance to enable them to produce their first book or two.

2. Based on an independent evaluation of the quality of their work, around 40 such writers each year should be selected to be paid an annual salary of e.g. £10,000 per year for two years in which to complete at least one book. They should also be provided with professional mentoring services of the kind currently offered by HI~Arts. If the work produced is judged to be of sufficiently high quality, publishers based in Scotland should be paid a sum of e.g. £5000 per book to publish and market their books and to pay the authors at the Minimum Terms Agreement rate of between 10 and 15% of the book published price. There should be a balance amongst those writers selected between poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children’s writing.

3. Writers who have already published one or two books often find it difficult to sustain the effort to produce further books which will enhance the quality of what they have written previously and create a substantial body of work. Often they have not earned enough from previously published books to enable them to concentrate on their writing full-time and require to work at various occupations which take away time and energy from their writing.

4. Based on an independent evaluation of the quality of their work, around 30 such writers each year should be selected to be paid an annual salary of e.g. £15,000 per year for two years in which to complete a book. They should also be provided with professional mentoring services of the kind currently offered by HI~Arts. If the work produced is of sufficiently high quality, publishers based in Scotland should be paid a sum of e.g. £5000 per book to publish and market their books and pay the authors at the Minimum Terms Agreement rate of between 10 and 15% of the book published price. There should be a balance amongst those writers selected between poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children’s writing.

5. We have a relatively small number of writers with a substantive body of work behind them whose worth is generally recognised yet who do not earn enough from their writing to enable them to concentrate solely on their work to the exclusion of other paid employment. They too require the time and energy to keep producing work of the highest quality which would enhance the international standing of literature in Scotland.

6. Based on an independent evaluation of the quality of their work, around 15 such writers should be selected to be paid an annual salary of e.g. £30,000 per year for two years in which to complete one or more books. They should also be offered professional mentoring services of the kind currently offered by HI~Arts. If the work produced is of sufficiently high quality, publishers based in Scotland should be paid a sum of e.g. £5000 per book each year to publish and market their books and pay the authors at the Minimum Terms Agreement rate of between 10 and 15% of the book published price. There should be a balance amongst those writers selected between poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children’s writing.

7. After two years, if they have fulfilled the requirements, it should be possible for such well established writers to be selected for the same financial support for a further two years. This could be continued subject to review with say a further 4 well established writers being selected at the end of the first two years.

8. Selection in all cases should be by a committee of at least 9 persons made up of at least 5 writers and two publishers based in Scotland and should be in accordance with equal opportunities.

9. The total cost of this new system of annual funding for writers would be around £1,325,000 including £25,000 mentoring costs rising in the second year to £2,700,000 including £50,000 mentoring costs and £2.825,000 in the third year including £55,000 mentoring costs; and for publishers based in Scotland £425,000 rising to £850,000 in year 2 and £870,000 in year 4. The total annual cost would be between £1.75m and £3.695m.

10. The operation of the system should be subject to review every two years to ensure that it is producing the intended outcomes in terms of the quality of work being produced and published.

If you've read this far the rest of my paper is in the next blog.

Best for now.