Category: Imagination

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New Year, old beginnings, here we go again

It’s the New Year, a time for hopes and plans for the coming year, new beginnings. But be honest, how many of us have had that thought of ‘here we go again’? That sense of old beginnings and we’ve tried this before, what will be different this time?

Whether it’s a new diet and exercise regime, to have more time with the family, or plan some bigger ticket items like travelling, it’s like we felt as though we had clarity during the holidays but now (for many of us) as the normal working weeks resume, the motivation and drive become lost.

With this in mind, I thought I’d share an excerpt for a character from Book 4 Lost Beginnings who had this exact same feeling.

Mira’s drive to work

The next morning, Mira Cornwalth was driving to work, listening to the radio. It was depressing, like the weather. Rain hammered the windows of her old SUV, par for the course really in the temperate rainforest of Vancouver’s North Shore. She mused to herself, as she did often, why she was here.

She slowed, approaching a red light at an intersection. She knew the logical train of events leading up to now, but there always seemed to be something that she’d missed in her story. Perhaps it was the rain and greyness of the day that soured her mood. She was also late, again, and wanting to get through the traffic faster.

The lights changed and she grew impatient with the car in front not moving.

“Come on,” she moaned. She ‘bipped’ her car horn “It’s green!”

The man in the car in front gestured angrily out of the window.

Mira lowered the window in response and shouted back. “Really!” She got a spatter of driving rain in response, and quickly closed it again.

The car started moving and Mira took the opportunity to move into the left lane, hoping to get past the driver.

She turned up the radio, as the traffic report started. She’d already been caught up in one slow line because of a flooded lane. She was hoping to avoid another delay. Her boss would not be happy with her tardiness again, and she was fed up with making the same excuse.

She pulled up at another red light, this time turning right and at the head of the line. Fortunately, no-one was crossing but her fifteen-year-old SUV decided to sputter and die on her.

“No, no,” Mira complained. “Come on,” she urged, gripping the wheel with one hand while trying the ignition again.

A car horn behind her bipped.

“Yeah, well, I deserved that,” she said to herself, seeing the irony of the situation. “Come on,” she urged the car again.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her hands and placed them on the steering wheel.

There was a flash of words running around the rim and then down the steering column and into the ignition. The car sparked into life as a second car horn beeped her from behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mira replied, gesturing her irritation with her hands. She shifted the car into gear and started to make the turn. “Jeez.”The next morning, Mira Cornwalth was driving to work, listening to the radio. It was depressing, like the weather. Rain hammered the windows of her old SUV, par for the course really in the temperate rainforest of Vancouver’s North Shore. She mused to herself, as she did often, why she was here.

She slowed, approaching a red light at an intersection. She knew the logical train of events leading up to now, but there always seemed to be something that she’d missed in her story. Perhaps it was the rain and greyness of the day that soured her mood. She was also late, again, and wanting to get through the traffic faster.

The lights changed and she grew impatient with the car in front not moving.

“Come on,” she moaned. She ‘bipped’ her car horn “It’s green!”

The man in the car in front gestured angrily out of the window.

Mira lowered the window in response and shouted back. “Really!” She got a spatter of driving rain in response, and quickly closed it again.

The car started moving and Mira took the opportunity to move into the left lane, hoping to get past the driver.

She turned up the radio, as the traffic report started. She’d already been caught up in one slow line because of a flooded lane. She was hoping to avoid another delay. Her boss would not be happy with her tardiness again, and she was fed up with making the same excuse.

She pulled up at another red light, this time turning right and at the head of the line. Fortunately, no-one was crossing but her fifteen-year-old SUV decided to sputter and die on her.

“No, no,” Mira complained. “Come on,” she urged, gripping the wheel with one hand while trying the ignition again.

A car horn behind her bipped.

“Yeah, well, I deserved that,” she said to herself, seeing the irony of the situation. “Come on,” she urged the car again.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her hands and placed them on the steering wheel.

