September Writer Showcase: Adele Sullivan

 Adele Sullivan

Our ninth showcase of 2024 turns the spotlight on writer Adele Sullivan [aka, Glowing Cosmic Moonbeam]. I met Adele when I joined the Open University's online writing group, Write Club, many years ago, and I was drawn to her humour, warmth and energy. She is one of the very few people, online or 'in real life', who can make me laugh out loud. She dismisses herself as 'just a mum and housewife', but she is so much more than that implies, and being a mum and a housewife is itself so much more important than people often think it is - and one of the most difficult jobs anyone can do. She has been writing stories for her son, Gillan, for a while now and I thought it was time they reached a wider audience. In order to raise money for the Grenfell Towers disaster appeal, she also did a great job of helping put together a brilliant anthology of stories, poems and memoir by OU writers about being brought up on a Council Housing Estate. I am proud to say that some of my writing appears in that anthology.

Adele Sullivan

Biography

Adele Sullivan lives in Greater Manchester with her husband, child and demanding cat. She started writing stories in childhood, like most writers do – though she emphatically does not call herself a writer. She is a person who writes stuff when she has time and has had a go at self-publishing, but she would never describe herself as creative. More clumsy.

    The other thing Adele is known for - probably the thing she is most known for, actually! - is her cooking and baking skills. They are bad. Very very bad.

    Her proudest moment was putting together the first Write Club anthology with the amazingly talented and brilliant editors and writers from Write Club Society OU. The collection of short stories, poetry and essays from council house tenants and former tenants was a heartfelt response to the backlash against those who survived and were displaced by the Grenfell disaster. None of the team knew what they were doing, and it took far longer than they expected to actually release, but they were passionate about this book and, for Adele, it will remain the best thing she has ever done. She is so proud of every single person who worked on that project.

    In the near(ish), but still quite distant future, Adele plans to finish and release the much-talked-about Mum Spy Book, and she’s promised her son that there will be a sequel to Stoker.

Front cover of first 'Stoker' book

The Chronicles of G: Stoker is the first of many books that Adele’s son plans for her to write but won’t actually read. The story came about, she says, "because I was telling Gillan [her son] off. He’d received a birthday present he wasn’t interested in – I think it was a marble. I asked him to think about the possibilities of the marble and the first thing he said was something about a Dragon's Eye – and it really went from there. Within an hour we had a basic plot – a magical mysterious eye that a Dragon, Dinosaur and a boy must protect from a baddie. The plot didn’t last long but eyes became a feature of the antagonist. We will be going back to the original plot in a later book.”

    Adele’s other planned project is to complete the novel she started during the Advanced Creative Writing with the OU. Her character, David, is a young autistic man who decides that, in order to become a better person, he must follow the advice given in daily quotations on a desk calendar. Adele has been working on it on and off for years and wants to finish it because it’s a character with whom she can really identify. It arises from a conversation she's been having with her own brother – who has autism – for many years. "We’re all trying to wing it in life," says Adele. "but as I’ve grown older I’ve started to understand that if we do wing it with any degree of success it's because  socially, we have a frame of reference – that doesn’t exist in the same way for him.”

    Adele is hopeful that she will finish it sometime after Christmas this year and before the age of 100. 

Links:

 

Here's the link to the pamphlet:

The chronicles of G: Stoker eBook : Sullivan, Adele: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

And the 'dreadful follow up' [Adele's words] which she claims she should never have done...

Dr Tomolo Malpin's Modern History of Dragons eBook : Sullivan, Adele: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The ebook 'The Other Side Of The Fence' is still available to buy from Amazon - The Other Side of the fence: Real Social Housing Tenants eBook : Club, Write, Banks, Yasmin, Sullivan, Adele, Goodheart-Smith, Jennifer: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Adele has sent us an extract from one of her delightful children's stories and a brief explanation of why she chose them.

