Category: Blog
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Spurred on by a Dragon
I narrowly escape with my life when an angry dragon nearly roasts me. What possibly could have provoked the dreadful creature?
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Connecting with my muse
I was taking a break, connecting with my muse I called it, when the castle was rocked by an explosion. Elves… don’t let them anywhere near magic.
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Grimmon’s New Book Covers
There’s a bone-aching chill in the air as I stare at the landscape over the battlements of Castle Silverhill. It isn’t a pleasant sight, what with a blood moon coating the surrounding dunes in crimson and burnishing the still surface of the moat gently eroding the castle’s foundations. I don’t like the look of the…
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Magic – Mundane or Mysterious?
When I’m writing stories in my Hollow series, I try to make some of the magic used in Hollow pretty much run of the mill as far as the locals are concerned. It’s kind of like we are today with electricity. We take it for granted that we can plug in a lamp, or a…
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How Low Can You Go?
When I was planning Flight of the Gazebo, the first book in the Hollow series, I wondered how the villagers of Amblesby would react when their entire village was magically relocated to a strange hollow world. Surely everyone would pull together, join forces to overcome the terrible situation in which they found themselves? I pondered this point…
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How do you Measure Up?
One of those things we probably don’t think too hard about when we’re reading a fantasy book is what measurement systems are used in the world created by the author. There are exceptions, but many, if not most, high fantasies are set in worlds where the technology peaks at horses, carts and swords, so we’re…
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Sayings We Take for Granted
What with the Northern Hemisphere’s summer lurking in the wings, I thought I’d take a look at a something I’ve often heard but puzzled over. In the UK, there’s a saying Ne’er cast a clout till May be out. I learned this from my parents when I was a child, and they told me it…
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Whale of a time
As the days grow cooler here in the southern hemisphere, whales are returning to the waters around Cape Town. During the summer months it’s rare to see a whale in these parts, but come autumn their blows are a regular sight off the coast. I was fascinated to see an unusually shaped whale blow a…
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Cold Water Shenanigans
I live in Cape Town and we have lovely sandy beaches, many fringed with dark, rugged rocks and, to top it all, the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain. To give you an idea of Table Mountain’s beauty, here’s a photo I took of it from the Waterfront, a shopping area located in Cape Town’s harbour…
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Get Engrossed in Stories
As far back as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed making up stories. I have a memory from when I was still in nappies of laying in my cot, unable to sleep, and engrossed in a daydream about encountering a witch. In that particular episode, I first saw the witch through broken glass, which when I…
