The Chaos Clock was the first children's book that Gill Arbuthnott had written. Her own family didn't even know she was writing it! She's a teacher, and whenever she wrote, she used to pretend to her own children that she was marking homework. She was a secret writer.

Gill has lived in Edinburgh for many years, and has always loved the layers of history and time in the ancient city. She wanted to write a book which brought different parts of Edinburgh's history to life. Many real-life locations appear in the The Chaos Clock and The Chaos Quest (the Edinburgh Chaos Map available only on this website, shows lots of them). In particular, Gill loves the Museum of Scotland with its precious objects from different points in time.

The clock in The Chaos Clock is based on the Millennium Clock which you can visit in the Museum of Scotland. The clock was created by a company called Sharmanka -- visit their website to see other examples of things they've created.

Gill says that Kate and David, the heroes of the Chaos books, are based on different bits of her own children, and her children's friends. She is always 'stealing' ideas for her writing from things and people she sees and hears around her.

If you would like to meet Gill Arbuthnott in person, look at the school visits or live events pages on this website. You can also post a message to Gill on the say what you think page.