I have written about my love of reading before. So what made me take the leap to write a book? What a big jump it is from my passion of reading and constantly devouring books like some crazed bibliophile. Books have forever been my escape from whatever is going on. To lose myself between the pages of a book and enter new places and worlds. The truth is I have been through more heartache and trauma than most do in a lifetime in my 32 years. These things I have lived through, these life experiences, made me want to have an escape to channel the emotions that came with them. How better to channel them than through a creative outlet like writing. It allows a writer to escape to wherever their mind takes them and to take others with them on that journey. To put the emotions into scenes with characters in any place and time of the writers choosing. I also do this with my blog series life’s a journey sharing some of these life experiences.
I am taking my time and slowly tackling writing my book. This isn’t something that happens over night I have had the idea for my book for many years. The past 2 years or so I have been doing the research needed as it is historical fiction meaning the places , clothes, plants all the finer details have to be correct for the time as well as location of places. I have done short stories, poems, essays, blogs and creative writing projects through uni but never a book. This is a challenge and goal I have set myself.
Over the years I have read thousands of books and always come back to fantasy, history and historical fiction. My book is based in 839-843 AD in what would one day become Scotland. It could be classed currently as a mix of historical fiction and fantasy as its based loosely around events that happened and also folklore. I am doing allot of research to ensure everything from the animals and scenery of the time are correct. I want to do what my favorite books do, take readers into the story, set the scenes so it takes them away into that place and time. Jean M Auel did it beautifully in The Clan of the Cave bear. It is evident how much research she did of the time with the knowledge of plants and animals that went into it but the research on how they communicated to make the characters more 3 dimensional to get you to understand them on a deeper level.
A lot of authors get inspiration from history. George RR Martin was inspired by the battle of the roses. The War of the Roses was a series of civil wars that were fought for control of the throne of England. It was fought between two rival branches of the royal House of Plantaganet, the House of Lancaster, associated with the red rose, and the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. These civil wars were fought between 1455 – 1485. Reading his books and watching the series it becomes clear the inspiration he took from historical events and he weaved it into magic that captured the intrigue of millions of people.
Some authors are even inspired by other stories. Sarah J mass book A court of thorns and roses was inspired by Beauty and the beast. It’s a much more grittier version to begin with then transforms into something you wouldn’t see coming. The second book in the series was inspired by Hades and Persephone. Every writer is an artist and sees one story that can be transformed into something else or can make something from nothing and make it enthralling.
Sometimes it just takes that spark of inspiration. For me my passion for history and missing my homeland inspired me to research many years ago. As I read more it came to me. The idea of the story, the times in history I wanted to work round. As read about the time period I also read about the folklore of the times of the Sidhe and wulvers. Before I knew it characters started to come to mind, a story to re-write history.
For more on my upcoming book as it develops stay up to date with my blog. As I delve more into the story write and then re write I will post up info on characters and bits and pieces of the story.
Nadia E Westbrook Creative 