Picture by Lou Wilford [Microsoft Paint, using a mouse]

Extract from “The Chronicles of G: Stoker”

"I’ve chosen this rather than the beginning because it’s the section I most enjoyed writing. I just had fun. I stopped worrying about syntax or flow or if it was good or not, I just let go. It’s also the last two chapters of the book and therefore, other than essays and short stories, the first thing I’ve finished. It’s not the greatest story and it’s much shorter than I imagined it would end up being when I held the print copy in my hand – but I put it out there. I did it – the nervous nellie! I wish I had spent more time on the ending but hey ho."

 

Chapter Seven

“Been to Eryri before?” the Coal Dragon, filing her talons, asked politely.

The boys shook their heads mutely. If they were relieved to see each other again, they didn’t say so. They sat side by side on a bench, surrounded by Coal Dragons of all shapes and sizes. The atmosphere was surprisingly friendly. Since Gillan and Charlie had been taken, they’d been offered worms, the contents of a nearby bin and freshly caught slugs. Gillan had declined, not being a fan of most foods anyway. Charlie had thanked them and snuck the slugs into his pockets for later. Thank goodness his mum had made him wear normal clothes and not his football kit.

“Shame this is your first time. Under the circumstance,s” she drawled. Gillan cleared his throat. “I think I’ve been before. My mum said I was sick on a lady. I punched another lady once on another holiday – but it's ok because I was a baby, so...” His voice trailed off.

“Was the lady a Dragon or human?” their captor asked, filing a little more aggressively.

“Ermmm… human. For both of them, I think. She’d definitely have mentioned if they were dragons. She gets very cross about animals getting hurt.”

Charlie nodded. “Mine too. Definitely, and that fish that time was already dead. I didn’t put it there!”

Her attention turned to the other child who had so far said nothing. In answer to a question she hadn’t yet asked, he simply said: “It wasn’t here. It wasn’t even in Wales. It was Blackpool.” Satisfied with his answer, she returned to her task, occasionally sighing heavily.

“We were wondering - well, Gillan was wondering - where our friend is. Not that he’s my friend. If I was going to be friends with anything it would be a centaur. He’s Gillan’s dragon.”

“I would be friends with a Minotaur and a Centaur - ” Gillan corrected.

To avoid any further discussion that might be had about who was allowed to be friends with what, their captor barked something in Dragon to one of the smaller sentries keeping their eyes on the boys. It nodded and scuttled away in the direction of the woods behind them. Everyone lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

“Do our mums know where we are?” Gillan waved away the offer of another slug.

Their captor said nothing. The other dragons guarding them had become restless in the last few minutes until there was a break in the bushes and a stream of cheerful chatter. A steady stream of dragons - Coal, Lava, Water, Wind, Mud - filed past the boys, each carrying a small plastic bag. They marched with purpose towards the main road, Coal Dragons in perfect unison. The Water dragons eventually spilled out everywhere, any that were earth-related preferring to hang back close to the shelter of the woods until they were given further instructions. Near the back, chatting animatedly to a rotund pair of Slate Dragons, was Rinnet, one hand clasping what looked like rhubarb which he dropped and the other rubbing his glowing orange tummy. Between breaths and the near-constant stream of chatter, he didn’t acknowledge the boys at all, not even to look at them. However, they did catch the end of a damning sentence – “Yes, it's those two. That’s why Stoker's after us. They kidnapped me too.”

“I wish I’d never met you – you stupid Dragon!” Gillan yelled to Rinnet’s back. He threw a rock and then another, then another. Charlie picked up a rock too and hurled it. They threw missiles long after they’d been left alone, their captor upping and leaving just minutes after Rinnet had passed them. Their arms ached, fear knotting inside them, but they refused to acknowledge it. They simply sat in solemn silence.

Finally Charlie spoke. “Our mums will look for us. They will. They’ll call the police and they’ll find us. We should stick to the road though.” Tiredness was creeping in. “We should try and make a camp or something. It's getting late. We should have been heading home by now.” Gillan nodded and stood up  starting to look for branches for a den. The boys talked about football, Percy Jackson books, school teachers past and present - anything to drown out the yawning silence of the forest and mountain. They had been arguing over the usefulness of a small branch one of them had found – who had found it and how the other had been much better at finding robust materials for their temporary camp – when the bickering was interrupted by a beam of purple light.

