Another GoodReads question, which I thought I’d answer here on my blog seeing as the covers and synopsis may not be sorted for a while.

This summer I’m working on a new fantasy novel, called Tears of Tiphonia, which is aimed towards older children and teenagers – though of course adults can read too! It’s inspired by the bizarre yet beautiful worlds of Lewis Carol and L. Frank Baum, whose stories of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz and their heroines have inspired me to create my own.

Summary so far: When Lucy Smythe finds herself in the wonderful country of Tiphonia once again, she becomes more and more aware of what civil unrest means – something that she had not picked up in her innocent years, regardless of the wars and tension in her own life. Tiphonia is falling apart at the seams, with war looming around every corner, both in an uproar against the bad witches and distrust of the royal family. Laying her life down for the people and her princess, Lucy must chose between peace and conflict, love and home. 

Currently I’m working on chapter four, and have thirty chapters planned so far.

At the same time, I’m working on Roses For Margaret, and trying to work out the ending. There is a lot of writing for this story, so I don’t want it to go to waste, especially seeing as it deals with themes that I wished I could have read as I was growing up.

Hi everyone! Just recently I joined GoodReads as an author, and you can see my profile here. Feel free to ask me any questions if you’re interested, and I’ll answer here on the blog and on GoodReads!

One of the questions GoodReads asks you, as an author, automatically is “what’s the best thing about being a writer?”. This is a really interesting question, and one which I was discussing with another writer friend a while back. We determined that the best thing about writing is that you can live in another world, one of your own creation, where you can retreat to when the real world is too painful.

People that have lived through illness, trauma or despair – which I’ve been subject to now and in the past (illness and depression), something that I shall write about in one of my future novels, called Roses for Margaret – can retreat to a fantasy world, both through reading and writing, and live through their characters from time to time. Writing has really helped with my depression and sickness, simply in the way that I can live through somebody else, write about my experiences, and give my characters either my dream life, or a twisted version of my own life – this is a really comforting process, and I’d recommend it to anyone struggling with stress and physical/mental health problems.

With my friend, we discussed that writing can become an addiction, something that you can’t live without, and the same goes for me. I could be anywhere, and suddenly the urge to scribble down my daydreams and little flights of fantasy would come to me. There is hardly ever a time where my head is not up in the clouds, and a lot of my imaginings becomes a part of my characters or plots.

This summer I’m writing a new book – and it has nothing to do with Aika or Carrie this time! 🙂 (though I must say that more books about them are either in the planning stages, or being written in bits and pieces…) More on that is to come soon, when I’ve worked out the synopsis and cover situation, but for now I can say that it’s a fantasy novel.