When I was a teenager, I was super into Lord of the Rings, thanks to Peter Jackson’s masterpiece movies coming out at that time. As with many other Tolkien fans, I dreamt of creating a rich world of my own. I even planned to invent several languages, despite the fact I’m useless with languages.
In 2003, aged 14, I spent Valentine’s Day with a friend. We were both single, so it was a depressing day for two teenage girls, but we made the most of it. She happened to have an interest in Latin and was kind enough to spend the day helping me invent a language for the world already growing in my mind. My first real attempt at a book followed, titled Eidu Are.
After writing a few thousand words, I asked my GCSE English teacher for his opinion. He ended up insisting I submit it as coursework, which was meant to be a horror short. That’s a genre I have little skill with, and I think he knew that. Eidu Are fared much better than my attempt at a horror piece, and that teacher’s feedback remains a confidence boost to this day.
When I reached 30,000 words, life got in the way. I started dating, got bogged down with A-Levels, and didn’t write more than a few abandoned story ideas until I went to university. All my notes for Eidu Are went with me, but they were left untouched, hidden away in a folder.
My first year at university left me with enough free time to return to writing. I wrote another 30,000 words, this time for a book titled The Child of Fate. Unfortunately, but quite rightly, university got in the way just as school had. I left the book unfinished, but I never left that world behind.
I graduated in 2010 with a 1st Class degree in Computer Science, moving across the country soon afterwards to take a job as a Graduate Software Engineer with IBM. That was my world for four and a half years, until my health forced me to leave it behind.
In the early summer of 2015, a few months after leaving IBM, I got married and moved back to Essex, after which I focused on an Etsy shop until I fell pregnant. I’d longed to be a mum since I was a teenager, even more than I wanted to be a published author. Ed and I had been trying for four long years, and when my son was born, motherhood became my new world. We were thrilled when our daughter arrived thirteen months later. It’s been hard work raising two so close in age, but I love them both to pieces.
During those years, my books’ worlds ticked along in the back of my mind, growing and maturing with me. I read a great deal and gradually got the feel for what makes a book work. Eidu Are became the world history for The Child of Fate, and I put limits on the magic. Ideas began to spring to life, one after the other.
Towards the end of 2019, all my drive to write returned to me. If you’re a writer, you likely know that uncontrollable urge. It was all consuming, and I’m fortunate to have a very understanding husband. I took The Child of Fate, ripped it apart, and kept only the core characters and the world history from Eidu Are. I began to write like the world would end if I didn’t.
The first draft for Echoes of Chaos took two months to write. After another three months, I had first drafts for the next four books in the Immortal Hearts series. Alas, in May 2020, work on the final book in that series stalled. Covid-19 had turned the world upside down.
I wasn’t ready to give up. I began editing, and, at of the time of writing, I’m working with beta readers on a fully rewritten Echoes of Chaos – a version far greater than its predecessor. While I continue to write and edit, I study writing resources online and grow my network on social media.
Immortal Hearts isn’t the only series I have planned that’s set in Thellian. Already scrawled in notebooks are the seeds of sequels for characters from Immortal Hearts, and I’m rewriting Eidu Are as a new story called Key to Truth. There are also tales set between the two in a time of wars amongst immortals, namely the dragons and elves. Time allowing, there will even more standalone stories set at various points in the world.
Thellian is such an expansive world, my mind runs wild with the possibilities, not seeming to understand I have limited time in which to write. I’m a stay at home mum, but all my free time goes towards my books.
I dream of sharing the tales of Thellian with anyone willing to read them.
