It’s the Monday after Exeter’s first literary festival, and I’m left with the question, ‘Do we stop to think how much we take for granted?’
I’m thinking about the main character in Return of the Mantra; a young woman who grows up in a society where freedom of speech, books, stories and historical truth are controlled.
I often think of writing as tapping into that introverted side of yourself. Time spanning hours, days, months and years are spent alone, with your own head for company, creating worlds, characters, themes and plots that will ultimately blend into your story. And all the while that story sits in the comfort of your carved out niche, told only to you and your nearest and dearest.
It is years in the making, this creature called the debut novel; a creature that has lived safely hidden within the walls of my writing room. For long enough it followed the plan I laid out, until it started to take on a life of its own.
As a kid it was a Saturday morning custom for my dad to take me and my sister to Holmfirth library. We browsed the shelves, selected a book, and took it home to devour. And there from a tender age our worlds opened up in those typed pages. Stories have always been a gift.