There was a flash of words running around the rim and then down the steering column and into the ignition. The car sparked into life as a second car horn beeped her from behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mira replied, gesturing her irritation with her hands. She shifted the car into gear and started to make the turn. “Jeez.”

Hopes and dreams can get lost in the day to day

When we need to focus on the detail of our day-to-day activities, we lose sight of bigger picture dreams and plans. We don’t have the time or energy to get to them. Before we know it, tomorrow becomes a week and we catch ourselves self berating when we have a moment of space and stillness.

Typically, our working life involves our rational, logical, right side of the brain. Even if our occupation is creative in nature, there’s planning and organising, and that’s without considering all the other tasks in life as parents, adults, homeowners etc. It takes time and energy and can become overwhelming quickly, preventing us from getting to that extra thing that’s for us. We lose grip of our plans despite our best efforts.

Making it sustainable

From my own life, I know that letting go of a goal but having a sustainable practice is key to moving forwards with any dream and plan. With my own writing, I started out with setting aside an hour a week, typically on a Sunday morning. I didn’t set a goal for how much I needed to achieve each session, nor how long I might take to write a novel. I just sat and wrote. I found that I enjoyed the practice, it fit into my life, and I was rewarded with what I was able to create over time. These three things have not only enabled me to sustain it and make it a habit, but I find it’s something I look forward to each week, and it’s something that I continue with today.

Ultimately, dreams and plans don’t have to get lost in the day to day if you can find even some small way to include them in your week.

How will you make your dreams and plans sustainable in 2026?

Now turning it over to you, what plans and dreams do you have for 2026? And how will you make time for a sustainable practice in your week to start to progress towards these? Feel free to share in the comments below.

And, to learn more about Mira’s adventures in the realms, buy and read Book 4 The Lost Beginnings. P.S. You’ll want to read books 1 to 3 too as that helps give the background for the other characters. All the books are available on Amazon in paperback and kindle editions. Click the button below to go to your country’s Amazon store.

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The magic of the season, and how do we find it?

It’s the last month of the year, and for many cultures and faiths it marks a time of preparation leading up to the holidays. It also evokes a lot of memories, dreams and feelings too, so let’s talk a little about the magic of the season.

Memories, dreams and feelings

I don’t know about you, but I find myself thinking back to past holiday seasons, especially those as a child. The overriding feelings and memories is a sense that so much was possible.

Without adult responsibilities, there was a freer sense of curiosity, wonder and magic. I think as adults it’s something we try to recapture for ourselves. It’s a way of going back to that innocence of the inner child.

Thinking about the characters in the Word Guardians stories, for Yas it relates to her sense of curiosity and wonder when falling into her first realm in The Battle for the Peacekeepers. So here’s an excerpt of her realising she’s somewhere magical. (To set the scene, feel free to re-read the excerpt in When Yas discovers magic).

When Yas first fell into a realm

After landing on the forest floor, mentally she checked through her body for any signs of pain. There were none. A forest scene came into focus around her. Looking up, she saw the branches of a tree between her and a blue, partly cloudy, sky. A huge trunk was at the top of her vision, behind her. It seemed so tall that she couldn’t tell where the tree ended and the sky began. There were other trees around her, but not as tall or as full of leaves in their canopies. They let in wider shafts of sunlight. Remnants of leaves she had crashed through floated down through the beams of light along with twigs, branches, nuts, and flies that had been disturbed. The tree’s limbs swished and swayed back to their original positions. As the scene stilled around her, she noticed other sounds and smells. In the distance, there was bird song. She could smell a freshness she associated with morning dew, along with damp bark and soil. The whole scene reminded her of a forest she had once visited as a child on a school trip to England. The New Forest, she remembered it being called. And this place looked so neat and tidy, as if it was new.

She chanced movement into a sitting position, incredulous that she was where she was. One minute the shop, now a forest. She figured she must have taken a bump on the head and that the world was going on around her unconscious body. Soon she’d be waking up in a hospital with her worried parents onlooking.

“Wake up,” she commanded herself. “Come on!” She tried hitting herself on the arm. It didn’t work, so she figured that she’d need to deal with wherever she was.

