I have known for some time that I should be writing a blog but every time I started, inspiration deserted me and I hummed and ha-ad about what to write. So I told myself what I always tell other writers, start at the beginning.
I was staying on holiday in a historic house in a medieval village in France. As I stood at the window of my room on the top floor (just as Nick does in the first chapter of my novel) I could see across the rooftops and beyond the surrounding forest, to the distant mountains. It was there that the idea for Circle of Fire came to me. Nick is a reluctant hero, a warrior who has turned his back on glory but is then forced to fight a battle between love and duty.
Obviously it took a while longer for the plot to take shape and about a year to write it. I knew nothing about French history and in fact the story I had written did not fall into any period of English history either. I had to invent my own country and give it a history of its own.
As much as I enjoy the fantasy genre, I am not too keen on magic or elves, so there are no wizards or wing-ed creatures. I did have a little flirt with mind-reading, or True-sight as I like to call it but all in all, my world was entirely human and down to earth. Was it then, a fantasy? Was it a history? Neither one nor the other or a bit of both?
Whatever I choose to call it, my novel is cross genre and publishers and agents would not publish it. I decided eventually to go the self-publishing route. YouWriteOn.com made the whole process easy and manageable and here we are. It's just a story. A reader can look at the back of the book and decide whether he wants to read it or not.
I would be very interested to hear from other writers who have similar problems. Perhaps we could start our own 'Just a Story' genre.
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