Stoker.

“Are you taking us back to our mums?” Charlie demanded.

“Once the wrong has been made right!” he replied gruffly.

“What wrong? We haven’t done anything wrong. Why are you picking on us?” Exasperated, both boys stared him down. Any friend of Rinnet was an enemy of theirs! Stoker stared right back.

“Are you going to kill us? If you’re going to kill us, my mum will kill you, and that’s a fact!” Gillan ground the end of his branch into the dirt. 

“He’s right! His mum will kill you and… my mum was a nurse or something so she can bring you back to life and kill you again! Charlie shouted furiously, hands clenched into fists.

“Well… my mum will … kill your mum?” Stoker answered with a question.

“Well, my dad will just kill your dad then, and then everyone will just kill each other until we’re all dead - but you’ll be on your own. I am so HUNGRY! I want my mum. I want to go home and I want to watch YouTube and be on my own in my habitat.” Gillan tossed a nearby branch haphazardly. “Just take us home! We want to go home.”

“You don’t understand!” Stoker yelled, covering his ears. “Nobody understands.. I was never meant to be there…” Stoker sobbed. “I was lost and I just wanted help. Nobody would help me. They all played football and they all sat together and talked to each other but they never invited me. Because I’m a Coal Dragon and I sound different and I look different. I just wanted someone to talk to. And then I met him and he hurt me! He hurt me on purpose.”

“Of course we understand.” Charlie shrugged. “We’re kids. We get being different too. Well, maybe not Gillan so much. He’s never really been on the same planet… but if you’re different, you’re not allowed to be. And you’re not allowed to be clever or the other kids will make fun of you and you’re not allowed to be silly because teachers don’t like it – and you definitely can’t say that something is wrong because grown ups don’t like to be embarrassed… and then, if we’re feeling sad or upset about something, we have to pretend everything is fine so adults don’t get upset with us. Adults only want to see one version of us. But it’s got to go somewhere. We all want help – but we don’t know how to ask. Sometimes it’s easier to act funny or silly or be angry because then someone will see us. Or they’re happy because they see what they want to see..”

“Well… what am I supposed to do? Just forgive him? Let it go?”

Gillan nodded in agreement. “I had someone I thought was a friend but he was actually kind of a bully… but he didn’t know he was being a bully. And he didn’t like being called a bully because he didn’t see what he was doing was wrong. But he was still wrong. Him being wrong didn’t change. I did. Well, my mum said we weren’t allowed to be friends anymore but I totally changed anyway.”

Charlie gave his friend a fist bump.

Stoker snorted out a plume of sulphur in disgust. “You two are rubbish.” And with that, he was gone again and the boys were alone once more.

Charlie stared at the remnants of Stoker’s trail. “You two are rubbish… You’re rubbish, you mean. Want to look at the slugs again?”

With nothing better to do, Gillan said “Go on then” and wished, not for the first time, that he’d learned how to light a fire in Cubs.

 

Chapter Eight

Stoker soared above them, their words ringing in his ears. To dislodge them, he rolled furiously from left and right, turning sharply to skim Eryri’s ridges. It was unthinkable to just let it go. How could he just forgive and forget? The weeks of pain, of following Rinnet's every step - all would be meaningless.

What could two boys know about pain?

He climbed higher so he could get a bird's eye view of Bangor, Anglesey, Eryri and Conwy. His home. He was home. Once Rinnet was dealt with, nothing else mattered. He could be with his friends and family. He could sit in the warmth of Granny Augustine’s kitchen as she raged about tourists trampling all over her beloved beaches. Home. Movement below caught his eye. The children were trying to flag down passing cars, reminding him of when he’d first landed with a bump in Kersal.  He’d tried the same – if you can call trying to catch Water Dragons sailing down the Irwell the same. How long had he tried before giving up?