She heard a light rustling nearby. Its lightness suggested a small creature searching through the leaves for food. She moved her head slowly, so that she didn’t frighten it. There was still no pain. That was a good sign. From what she remembered of the view above her, it was probable that she had fallen a very long way indeed and she should have been injured. Looking to her side, she glanced movement. About ten metres away was a small grey squirrel, searching.

“Where did I put it?”

That surprised Yas. A talking squirrel. It immediately triggered thoughts that challenged her perception of reality. What was she was experiencing right now? She was clearly concussed, she figured, but what state was she in physically back at the shop? Had McVale arrived back yet from her chores? Maybe she had tried to wake her up and failed? That was a worrying thought. She’d call the paramedics, Yas reasoned. They’ll be picking me up and carting me off to hospital. That’s what would be happening now. This was her mind’s way of keeping her from the shock of serious injury. Then another line of reasoning caught up. Hold on, I only fell from a kick-step. How bad could it be?

Marrying dreams and reality

As for Yas in the above excerpt, the challenge is in allowing dreams not to be closed off in our thinking. It’s all too easy to shutdown what seems to be unlikely or impossible, based on our experience and conditioning of the world around us.

But does that mean that the magic isn’t there?

The message is all around us

The message the magic of the season is all around us. We see it in movies, adverts, books and more. At this time of year, it’s pretty much everywhere and impossible to avoid.

So, if it’s there, why don’t we see it? Often, we’re too busy performing all that we have to do in our daily lives and in preparing for the holidays that we don’t find it.

The magic of the season

So, the question is, how do you find the magic of the season? Does that curiosity and good feeling arise from watching a movie, spending time with family and friends, seeing holiday lights, or something else?

Feel free to share below what evokes the magic of the season for you, and please accept this as a gentle nudge to take some time this season to do it.

And as always, to learn more about Yas’s adventures in the realms and how her wonder and sense of magic develop, buy and read Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and kindle editions. Click the link below to go to your usual Amazon store.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season.

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The good and bad sides of loyalty

In the previous blogs What trust is and why it is important and Waking up to core values, I’ve delved into the relationship that plays out between Detective Wheeler and the vampire, Raelinn. Loyalty, and the good and bad sides of loyalty are related, and something I thought I’d talk about here.

Loyalty can follow from trust and respect in someone’s core values, but it can also mean that we end up saying and doing things that take us away from our own values.

So, to give a little more context, here’s a snippet from Book 2 The Twisting Tales (no plot spoilers, but if you re-read the excerpt in the Trust blog post, you’ll see that Raelinn and Wheeler are at least talking here).

The good and bad sides of loyalty

“How’s the diet of blood, blood and more blood working out” asked Wheeler.

“Are you deliberately trying to rile me, Detective?” Raelinn shot back.

“No,” replied Wheeler. “I’m trying to keep the storylines at bay. They are all around us here. We have to be close to something.”

“Close to what?”

“I’m not sure. Just trust me,” he said. “We’re better off here, in tree cover. If you look through the canopy, there’s stories swirling all the way up. Do you see them?”

“No!” she replied. “Only you can see them.”

Wheeler stopped for a moment, remembering something.

“Earlier, on the train carriage, you said the same. What did you mean?”

Raelinn sighed.

“It’s part of your abilities, Detective,” she said. “You’re able to see the story lines. It’s why Orfeo wants you alive.”

Wheeler stopped and turned.

“Why do I get the feeling you didn’t want to tell me that?”

“Because while you didn’t know, Orfeo was better able to use you.” She stopped, watching for what he would do next.

“Yet, you did tell me?”

“You’re our best chance of getting out of here, Detective,” she said.

“James,” Wheeler said simply, holding out his hand in welcome. “Call me James.”

“What?” Raelinn asked.

“I’m not a detective here, and I may not have a job… or a wife… to go back to. I’m just James.”

