Interviews

The following is a conversation with Lucy Stone, editor of Terrouge Magazine, where we chat about writing, inspirations and a bit about my novel, Bloodline: Alliance.

Tell us about yourself a little; when did you start writing?

Well, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. As soon as I could hold a pencil, I was scribbling out short stories and poems. I used to write the sorts of things I wish I could read more of. When most kids were devouring books, I was lying on my bedroom floor writing stories.

As for writing novels: I remember when I was eight years old, I used my hard-earned pocket money to buy a spiral-bound notebook for my stories and poems. I showed it to my father who asked, "What are you going to do with that? Write a novel?"

I suddenly got quite excited about the idea. I replied, "Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do." I took the notepad to my bedroom floor, stretched out, and started scribbling away my first fantasy novel. And as I wrote, something actually came alive in side me - like hitting an 'on' switch. I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. It was probably the most defining moment of my writing life. I can even still remember exactly what that story was about.

Looking back, what influences shaped your first forays into writing fiction?

Well, my first forays were as an eight-year-old, so I would have to say that fairytales were my biggest influence. I loved fairytales. I still do. I especially loved the princess and prince kind of fairytales. They were my first experience of fantasy, or the fantastical - and I absolutely fell in love with them.

Growing up a bit more, another defining moment was when I read a novel called, the 'Tower of Geburah', by John White. This was in late primary school, and until that moment, I didn’t really understand what I loved and why. When I read this book, I discovered there was a genre that absolutely fit me, and it was called fantasy. And suddenly all my choices as a younger child made sense. Here was a place that I belonged, but I thought, at that age, that fantasy was for children, and one day I would have to grow up and leave fantasy behind.

And then I read David Eddings' 'Belgariad'. Someone handed me the first book in the series and said, "Read this. You’ll love it." And I did. Even more than that, I suddenly realised that adults read fantasy too. And a whole world of possibilities opened up to me. I know, after reading the 'Belgariad', that I began writing novels far more seriously, because I didn’t have to give up this childish idea of loving fantasy.

Was there ever a 'lightbulb moment', where you suddenly realised exactly what you were writing for? Or have you just gradually forged a path through years of writing to discover that?

Well, my first published novel, ‘Bloodline’, is actually my fifth completed novel. Until ‘Bloodline’, I wrote novels because I loved writing novels. It was about as deep and important as that. Incidentally, none of those novels were any good. ‘Bloodline’ was a definite 'lightbulb moment'. I had actually started writing ‘Bloodline’ about a year earlier, and it didn’t feel right, so it sat in the one-day pile. All this time, life around me – the world that I saw in the news, and in observing humanity - was really starting to impact me. There was so much injustice and suffering, and so much that needed fixing. And the more I saw it, the more worked-up I became at what I saw. I desperately wanted to do something about the problems, but felt completely helpless.

And then, as fate would have it, I had a bizarre conversation with a very, very racist man. I can’t even begin to describe to you how unbelievably racist he was, and he saw nothing wrong with his beliefs. That conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I became so angry, that I couldn’t sleep. And I knew I needed to speak out. My thoughts turned to ‘Bloodline’. And suddenly ‘Bloodline’ clicked into place. And I knew that my big, big voice could come through my fantasy writing. I saw the potential of fantasy as far greater than I could have imagined. It was my way to change the world. And that’s what my books have been about since. They are sweeping and often epic stories, and mysteries with massive twists and turns. But they are also about some very big themes like injustice, and forgiveness, and compassion, and revenge, and social classes - and of course, racism.

I believe I entertain first and foremost, but I also tell a story to change people. I want people to be swept away by a massive, changing experience as they follow characters they love along strange and surprising roads.

What is it that keeps you writing? A sense of adventure? Ideas? The need to tell a story?

Gosh - there are so many things that keep me writing. Some of it’s explainable. Some of it even I don’t understand.

I think the main reason I keep writing is that I can’t not write. Does that make sense? Every time I try to stop writing novels, it’s like packing a huge part of myself away in boxes and hoping I don’t notice it’s gone, or miss it. After a while, I feel like only half of myself. I have to get those boxes out and open them up. I have to accept that writing novels is not just something I do, it’s part of me.

What is it that keeps you writing? A sense of adventure? Ideas? The need to tell a story?

Gosh - there are so many things that keep me writing. Some of it’s explainable. Some of it even I don’t understand.

When writing a series of novels, such as ‘Bloodline’, how much pre-planning did you start with? Where did the first germ of the idea for these novels come from?

The very first ideas for ‘Bloodline’ came from dreams. Actually most of my novel ideas come from dreams at some stage in their evolution. For ‘Bloodline’, I dreamt two very, very clear scenes in the novel. I can’t tell you what they are: it would spoil the book. But in these two scenes, I basically understood their background story and how they connected, so there was a great idea for a novel there. It wasn’t all of what ‘Bloodline’ became. It became far, far bigger, but the premise definitely arrived during a dream.

I usually take these basic ideas, start letting them grow in my head until I know I have a substantial book and lots of good characters. And then I do some proper pre-planning. Storyboarding: I highly recommend it.

How do your main characters come about? Do they spring into your head fully-formed, or is it a struggle to get them down on paper? How easy did you find it to get into Shenna’s head?

You know, I tend to fit very easily into the minds of the dysfunctional characters. I can hear characters’ voices so clearly that at times I’m hearing their conversations even when I’m not writing. So they‘re all fairly easy to write, but I do hold a special place in my heart for the dysfunctional. Shenna, the main character, is certainly that. She is a difficult character in many ways. Her life has been stunted by the cruel death of her father. Her father died when Shenna was just a girl, and sometimes Shenna is challenging and immature - kind of angry and dark. And the character of Wolf - who is actually a wolf - really balances that. Shenna and Wolf are soul-mates. They are two halves of each other and they can speak in their minds. And when you see Shenna thinking, you see Wolf as well. Wolf’s like the cooling relief when you have to confront Shenna’s hot anger all the time. I think if you didn’t have Wolf, Shenna would be too intense.

Wolf was a classic case of my subconscious brain being way ahead of me. When I first penned the opening pages of ‘Bloodline’, Wolf’s voice was the very first voice I heard. I didn’t know at the time who he really was. I just knew he was a wolf, and he was there, and he has the opening line, and that he was with the main character as her friend. And I also knew his words were in italics, because they were thought, not voiced. I didn’t dig too deeply at the time, but when I came back to ‘Bloodline’ much later, suddenly Wolf’s character became very clear, and he became absolutely vital to the entire story.

So each character comes to me in different ways. Most, though, are the result of a lot of pre-planning.