Lari’s Writing blog

Do you have a local monster? I was lucky (I think!) because I grew up near quite a few monsters.

Nearest to me was the Green Lady, a ghost who wandered sadly round Balvenie Castle, leaving green slime on the walls as she trailed her fingers along the cold stone. My friends and I never saw the Green Lady herself, but we all saw the green evidence that she was there…

There was a local giant too, or I assume there was, because on the other side of the town from my house was a little cave called the Giant’s Cradle.

There was a kelpie, a legendary shapeshifting child-eating water monster, living in the river near my secondary school.

South of my house, in the Cairngorms, people occasionally felt the presence of, and sometimes even saw, the Grey Man of Ben Macdui…

And there was one more local monster. Not really local to ME – more than an hour away by car – but local to my grandparents in Inverness. The biggest monster, the best-known monster, the hardest-to-spot monster… NESSIE!

I never saw her. I never saw any of my local monsters!

I’ve written about most of them or their relatives though: Innes the mostly-goodie kelpie in Spellchasers and the definitely-baddie kelpie in The Secret of the Kelpie, a whole pack of Grey Men in The Shapeshifter’s Guide to Running Away, various giants in Breaking the Spell and Girls Goddesses & Giants, and of course, The Loch Ness Monster herself in The Treasure Of The Loch Ness Monster.

I haven’t written about the Green Lady yet, because I’m not a huge fan of ghost stories, but I can’t be sure what will inspire me in the future.

And I was really impressed that the last time I visited my old primary school and old secondary school, the pupils still knew about our local monsters and magical creatures, and told me stories about them.

Do you know your local monsters?

If you have a local monster – friendly or fierce – my publishers Floris Books would like you to draw your monster, so they can make a map of Scotland’s monsters to celebrate the publication of The Treasure of the Loch Ness Monster. If you can’t find any local monsters, don’t worry, you can make a monster up! (Which is often more fun anyway…)

So, if you want to enter the #MapMyMonster competition click here for details!

UPDATE! The MapMyMonster competition is now over, but you can see the winners here. And I’ll always be happy to meet your monsters, if you want to email me a picture or a story!

PS – Can anyone work out EXACTLY where I’m from, from all the clues up above?