What every writer dreams of, a beautiful space to write uninterrupted, and a small community of like-minded people to share ideas, inspirations, thoughts and dreams. This is what was on offer at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, where I've just spent the past month as a Fellow. At times, I felt like I was walking around on a film set, or had woken up in inside a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Hawthornden is built on a craggy rockface above the River Esk, its foundations a web of caves once the home of Picts (and Scottish outlaw William Wallace). Walking up to the castle gates to get a mobile signal early in the morning, I met with two curious red deer and a host of birds - thrushes and goldfinches and dozens of swifts (who were nesting in the crumbled castle wall just visible from my bedroom window). The days are your own to write, read or reflect, sometimes a combination of all three.My original plan was to draft a novel set in Croatia, but that project had to be brought forward to meeting a funding deadline, so a week before I headed to Scotland I needed to think up a new plan. I'd just heard that my short story Indigo's Mermaid is to be published in a European Fiction Anthology by Dalkeys Archive Press (USA) in January 2010. A while ago, an editor of literary magazine had advised me to think about using the same story as the basis for a novel. So, I gathered together a copy of my short story, a number of my favourite notebooks (bought from a lovely bookstore in Barcelona) and headed for the hills. My writing is usually shoe-horned into spare hours and weekends away from my day job in an opera house, based in Cardiff. I travel a lot with that job, and I also have new responsibilities heading up the digital media strategy, which so far has seen me sidetracked into scripting & co-directing short films. All fine and dandy, but the novels don't get written! Here was a chance to really put myself to the test: would the short story expand into a novel? Would the characters still come to life away from their original setting and confrontation point? The chance to return day after day to one project, to test things out, re-write, re-invent was invaluable. I even wrote a (very) rough first draft. If that's inspired you in turn, and you're a published writer visit http://www.transartists.nl/air/hawthornden_castle.4272.html for details on how to apply.The castle is set in the middle of nowhere but it's still only a short bus ride away to Edinburgh. This is a city I've only ever seen in the middle of its busy, crazy arts festival in the summer. To be able to take time to explore the place without being mobbed by hundreds of anxious theatre promoters was an experience in itself. I heard Willie Doherty talk about his provocative and stunning video films at the Fruitmarket Gallery (www.fruitmarket.co.uk), drank smoothies in Hulas near Grassmarket and spent happy hours in the evocative West Port Bookshop, crammed full of second hand books balanced precariously on wobbly wooden shelves. Don't miss the Moose Head sculpture, if you get to go. And yes, we did relent and made for The Elephant House, otherwise known as the cafe where one JK Rowling wrote her first novel about boy wizard Harry Potter. It's a great cafe and not a tourist trap in spite of that pedigree. (www.elephanthouse.biz).So, what's it like returning to the real world after living like an aristocrat in a castle? Well, Dalkey's publish the mini-version of Indigo's Mermaid next year. The editor is Aleksandar Hemon, the American Bosnian writer, so it should be an interesting anthology on many levels. And today, I learnt my mother's out of the acute ward in the cardiac unit in Brighton General - and my novel set in Croatia will be published by Alcemi in October 2010! Alcemi are involved with Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland, so you can find out more about this brilliant publishing house in Wales by popping along to one of the events scheduled for August. More details can be found on AmeriCymru's website.Hwyl!