Down the Fantasy Rabbit Hole: the what, why, and how I became a writer

I’ll be upfront and honest: I’m not a writer who was a child prodigy who started writing stories as I was learning to walk. I vaguely remember attempting to write a story but quickly lost interest and moved on. But growing up, I did love books.  

Apart from enjoying reading African folktales, I loved studying history. It was my favorite subject growing up, in primary and secondary school. One regret was not studying it as a formal degree at university. Being the daughter of an accountant/auditor, I went for business instead (which has served me well to date). Anyway, I’m getting off track here; let’s go back to the central question of what inspired me to write.  

I only considered fictional writing as something I wanted to do in my mid-thirties. I was working a high-stress job at the time in a very big, fast-paced multinational company. I had a one-year-old baby and was reading for leisure (which wasn’t a lot of time). I had dabbled in fantasy over the years, like George R. R. Martin’s Games of Thrones, but it wasn’t my primary genre. I was mainly into crime thrillers like Don Winslow’s Power of the Dog (you need to read that with El Narco) and Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 (for its historical attachment to the Soviet Union, one of my favorite periods of history to study). 

Fast-forward a few years, I returned to work after having my second baby. Let’s face it: I wasn’t sleeping. The stress of the job, having a three-year-old and a young baby who didn’t sleep through the night, meant I couldn’t switch off. I would sit at night watching TV with my husband, who, for the record, has always supported me and shared the load. I’d gravitate towards my work laptop. I’d answer emails, reply to teams/slack messages, write documents, and create power points. Whatever it was, I was working on it. TV couldn’t hold my attention; it was background noise that filled a small gap in my brain. I was waking up at 2 am, and I’d just be awake, so what would I do? I’d work. My mind was going a million miles an hour; I had multiple near-mental breakdowns. I needed to switch off. I needed to escape.

Here, it gets interesting. I’m not boasting; I’m just sharing how crazy my head was at this point. Before the craziness of my adult life (before 2021), I averaged about ten to fifteen books a year. That’s alright; a book a month is good. That’s pretty normal. To help myself switch off in 2021, I needed a whopping one hundred and seventy-five books to quiet my mind. That’s a 17.5x increase. That’s 14.5 books a month.  

Holy heck, I may have a problem. So, who was I reading? I continued Raymond E. Feist’s books but started venturing down the rabbit hole of Fantasy Romance. I went everywhere: Sarah J. Maas, Raven Kennedy, J. R. Ward, Nalini Singh, Amelia Hutchins, and Grace Draven. But I won’t keep going because we’ll be here for a while, but check out my Goodreads for what I’ve been reading.  

I stopped watching TV. I stopped gravitating towards my work laptop, emails, and messages about things that could wait until the next day. When the kids went to bed, I couldn’t wait to pick up my Kindle and enter far-off distant lands with fantastical plots, swoony love stories, and bad guys that sometimes you love. These worlds absorbed me and quieted the noise. I read and read and read. I couldn’t get enough. Now, granted, I was exchanging one bad habit for another. Now, instead of waking up at 2 am and working, I would stay up until 2 am reading (not every night, but sometimes that happened). We are getting off track again, but you get the backstory.  

All of this eventually led me to ask myself: Could I write a book? Could I give someone else the escapism and joy that all of those authors have given me? Could this be one of those moments in your life where you find your second calling? Or have a career change? Well, you only know once you try, right?  

Something in my life needed to change. My family was stable, the kids were thriving, my marriage was solid, and we were all good. I’d had a successful career so far, climbing to senior roles, being respected by my colleagues, and working with inspirational leaders. Still, I wasn’t fulfilled (yet).  

I firmly believe that if you want to change your life, you need to drive it. No one, unless you are extremely lucky or fortunate to have enough money to throw at change endlessly until something sticks, will make change happen for you. It’s up to you and no one else. Sure, you will have people supporting you in that process, but they won’t do it for you.  

I was recently at the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference, where Sasha Black spoke about making decisions in life. The gist of her keynote session at the event (see my other blog) was to write what you love. That was the decision that I made to change my life by writing what I love, inspired by the authors that I adore. 

Now, I didn’t just pick up a pen or keyboard and start writing. I needed to learn the craft, understand how to tackle creative writing and upskill. I’d written a lot in my life, but it was for business documents at work or for academic essays and theses at university.  

In 2022, the world emerged from the COVID pandemic, which destroyed some businesses and forced others to adapt. An adaptation was Oxford University offering online learning, as many of its traditional courses were placed on hold because of lockdown. I took this opportunity and did a creative writing course to understand its theory. This was a great initial insight into the industry, but it scratched the surface of a very deep, very well-established industry and an age-old profession. I needed more. At this point in the post, you probably think I am some maniac and addict because I haven’t stopped. You are right to a degree because I won’t ever stop, but that’s just me. Anyway, I’m getting back on track.  

From there, I joined The Novelry, headed up by Louise Dean and her team of industry experts. It was here that I put pen to paper (so to speak) and wrote and edited Forgiving Darkness. The Novelry was a fantastic addition to my journey. Louise has crafted a pathway that supports authors from where they get ideas, how to shape them, what habits they need to put in place when writing, how to write compelling prose, and the whole editing journey (which is a tale for a different time). It’s a trip, that is all I can say, and it’s well worth the investment.  

After my first stint at The Novelry (which I am still a member of), I have done other things to enrich my writing and career. I joined writers’ groups and communities and attended events (see my blog post). I’ve dusted off my marketing skills, which have been dormant for many years, and upskilled in areas like social media, blog posting, and newsletters. All the while trying to write other books.  

I have also learned some hard and valuable lessons along the way. When I started, I had this very grand, very naïve idea that I could quit my job and become a full-time author, just like that (I write snickering at my past naivety). Well, I can tell you now that isn’t happening…yet. Maybe one day, when I have a big enough back catalog and when I have loyal fans of my work. The change will come, and I hope you’ll be on the journey with me.  

For now, though, you’ve seen behind the curtain. You’ve seen the good, bad, and ugly that got me here. Would I change any of it because some was hard? No, I’d have everything happen like it did. The question is, what’s next? It’s releasing Forgiving Darkness in 2024 and writing more. Join my newsletter or follow me on social for updates, exclusive content and more.