Today’s Blog Swap is with eBook author Wendy Steele who is also a dancer and a healer. Check out Wendy’s blog to see my interview.
How did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I left school, I had no idea what I wanted to do but it’s hard to envisage a time when I didn’t write. My first piece was a poem aged 10, after visiting the Tutankhamen exhibition in London and, ever since, I’ve come home from new adventures and committed my thoughts and experiences to paper. My first piece of published (and paid!) writing was an article for the Dancing Times, after attending my first day of belly dance workshops in London, eight years ago.
As a child, I read and wrote stories, losing myself in the lives of the characters, while in my early twenties, I wrote children’s stories and short stories but it was on a two day writing course, nine years ago, that I believed I could be a writer. I liked the character I created on the course and, over the following three years, proceeded to write my first novel between school runs, children’s clubs, family domesticity, cleaning other people’s houses and stacking shelves in a supermarket.
After attending Swanwick Writers Summer School for the second time last year, (Vikki-Where I met Wendy in the smoking tent lol) and receiving great advice and help, I made the decision to take time away from teaching dance and complete the current novel I was working on and, since then, have felt like a writer.
Writing is a harmonious accompaniment to my dancing, forcing me to sit and expand my mind while allowing my body to rest.
What genre do you write in?
My work was described by an agent as ‘contemporary romantic speculative fiction’ and, yes, my characters are of the moment, they form relationships but they do so in this world while the majority of ‘speculative fiction’ I’ve found is set in the future, another world or planet and the characters are often not completely human.
My writing is also magical. One reviewer wrote about ‘Destiny of Angels’ – ‘ A revenge/redemption story with a spiritual twist, where the mundane and the mystical intertwine.’
Do you have a writing schedule?
I do plan my writing time but often find myself juggling to include the demands of the indie writer within the plan. I used to write two days each week, actually writing new words but now plan to write for three days per week, while allocating two half days for promotion and paperwork.
What’s the best writing environment for you – where do you write?
Before we redecorated to sell our house, propped up in bed was my favourite spot but this has since been usurped by the summerhouse in the garden. It’s quiet, save for the occasional bee, and the cats like to join me, which is lovely.
When do you write?
Most of my writing is done between 6am and 6pm, as family and dance take over my evenings. If I find myself alone in the house at the weekend though, I will write!
Who inspires you?
The natural world gives me the biggest buzz. I can be carried along for a week by an hours saunter through a bluebell embellished wood but the person who inspires me is Mr Terry Pratchett. Two pages from any of his books is enough to way lay my angst and focus me on the task of attempting to write words as beautiful as his.
If you were to be compared to another author, who’s work would yours most resemble?
I have yet to find an author who writes like me! My friend Peter thinks some of my characters are glamorous, rich and powerful like those in a Jackie Collins novel but the only other author I know who wrote contemporary fiction in a magical context is Dion Fortune. She, however, was using fiction as a way to get a message across, where non-fiction would have been unpublishable at the time she was writing, while my writing is always about telling a stonking good story.
Tell us about your current WIP/recently published book?
‘Destiny of Angels – First book in the Lilith Trilogy’ was released on 21st April 2012.
Two years ago, at a time when I was feeling angry and uncertain about my life, the storyline for Destiny came to me….what if the powers from other dimensions could be channelled, used to offer choices and the chance of redemption in this level of consciousness?
Angel Parsons and her lover, Aidan Quinn, were my first two characters. Beautiful, intelligent, yet humanly flawed, they were exciting and fun to write with….and the rest of the cast soon followed.
Angel and Aidan and the rest of the cast depart for their first foray into the world of the Door Keeper Thoth, Ra the Sun God in his Temple at Tiphereth and Lilith, the Dark Goddess.
‘Destiny of Angels’ is available to download on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/B007OX5J8O/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link
and for US readers
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007OX5J8O/?tag=kttus-20
The second book in the Trilogy ‘Wrath of Angels’ is begun as is ‘Wendy Woo’s Year – A pocketful of smiles’, a non-fiction book I hope to have ready for September to be released around the same time as the paperback of ‘Destiny of Angels’. Do stop by my blog at http://www.wendysteele.com and join me for a cup of tea and a piece of home-made cake.
This whole idea of a trilogy fascinates me…..is it something I could do? Think about, with my own work? I’m not completely sure lol. Have you thought about writing a series, or have you started one? What are the pro’s and con’s?
The View Outside 