It Was The Laughter Of Birthdays, Of

No Matter How Many Awards You've Won Or How Many Sales You've Got, Come The Next Book It's Still A Blank Sheet Of Paper And You're Still Panicking Like Hell That You've Got Nothing New To Say.

Rebus Was Eating Breakfast In The Canteen And Wishing There Was More Caffeine In The Coffee, Or More Coffee In The Coffee Come To That.

I Started Writing Novels While An Undergraduate Student, In An Attempt To Make Sense Of The City Of Edinburgh, Using A Detective As My Protagonist. Each Book Hopefully Adds Another Piece To The Jigsaw That Is Modern Scotland, Asking Questions About The Nation's Politics, Economy, Psyche And History ... And Perhaps Pointing Towards Its Possible Future.

I Wrote My First Short Story For A Competition And Won Second Prize. Another Competition Came Up And I Won First Prize. The First Story Was Published In A Newspaper. The Second Went Out On Radio.

My First Novel Was Turned Down By Half A Dozen Publishers. And Even After Having Published Five Or Six Books, I Wasn't Making Enough Money To Live On, And Was Beginning To Think I'd Have To Give Up The Dream Of Being A Full-time Writer.