“Very well… James,” Raelinn nodded, shaking his hand. “You’re doing a good job of keeping me focussed. I have the sense that despite your flaws, your wife has chosen well.”

“I’m sorry?” replied Wheeler. “Maybe that kiss affected you more than I thought?”

“No,” replied Raelinn. “I believe you are an honourable man.”

James was stunned for a moment. “You’re complimenting me now?”

“You may not believe me,” Raelinn continued. “But I once tried to act according to values of integrity and honour also. My history with Orfeo… well… let’s just say that my loyalty to him has stained me in this war in ways I do not like.”

“Loyalties are always difficult,” he agreed. “How you come into them generally defines how they play out.” He sighed.  “I’m not innocent either. I had poor judgement when I agreed to work with Orfeo. It was for my own gain.”

When loyalty becomes a prison

As I’ve mentioned before, Wheeler had a history with gambling and debt, driving him to take advantage of an easy way out. However, to achieve his goals, he had to be loyal to Orfeo and take actions that were against his own values. It became a prison for him, something he had to try and escape, while not hurting anyone around him.

For Raelinn, we get a glimpse here of the loyalty she was born into when she was turned into a vampire by Orfeo. His protection has been offered in return for her servitude, to carry out deeds that affected her greatly over time.

Freely given or demanded?

The dictionary definition of ‘loyal’ mentions being faithful to a person, cause or group to whom loyalty is due. To me this is talking about earning respect and trust and loyalty being given freely, willingly.

However, the flip side of loyalty is when people who want it, demand it. They use the threat of fear, uncertainty and doubt to ensure that a person’s loyal. We talk about this as loyalty, but is it really? Is it just masquerading as control?

Who and what causes and groups are you loyal to?

So, I’ll leave you with this question to reflect on… thinking about your relationships, how did that loyalty form and how does it serve you in your life?

And of course, if you’re more intrigued to learn what happens between Wheeler and Raelinn (and what that kiss was about 😊) then buy and read Book 2 The Twisting Tales (but read Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers first to set the scene). Both are available on amazon in paperback and kindle editions at the link below.

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Being mindful, why readers are unaware of visitors to realms

Another week, and another piece of self-reflection, this time to ask you how mindful are you and what do you really see when you look around you. 

I want to do this by sharing an excerpt from A visit to Victorian London which touches on why readers can’t see visitors to a realm. They typically ignore things that are unexpected.

Read on below…

McVale’s explanation of readers to Yas

McVale continued, switching topics again. “The human mind has a great ability to ignore things that don’t make sense. On some level readers do see everything, but they are expecting to see a particular story play out in their mind’s eye, and so they ignore anything else that doesn’t fit.” 

Yas heard children’s laughter somewhere above her and looked up, straining her eyes against the fog. She glimpsed children flying, holding hands, before they disappeared over a rooftop. 

 “We each imagine things slightly differently,” explained McVale. “To a reader, the realm offers Victorian London. Different stories, different paintings of scenes can be played out here, without a reader of one book consciously aware of what another is reading or seeing in their mind’s eye.” 

“Like theatre stages?” asked Yas, remembering something her grandpa had said to her a long time ago. “So, the realms are a collection of stages on which different stories can be played out by readers?” 

A quick reminder of ‘readers’

In the Word Guardians series, remember that readers unintentionally collaborate. What they each see in their mind’s eye powers the magical ink that creates and reshape the realms. 

As Yas realises above, the realms form theatre stages that play out a story in the mind’s eye of the readers, and they typically only see what fits with that storyline. It enables visitors to the realms, such as Yas and McVale in the excerpt, to move around undetected. They might be spotted, but because the reader is not expecting to see them, they are filtered out of the experience. 

What do you see when reading?

When you’re reading, what do you see in your mind’s eye? You probably see the storyline playing out, a scene and characters moving to match the description and action on the page. But do you ever notice anything you’re not expecting? I don’t know that I do, but it’s interesting to think about when you’re next sitting with a novel. 

What about in life?