He raised his head and sent out two short barks followed by a wave of purple stars. They hovered for a moment then sought out their receiving dragons. Each had their own message to be delivered with very specific instructions. 

No more wasting time. He had Rinnet. He would, however, do one last thing. He waited for two cloud Dragons to come into view, watched as they picked the boys up and flew them away, the kid’s legs kicking out furiously. Then he made his way to Bangor.

Rinnet was having a fine old time. He’d never seen so many dragons in one place. He’d never seen so many dragons in a city. There were dragons in shops. Working in shops! There were dragons hanging out in packs just like human teenagers did. Laughing and sulking and carrying bags and newspapers and shopping. Dragons were… what was that word that humans liked to use a lot? Equal. He could get used to this.

“Rinnet – keep up!” His new friends called out to him. “We don’t want to lose you.”

Two of the dragons who had escorted him back to the city flew round behind him. They were joined by two more. Then two more, and three on each side so he was encircled. Ahead, the dragon who had watched over Charlie and Gillan back in the park answered a faraway call with her own.

She twisted round to face him. "We’re going to take you back to the Clock Tower. Get you back to your humans." She laughed off his joke about staying longer and maybe even becoming a permanent resident. “Come, my little Grock. We’re not far now. See – the boys are coming too.” Sure enough, gaining rapidly on the small entourage surrounding Rinnet, were too much larger dragons with the boys on their backs. Purple particles danced around them and then shot off in a dozen directions. They were nearly upon the Tower. Rinnet could see Nina and Leigh back in the car park in some distress, and then crumbling in the way humans did when they were reunited with someone they hadn’t seen either for an hour or twenty years. Really, there was no rhyme or reason to them. He hoped that, once they’d recovered themselves, they’d see about some rhubarb. 

The dragons escorting him landed one by one into the square. They kept coming. Certainly, in the woods, there’d been many dragons. Dozens of them. But he’d only flown over with seven or eight. Still they came. Not all Coal. Some lava like him, water and air. Nudging him gently out of line until he was at the very centre. Soon, there were so many that they had displaced the humans who had been waiting there. Dragons had made humans move out of the way but the silly people hadn’t even noticed. Humans had moved FOR DRAGONS. This was the best day of his life. Nina, Leigh and the boys were too engrossed in themselves to care. Not one of them had come over to see how he was. How typical.

A bark signalled something Rinnet had missed. The dragons who had been chatting and messing about now stood to attention.

“READY!”

In unison, they tore open their brown paper bags and pulled out … whoopee cushions. What on earth was going on?

“INFLATE”

A prank on humans? Dragons were pranking humans? They were allowed to do that? Rinnet danced in delight.

“DRAGONS, RELEASE”

First came the deafening sound of dozens of whoopee cushions being deployed all at once in the middle of a public square. Even Leigh, Nina and the boys had looked up at the commotion. Then came the stench as every coal dragon released the pungent smell of sulphur making Rinnet’s eyes stream and his stomach turn.

“Oh, good grief. could you not have waited until you got home, little dragon?” An old woman shouted at him. “You have an entire sky to do your business.”

“Oh mum that dragon did the worst fart ever. I’m going to be sick!” A teenage girl walking with her mother covered her nose and mouth with her hand as they passed him. Someone pelted him with a coke can and passers-by looked at him in disgust. The old woman who had shouted first was still yelling at him, calling him a bad dragon

“It wasn’t me, it was… it was them. It wasn’t me, I swear!” The dragons had vanished. It was as if they’d never been there at all. Rinnet coughed and accidentally released a fiery burp. There hadn’t been many people accosting him, but it didn’t need many. It only needed a few, such is the shame for Lava Dragons to be caught out in public. “I didn’t do it, I swear..“ he pleaded to thin air. “It wasn’t me. We don’t do that. I’m a Lava Dragon. We never do that. Please, listen, I promise it wasn’t me.”

