I recently put out a tweet to the amazing writing community about how people found their way back into writing if they’d fallen out of the world for whatever reason.
The response I got was fantastic, and mostly the suggestions were of remembering what inspired me right back at the beginning. Why inspired me? What was I watching and reading? What music was I into? Since then, I’ve been thinking about it a lot and trying to remember the person I was. This is a challenge as I’ve spent the last 15 years suppressing my past and trying to forget all about high school and 6th form.
Still, I’ve been soldiering on with it, and maybe I have still forgotten a lot of my life, but it’s also made me realise just as much about my past and present self. This post turned into a bit of an epic, so I decided to split it and make it a two-parter. (Also, I haven’t finished part two as I really am trying to keep my madness and desolate feelings out of all of this.)
The world has changed, and change again and I’ve shed countless skins through every transition, yet a lot of who I am has always remained; the writer being a major part of my soul’s construction. How I perceived the world then and how I view it now hasn’t altered that much.
Something things have completely switched to opposites. Back then I was in love with love: think old Disney movies and the whole happily ever after thing. Now I’m a total cynic that wants to remember what the crazy feeling was, but also gets nauseated by the idea and would prefer some rage-filled future dystopian fiction.
Me then – playing The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Skyrim
Me now – Ruthlessly slaughtering my way through hordes of ghouls in Fallout 76, with Fallout 4 on standby.
To anyone who knew me growing up, I loathed first-person shooter games, PVP and post-apocalyptic settings. Yet here I am, trying to crowbar this crazy genre into my fantasy environment. And while my naïve, innocent self may have long been destroyed by the toxicity of this world; I still search for the beauty, love and purity within everything. I still believe in magic, even if my relationship with the arcane and the gods has changed. The child that was always daydreaming, creating stories, and looking for prince charming still there. In very opposite ways.
Why do I write, and when did I start writing?
I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Writing has always been such an integral part of my existence. Conjuring up stories from the landscape around me and summoning characters into being was easier than breathing (n.b. no idea why, but I’ve always had a tendency to forget to breathe. Whoever said it is impossible not to breath was wrong…) I can’t not write. I want to do a post at some point this year looking back at my older works and the worlds I created *shudder*.
When I’m not writing, it’s like madness and rage swell up inside me and start devouring at my sanity. So many voices of unwritten characters constantly clamouring at me from an unknown world; those of the characters whose fates are in my hands waiting for me to finish their stories. It is utter insanity. Every minute I’m not writing or working at writing in some way, it’s like I’m dying, and the characters fade away from me. Then there’s the fear I may lose them and their stories for good, and then what would I do with my life?
I first started writing A Dawn of Dreams back in 2006, and that was the first book I completely finished and stuck with. I was a teenager full of angst, an outsider…and I was in love with love. A Dawn of Dreams was also called Angelie I Demonie. It had(s) nothing to do with Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, I didn’t even know about him at the time, but I was in love with the song Inner Universe by Yoko Kano and Origa, and the original book title is literally the first three words of the song.
Back then, I was obsessed with anime and their soundtracks. I felt like my life made more sense watching them somehow, and the songs spoke to my heart. It’s over 10 years later and those songs I was in love with back then are still my favourites.
What inspires/d me?
I found inspiration everywhere as a child, and even in the throes of darkness as a teenager, I saw something in everything. Some of the most notice influences on my writing were holidays in Cornwall and the wild and rugged landscape of its coastline. I visited so many castles and Nation Trust properties as well as the many old towns that my mind was overflowing with stories and ideas.
I grew up on tales of Arthur and Excalibur, Mab and the Cornish Lady of the Lake, and the legends of pirates at Jamaica Inn. My brother and I would scour the caves whenever we could looking for treasure, which is when I first found crystals and fell in love with them.
Now I live in Wales and have been introduced to the Welsh Lady of the Lake. I also have two lakes that I now need to visit. In all the years of crossing Bodmin Moor, I never made it to Dozmary Pool. And so far in three years in Wales, I’ve yet to make it to Myddfai and Llyn y Fan Fach either.