In life too, we tend to look around us and see what we expect. We move through life with a particular set of goals and tasks to perform and only see what’s relevant to those and the settings that we travel through. If we’re driving, we notice other road users, pedestrians, road signs etc but whose to say what else might be there that we don’t notice? 

Mindfulness

Ultimately, I’m touching on mindfulness. I’m talking about how much we are fully present. We typically see what we expect to see given what we’re thinking about and imagining. But how much more is there, and how does that change our experience of life? 

I’m likely not doing enough justice to mindfulness by what I say here and it’s a worthwhile topic to dig into further. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about how The Word Guardians, buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers. It’s available in both paperback and kindle editions. 

Enjoy reflecting. 

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Imagining a better way to travel, a magical portal

I had the opportunity to travel recently, part business and part visiting family. It was lovely to visit but I have a love, hate relationship with travel. It takes so much effort. Busy airports, being sat in an airplane for hours with many people around you, long travel days, the list goes on. So, I find myself wondering, is there a better way to travel?

Could it be as easy as stepping through a portal?

In the Word Guardians series, our adventurers can enter different realms simply by walking through a doorway. Could we?

Yeah, you have to have a strong magical ability and a key to the doorway (as detailed in Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians), but in The Battle for the Peacekeepers, Yas and Sam manage to do just that. They visit Victorian London and ancient Alexandria, and more.

Just imagine the possibilities of simply stepping through a doorway to your destination. You get to skip airport crowds, the waiting, delays and the effort. If all this was possible, where would you choose to go? 

The journey is the destination

That old adage of ‘the journey is the destination’ came to me while I was thinking about my answer to ‘where I would go?’. While stepping through to a destination sounds exciting, what you visit and do while there is equally important.  

If we just visited a beach, looked out at the sea and then return to our own world, it’s pleasant, but have we really experienced the place? If instead we spend time there, the place starts to become a part of our story, and our experience is richer as a result. 

What I’m trying to say is that why you choose to visit somewhere, what the intended story of your visit is and what your experience becomes, is important.  

We see this in the Word Guardians realms also. Each realm is formed by readers in the outer world unconsciously collaborating. Their imagination powers magical ink which builds worlds, creates actors and enables stories to play out. When Yas and Sam visit realms, they interact with these worlds and change the storylines. If it fits with what a reader in the outer world might expect to see, then it becomes part of the story.

So, what’s a better way to travel?

I started out in this blog by thinking about how we could avoid the inconvenient parts of modern-day long-distance travel. And I stand by that. Travel takes effort and its toll on us.  

If we had the ability to step through a doorway to a destination, that would be amazing, but I don’t believe it’s the complete answer. I think that by being more intentional about the stories we’d like to have when we visit somewhere, that’s an important part of it too. Whether planned or not, that forms a story that we’re part of forever.

Both Yas and Sam, typically have a purpose in mind when visiting a realm but then the story often unfolds in unexpected ways. How they take opportunities and adapt to the changing stories, that’s their story and one that I feel privileged to have been able to imagine and write. To learn more, please buy book one using the link below. 

I’d love to hear about your thoughts on travel too. Feel free to send a comment below or by using the contact form. And to journey with Yas and Sam through the realms, read The Battle for the Peacekeepers, available at the link below.

The Word Guardians book series

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Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians series?

In my last blog, An excerpt from book 1 A Visit to Victorian London, Yas and her mentor McVale travelled to a realm that portrayed storylines and scenes from a period of history featured in many fictional books. You’ll have the read the book to see who opens the portal to the realm and how they did it, but I wanted to answer a question I’ve been asked a few times – can anyone travel to a realm?

Here’s my answer…

Through the tales of the Word Guardians series, there are three things that people must have to open doorways (or portals) into realms. First, they have to believe, second, they must have some magical ability and lastly, they need to have a key.

Belief is important

A visitor to a realm must believe that it’s possible. Think Alice in Wonderland and doing six impossible things before breakfast.

