I remember writing a piece when I was around nine years old. It was about a walk in the countryside on a nice summer day. It rained, and afterwards everything smelled fresh and clean. A class mate described my efforts as “Cor, that’s beautiful” – my first literary credit! It did not lead on to a glittering literary career - I can’t explain why. However, I have been a writer for most of my working life, but on technical topics. In the IT industry, I began with writing computer programs: first writing applications then, later, operating system programs. The main discipline here was just that; discipline! you have to work precisely, within well defined rules. Where creativity is useful, is in deciding on a strategy and communications between man (as in “mankind”) and machine. When I moved on to training people to use computer systems, I had to design training programmes which included notes for trainers, notes for students, user guides, self teaching guides, etc. The need to grab and maintain the reader’s interest was a key element here. Mixed in with all the above, was the irresistible urge to write to papers, magazines or anyone else who might listen to my latest gripe or enthusiasm. In retirement, I thought that attempting to write a novel based on the life of Somerled, a real person in Scottish history, should be within my capability. After a while, it dawned on me that such a project imposes different disciplines and requires additional and different skills from my previous work. What started out as a bit of self-indulgence has become a passion, and I wanted to get it right. One thing that I did do right was to join a writing circle. The members of the Thames Valley Writing Circle have been a great help in identifying what I needed to know and in acquiring those skills that I lacked. One of the things the circle encouraged me to do was broaden the scope of what I write by writing short stories. Here is an example - I wrote this for a Christmas event It achieved a “Highly Commended”.