Tunisia was the other place that gave life to The Sirin Chronicles in particular. I fell in love with the country the first time I went out there, it was so vibrant and rich. There’s so much culture and history everywhere, and even new locations being discovered. (Tozeur had only recently been discovered the last time we went out into the Sahara – I need to go back since they have uncovered so much more of it.)
I remember being overpowered by the intoxicating fragrance of jasmine the first time I was out there, and the smell of the desert always behind everything else. Pralines were, and still are, one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted. Damn, everything out there was (and is) so full of flavour, colour and scent; unlike dreary wet Britain where everything is pallid in comparison.
Aside from travel, music and fiction have been pivotal for my imagination. I have a strange connection between writing, music, dreaming, and memory. I was in love with Evanescence, Within Temptation and Nightwish through my teenage years. Classical music and soundtracks were also a big part of what I listened to. Whenever I was dreaming or writing, there was always music.
One of the greatest, unplanned moments I’ve while writing was a scene towards the end of Dancing Shadows and Kneel For No Man by Ramin Djawadi came on. I was completely into my writing, and oblivious of the music in the background until I got to the end of the scene. That the piece of music had completely powered the detailing and the pacing of the scene.
I’m one of those writers where I have a plot, and I do automatic writing. Half the time, I’ve no idea what the outcome will be as I let my characters take total reign and tell me the story. This character gave me five minutes of uncertainty over her fate and I was shaking because of how the scene had unfolded.
I only hope what I felt writing that scene passes to the reader. When editing Dancing Shadows, the same thing happened. I got to that scene, got into and the same track came on whilst I was deep within the fabric of the scene. (My YouTube ‘Writing’ playlist has 756 videos in it which makes it all the more bizarre and wonderful that it happened twice.)
Books and other worlds helped me develop my own world. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia were the three most pivotal books in my younger years. They introduced me to complex fictitious worlds that drew the reader in. They taught me a different kind of magic, one where you can open a book and travel to a whole new world for so long as you read. I never saw words. With both reading and writing, as soon as I got into the flow of things, words vanished any everything became more real than life. The more I read and experienced that sensation, the more I wanted to create my own magic realm for other people to find and escape to.
I was also obsessed with manga and anime, especially the amazing world of Bleach. At the time I got introduced to it, there were 72 episodes and I watched every single one of them in 24 hours. I forgot that both sleep and school were a thing. (I also had a raging crush on Hitsugaya, which incidentally, is one of those things that hasn’t change between then and now.)
I got into anime about the same time I got into The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. A common theme of interest for me both then and now was of getting stronger and dealing with insane odds. In all the stories I love, the main element is one getting stronger. It’s something that mirrors my own life where, for various reasons, I’m always trying to get stronger and conquer my own battles and demons. It’s a theme I love toying with too; how far can I push my characters and can they overcome their fate or find a way to change it?
That’s also why I prefer automatic writing and letting my characters have some control in the first few drafts. Sometimes they’ll make it easier for both of us…other times they’ll come up with an incredible idea and phenomenal challenge and leave me to fix it. How do you kill an immortal? Their idea? GET AN EVEN MORE EVIL AND OVERPOWERED IMMORTAL. Thanks, guys.
What inspires me now is largely the same, though it is lacking somewhat due to my current health status. I don’t get out anywhere near as much as I wish I could to explore. Also, lacking friends in the immediate vicinity of where I live stifles my creativity. I haven’t got someone I can bounce ideas around with, or speculate over plots of other stories – Game of Thrones, a favourite to speculate over.
I’ve discovered in the last couple of years that not speaking a word is actually detrimental. It’s like not speaking means not thinking, and not thinking is not creating or problem-solving. As soon as I’m with people, ideas start flying around like crazy. It’s a shame that in a year, I’m only among company for a week or two, every few months. No joke, my life is spent in total isolation for 2+ months at a time. No conversations. No human interaction.
I’d love to say that in itself was a good story plot to work with, except that’s already 90% of The Sirin Chronicles and I want to include life to my work, not more death.
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