In the beginning

I thought I would write a few posts about how the book emerged from some vague ideas and became what it is now. Today I have the pleasure of presenting to you...

Histories - Part I - In the beginning

When I say I have been writing this book for ten years, what I mean is that I had the idea ten years ago.

The truth is I spent a lot of these years not writing. University, for example, was almost a complete write-off. I was too busy… studying, obviously.

I also spent a lot of time working on my book but not writing. In fact after a couple of years I had a grand total of one scene written. Instead I thought of themes and deeper meaning to my book, which wouldn’t be like anything the world had ever seen (oh, the modesty of teenagers!). I thought about symbols behind my characters’ personalities and how words are like magic too, without bothering with such trivial things as plots.

 

I had just started being obsessive about Harry Potter (still not cured, I’m afraid) and realised that I could combine my love of writing with my love of magic – somehow the idea had never occurred to me and until then I'd insisted on writing stories about animals. More specifically I thought I would write about fairies, like the ones I drew on my notes at school – honestly Spanish lessons have done more for my drawing skills than any art class I’ve ever taken.

Childhood references.

I decided I would write a story with fairies in it. And witches – I’d been into those since my Sabrina the teenage witch years, and so I wanted my witches to be more Sabrina than Hermione. No magic wand, but cool clothes. I'm not sure they've really turned out like that, but that's perhaps for the better (you tell me).

I also had an idea about an old stone covered in symbols that would take you to another world. Like a door into a dream world. I went into a big theory about how art is only a window to these dream worlds, but these Doors would physically take you there. I thought it was a brand new idea – obviously I’d been deprived of stories involving lions and wardrobes as a child.

I also wanted my book to be quite philosophical (like I said, modesty...). I am actually very attached to the theme and message of my book (some would say - and have said - too much so) and the only reason I'm not going into a big thing about it is that I don't want to give anything away. At the time, though, I had only made a list of possible themes (none of which have made it into the book), and philosophical element was as non-existent as the plot. 

I spent the time developing my characters, got to know them quite well, but they weren’t doing much. They were just hanging around in my head.

Obviously, I did start writing eventually. But that’s another story.