“Coming through, coming through…” Nina and Leigh jostled with members of the public to get to him. The boys following so closely behind they nearly tripped into their mums. ”Yes, I know, I know… bad tourists. We’re so sorry…” Nina tried to appease the people scowling at her but Leigh was Leigh, unapologetic and wildly amused by Rinnet’s distress.

“Who ate all the rhubarb pies, eh!” she smirked. ”Oh, I quite agree, love,” she responded to a throwaway comment about needlessly endangering lives in a public space. “He isn’t mine, love – but I tell you what, he is a right little stinker!”

“Nina, Leigh, I swear it wasn’t me.. There were dragons. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them and they all had… they all had these.. these bags and then they whipped out whoopee cushions. I’ve never seen so many and then they… they made it look like it was me!” The horror dawned on him and Rinnet shrank into a ball, sobbing.

A shadow fell upon them all, looming large even in failing evening light. Stoker. Nina and Leigh gathered their sons close to them and eyed Stoker nervously.

“We are even now. The wrong has been put right. You are free to leave.”

Rinnet gaped at him. “I never meant to hurt you!” he screamed. “I never imagined you would get hurt. I thought it would just whizz and pop a bit. I just wanted a laugh.”

“At my expense.”

“No. Not like that. Like that lady who thought I was a cat and I made her jump. She laughed. Yeah, she gave a jump, but she laughed. She thought it was funny. It was the same as that. Exactly the same. You just needed to laugh at it. You didn’t need to carry on like that. Going about burning people’s gardens and making us go hungry. It wasn’t even my fault. It was your fault for going in that shed in the first place.”

Stoker bristled, on the point of attack, then as quickly as the mood had taken him, he changed his mind.

“I didn’t find it funny. You hurt me. That’s all I want to say.”

Incensed, Rinnet shook his wings in anger. “Well, maybe I’ll get all my friends to come here. I’ll embarrass you. See how you like it! Maybe I’ll get an army. Maybe we’ll burn this whole place to the ground and cover it in lava rivers and have lava picnics!”

Sighing heavily, Gillan picked the enraged orange dragon up and stuffed him in one of the brown paper bags that had been dropped by the departing Coal Dragons. “We’re sorry about him. We’re going to take him home. Is it finished now? Are you all done?”

It was finished.

It was Charlie who approached first, holding out his hand. “Cool?”

“Do I lick it? I don’t really want to lick it.” Stoker backed up a few steps, wary of the new threat.

“No, you shake it. Like this.” Charlie took Stoker’s claw in his and gently moved it up and down.

“Cool?” he repeated

“I don’t know what it is you want me to say but I shall say… hot.”

“Good enough”

“I apologise for the licking. I’ve seen humans hold their hands out to dogs and I thought I don’t want to do that.”

“Cool” Charlie nodded

“Hot.”

“Well, this has been lovely!"  Nina strode forwards and gave Stoker a hug. Leigh wasn’t quite so enthusiastic.

“If you’re ever in the area..." Nina cooed

“NINA, NO!”

“I was going to say: can you fix my lawn as you have rather ruined it. But you are, of course, welcome for tea as well. Ok, Leigh, we’re coming.”

And that was very much that. Nina and Leigh took Rinnet home, releasing him back into a neighbourhood of his choice, hoping that he wouldn’t choose theirs. He did. Of course. Much to the boy’s delight. He thrived in his new home, finding a new but somewhat unwilling playmate in Gillan’s cat. Stoker reunited with his family, cried with them, shared stories with them and slept for three full days without waking up once. He shed his old scales sitting on a crate in his Granny Augustine’s kitchen while she grumbled about cheese, fighter jets flying too low, and tourists. His wings were repaired as he listened to his father grumble, coming home every day after work to complain about grockles, other dragons and pubs that still refused to serve Coal dragons – not that he liked beer, but it was the principle. He was content to remain there, not wanting to be too far away from his family ever again, until a persistent earache started to trouble him.

“I don’t want you to go, darling.”His mother stroked his cheeks. His new scales had brought him back to his original unremarkable coal grey self. The agonising livid magenta pathways of pain that had plagued him had been brought down to a manageable track that led nowhere.

