Remember To Write For Yourself, Not For

Elephants Are My Favourite Creatures And Have Been Since I Was A Boy And My Mother Read Kipling's The Elephant's Child To Me. It Was Loving Elephants So Much That Made We Want To Write My Own Story With An Elephant At The Centre And Its Bond With A Child.

I Spend Months, Sometimes Years, Doing What I Call Dreamtime, Weaving It Together Inside My Head. But When I Actually Feel That The Egg Of My Story Is Ready To Hatch, Then I Can Write It In Three Months. Then I Know The Landscape And The People Well And From The Inside, But I Don't Necessarily Know Where The Story Is Going To Take Us.

Wars Become History All Too Soon And Are Forgotten All Too Soon As Well, Before The Lessons Can Be Learned.

Wherever My Story Takes Me, However Dark And Difficult The Theme, There Is Always Some Hope And Redemption, Not Because Readers Like Happy Endings, But Because I Am An Optimist At Heart.

A Notion For A Story Is For Me A Confluence Of Real Events, Historical Perhaps, Or From My Own Memory To Create An Exciting Fusion.