So... Who are you?
Quite a few things have been said about me. Some of these things are flattering. Some are not. And some are even true. Personally, I would rather talk about my writing than about myself. But I am sure you will learn a few things about me by visiting this website.
So… What is the deal with your website?
I frequented numerous authors’ websites back when I was writing my first novel. Many of those websites were blogs dedicated to recounting the writing process. Reading those blogs helped me immensely. Knowing that others could relate to what I was experiencing during the writing process boasted my morale and helped me to keep writing even when I became so aggravated that I debated on whether I should chuck my computer into the bin and sell turnips for a living. (That might be an exaggeration. Then again, perhaps it is not. Selling turnips can be a rewarding career.) Anyone who is thinking about writing a book or a story should read a few of those blogs. They are not hard to locate. And they will help you.
My website, however, is not one of those blogs. There is a good reason for this. Put simply, I have nothing to add to that particular dialogue. Others have already detailed the writing process at length. And they have done a better job of recording it than I could.
So I decided to do something different. I would create a series of online stories that would serve as expansions to my Young Adult book, Beryl's Saga. But, and this was the important bit, the reader would not have to read these stories in order to follow the tale told in Beryl's Saga. Beryl's Saga would exist without the stories, but the stories would not exist without Beryl's Saga. These stories were supposed to enhance the reader’s experience. They were never meant to trick the reader by providing them with half a book and then saying, “Oh, it will cost extra if you want to finish the book”. No. They were to be my way of saying, “Thank you for reading my book. Here are some stories inspired by Beryl's Saga that you can read free of charge.”
To do this, I took two minor characters from Beryl's Saga, and began to write their story. The first part of which, A Young Woman Named Mythilda, is now available if you wish to read it. The story sort of grew a bit (or a lot). I now expect to write five novella-length expansions to Beryl's Saga, each of which I plan to make available on this website. (But plans and stories can change, of course). I hope you enjoy meeting the two main characters, Izzy and Myth. They are old friends of mine by now.
So… Do you only write fantasy?
No. Gothic novels and the Romantic poets heavily influenced my first book, The Watcher in the Wood. For the near future, however, I will be working on a series of fantasy books for Young Adults. (Well, mostly fantasy anyway. But describing a book as being mostly fantasy sounds weird.) Beryl’s Saga is the first book in this series. If the series unfolds the way I expect it to, then there will be three more books. (Plus several expansions.)
So… Why write fantasy?
Creating fairylands and populating them with characters and adventures is something I have always done. The lands and people I invent in my head are as real to me as our world. Okay. That is a bit of an exaggeration. I have not wandered so far from real world as to confuse it with fairylands. Fantasy is a form of reality, however. It may not be tangible, but it exists nonetheless. Humans create the fairylands, after all. Those places are a part of us. Sure, you can only to travel to them by using your imagination or by reading a book, but that does not mean fairylands are not real. It just means you cannot reach them by using a map or GPS.
Fantasy is a genre in which anything is possible. There are no rules that you have to follow when creating a fairyland. Go wild. Dream up whatever you wish. Yet a fantasy world also bears a striking resemblance to the world we can see and touch. Our environment and our world play a huge role in defining who we are. It is only natural for the real world to seep into our fairylands. This mad mix of anarchy and familiarity has always appealed to me. Taking those lands and characters that I created in my imagination and using them in books was a no-brainer. Even so, creating a fairyland is a lot of work.