“I’ve got something to do. I have to go and right a wrong.”

And so, they found themselves a few days later in a field between Ramsbottom and Bury. Stoker stood motionless as the harness was attached to him. He dare not look at his father – not because his dad wasn’t proud of him, but for the worry that he might get something wrong, or his dad might take offence at some slight and they’d all be off again, carrying grudges like shopping baskets, endlessly filling them with new grievances. The farmer hollered something right over his head. Taking that as his cue and feeling the pull of the reins against his cheeks, he lowered his head, gave his tail a quick shimmy to get comfortable, dug the ends of his wings deep into the scorched earth and walked slowly forward. Each step lessened the load. With each field, each garden, each yard re-ploughed, his wrongs were put right.

The End

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Picture by Lou Wilford [Microsoft Paint, using a mouse]

Picture by Lou Wilford [Microsoft Paint, using a mouse]

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And finally we come to The Big

 Interview, in which Adele kindly

 answers writing-related 

questions and lets us into 

some of her writing secrets...

1.      How old were you when you first knew you wanted to be a writer, and what set you off down that journey?

I’m still not sure I want to be a writer. Not an answer you want really for a Writers' Showcase!! I love the process of writing. Ok, onto the question… I was in Primary School when I started writing stories. I always enjoyed listening to parables and things like that - they’re such a great way to delve into ethics when you’re too young to wrap your head around these things or be able to articulate them.

 

2.      Tell us about the books and writers that have shaped your life and your writing career.

Armistead Maupin – Tales of the City. I can’t remember when I read his books, I was definitely at an FE college… I couldn’t tell you if he influenced the way I write, but he changed my view of the world and of people – the whole shebang. Perhaps I would always have turned out the way I have. I hope so. But his books definitely had a lot to do with it. It set me at odds with my dad for a long time, the duration of our relationship actually; right up until his passing, that anything I did write about families always had a nod to us and how we could never see eye to eye on certain things. I’ve been working on the 'David' story for goodness knows how long and it very much about three people who love each other but can’t communicate with each other.

 

3.      Have your children, other family members, friends or teachers inspired any of your writing? In what way?

Gillan (my son) knew from an early age I would write. Well, not write - but he knew that we could go amazing places in Imagination Land. He asked me to write something for him for years and I always made empty promises but he was so young he would forget about it and I would go phew!… but I gave him a massive lecture a few years ago about a birthday present he received from a friend that he didn’t appreciate (I was probably a bit hard on him!) and in the process of this lecture we of course went into Imagination Land and the idea for Stoker came from that.

My brother is the inspiration behind David. He’s not David and David isn’t him but there’s definitely elements of Andrew in there that he'd recognise if he read it, not that he would and not that I’ll ever finish it. He would go “oh yeahhhhhhhh”.

 

4.      Does the place you live have any impact on your writing?

Oooh, this is a tough one. It's really nothing to do with the place. I’ve written in Geek Retreat on a busy Saturday morning. It's not been very good but I’ve written something. My problem is time. I don’t have time. I work and there’s always stuff I need to do around the house, and there’s cats and children and husbands and there’s just never time. When Gillan went into reception, I was so happy because I was going to have time to myself for the first time in four years then covid hit and tatty bye byes to that. I want to launch weapons at people when they say that if you want something you have to make the time.

 

5.      How would you describe your own writing?

I don’t have enough insight into writing theory to really answer that. It's not something I think about. I just go for it. Someone did once say in feedback that my writing is childlike because I tend to use short sentences – so I’ll say childlike. I’m not a big believer in getting books on writing – this doesn’t come from arrogance, as I am my own worst critic, but I think you can or you can’t. You’re not supposed to say that in relation to the Arts; and that probably extends to the sciences too, but I’ve never got anything out of writing books. I did find chapters on exposition helpful when doing the OU modules and I still struggle with that. But I think it’s a bit condescending to say to anyone “Oh absolutely anyone can paint, or draw” or whatever the discipline might be. I can’t draw, sculpt or paint and that’s fine. I’ll be ok and I’ll admire someone else’s talent. 

