About ten years of part-time and two years of full-time writing are done. Dawn of Wonder, book 1 of the series The Wakening, is ready to see the light – at last! Over the years, the entire plot and most of the characters were discarded and reinvented numerous times, but with every reinvention the landscapes and cultures grew a little broader. About two years ago I left my teaching job and started everything from scratch. After completing the rough draft, I did seven or eight revisions, as well as a rough for the second book and a number of scenes for the third. With much of the groundwork prepared, the subsequent books should emerge a lot more quickly than the first.

The artwork was a project on its own. I had very specific ideas for the cover, map, chapter headings and internal sketches.

As an artist, I’m somewhere between not much use and appalling, so it took a good long time to hack together the map and chapter headings (leaning very heavily on photoshop and Corel), but when it came to the internal sketches and cover, help was needed. Richard Allen spent months putting up with my exceptional fussiness and delivered artwork that has impressed everyone who has seen it.

I think Dawn of Wonder has been groomed about as much as any book can ask for, and I’m very excited to open the door and let it out.

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