 

6.      Are there certain themes that draw you to them when you are writing?

It’s changed as I’ve aged. In my twenties, it was all about lurve and fancying people, then it became about families, and now it's between loss and how to navigate being a decent human being.

I do like the mundane though. I love ordinariness and something being jabbed into the ordinariness.

7.      Tell us about how you approach your writing. Are you a planner or a pantser?

I used to be a Pantser but I never achieved anything. Now I’m a planner and it’s the scenic route to not achieving anything. I do feel more confident now that I might actually finish something I care about. I cared about Stoker because it was for my son but it was very much an experiment to see if I could finish something longer than an essay and I couldn’t believe it when it was actually done. Though I rushed the ending and I botched a few things – but I wouldn’t change it, because I did it. I finished a whole book! Well, pamphlet in reality!! Now I throw everything on paper, all thoughts that come into my head and from there I shape them into a story arc and then chapters.

 

8.      Do you have any advice for someone who might be thinking about starting to write creatively?

Create a new file and start. Or buy a new notepad. That’s the only way. Just start. Whether its writing prompts or something in your head – it doesn’t matter how long it is. Just dive in.

9.      What do you think about getting feedback on your work from other writers and/or non-writers?

I’m torn on this. I think it is valuable but at some point you have to accept what you have or chuck it in the bin. Sometimes I wish that I had run Stoker past other people, but I wouldn’t have finished it, I’d have gone round in circles trying to fit in everyone’s feedback. I think there’s more value in permitting yourself to put something out there warts and all. I still doubt the reviews I got from Stoker – even though they were lovely. I doubt them because they were so lovely. It took me a while to read it and go actually, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was. I think feedback would have helped me and hindered me. My mum was brutally honest. She did not like what I did to that poor dragon but it helped me articulate why it was necessary to do it. Because I wasn’t very nice to him. My poor boy.

 

10.  If you have experience of self-publishing, what have been its challenges and rewards? 

I cannot talk about the sheer awfulness of KDP. I am too traumatized. But I am too scared to try anything else.

11.  Where do you get your ideas from?

Lots from Gillan. Just everywhere really. A conversation that I’ve had or overheard. A way to iron out a problem I have. Something completely inane.

12.  They say that successful writers need to be selfish. How far do you agree with this? 

Hmmmmmm… I think a big pair of balls has more to with success than selfishness. Success lies in putting your work out there, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. I don’t have capacity to write every day and I am not disciplined enough when I do have lulls in activity. I don’t think writing every day would produce anything useful. It's very much horses for courses though. Some writers have amazing drive. Whether they have the time or not, they write because they can’t get it on the page fast enough.

 

13.  Beyond your family and your writing, what other things do you do?

I wish I could draw. I love Art. I am enjoying building the Family Tree. I’ve deleted it and started it again at least four times! Ancestry DNA still has me at 1% Italian so for a tiny bit during the day I feel fabulous and interesting. 

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Thank you very much, Adele, for such a detailed and insightful showcase. 

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In September, I will be showcasing 

another fabulous writer: 

Lin De Laszlo

Not to be missed!

 

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So far in this series, I’ve showcased the following writers: 

Ruth Loten – March 2023

Jane Langan – March 2023

Beck Collett – April 2023

Ron Hardwick – June 2023

L.N.Hunter – July 2023

Katherine Blessan – August 2023

Jill Saudek – September 2023

Colin Johnson – October 2023

Sue Davnall – November 2023

Alain Li Wan Po – December 2023

Lily Lawson – January 2024

Philip Badger – February 2024

Glen Lee – March 2024

DHL Hewa - April 2024

Tonia Trainer - May 2024

Mike Poyzer – June 2024

Judith Worham - July 2024

Chrissie Poulter - August 2024

Adele Sullivan - September 2024

You can find all these showcases by scrolling back through the material on this blog.

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