We see this in Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers. Yas can’t open a portal to a realm until the idea is seeded in her mind. She’s closed minded and dismissive of the idea because of her upbringing and what she’s learnt in the world around her – ultimately her conditioning. Gradually though through her friendship with Sam, she becomes a little more open-minded, starts questioning things around her and that helps her discover a doorway to a realm.

Magical ability is a must have

The second part of visiting a realm is having the ability to open the magical doorway into a realm. What we learn from the books is that the magical ability can either be innate or learned. Ultimately, like anything, if it’s not practiced then it becomes harder to do. Again, we see this in, Excerpt from Book 1 When Yas discovers magic, Yas has an innate ability and with curiosity, a doorway opens for her.

Finally, a key is important

In Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, the keys are the individual dice pendants of Yas and Sam’s necklaces. Like runes, individual faces of the die open specific locks, hidden in books. To find a doorway relevant to a specific realm they must solve clues and find the book and page for the doorway to open. In later books of the series there are some variations but always along the same theme.

All together, visitors to the realms are like a secret club

You can think of visitors to realms being a secret club. First, these people have to be readers, because otherwise they can’t relate to what they see in their mind’s eye when they read. Books are key because without them readers wouldn’t be able to co-create realms, and finally the visitor has to possess magic and believe.

Want to learn more?

To learn more, please visit the link below to buy book 1 and start reading the series.

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Excerpt from Book 1: A visit to Victorian London

In previous blogs (What are the worlds of the Word Guardians and Excerpt from book 1: When Yas discovers magic), I’ve talked about the magic and how readers in the outer world create the realms in their mind’s eye. In today’s blog I’d like to share an excerpt from book 1 that puts all of this together. It’s the first time that Yas visits Victorian London with her mentor, Ms. McVale, and learns about the workings of the realms.

A visit to Victorian London

They moved from the corner of the building and along the street opposite to the Park. Yas was amazed by what she saw.

“So, this is a realm?” she asked. “Very much so,” replied McVale. “And one I have visited with your grandfather. Yes, its all coming back to me.”

“Mornin,” called a man who was walking quickly towards them. He tipped his hat.

“Good morning,” replied McVale, giving the man a smile. Yas nodded nervously also in acknowledgement, then turned and looked at him once he had passed.

“So, they’re real and they can see us then?”

“Yes,” replied McVale. “Most are actors, playing out a storyline in response to the intentions of readers.”

“Intentions?” enquired Yas.

“Absolutely,” continued McVale. “Intentions are the images and actions we imagine in our mind’s eye as we read. The actors are created or are coerced into performing whatever it is that we, the readers, imagine for them. The same is true in dreams in some respect, although there is a lesser connection.”

Three storey buildings lined the side of the street they were walking along. The park and the exhibition building on the other side disappeared away into the mist more as they headed north. A wall of buildings emerged up ahead of them. The feel of the place indicated that it was an upmarket area of London. There were some business fronts on the ground floor of some of the buildings, but others were just residential.

“Woah!” exclaimed Yas, as she watched an ethereal person appear in the street ahead of them and float in their direction.

“Readers,” McVale replied matter-of-factly, stepping aside for the ghostly person to pass between them.

“So, they don’t see us?”

“They have a ghostly presence here because they are present in the outer realm, explained McVale.”

“The real world, you mean?”

“Yes,” replied McVale. “You sound like your mother.”

“Sorry,” replied Yas, not really sure what she was apologising for.

“No need,” dismissed McVale with a wave of her hand. “You have her determinedness and your grandfather’s sense of curiosity, rolled into one. I believe it will serve you well.”

McVale continued, switching topics again. “The human mind has a great ability to ignore things that don’t make sense. On some level readers do see everything, but they are expecting to see a particular story play out in their mind’s eye, and so they ignore anything else that doesn’t fit.”

Yas heard children’s laughter somewhere above her and looked up, straining her eyes against the fog. She glimpsed children flying, holding hands, before they disappeared over a rooftop.

 “We each imagine things slightly differently,” explained McVale. “To a reader, the realm offers Victorian London. Different stories, different paintings of scenes can be played out here, without a reader of one book consciously aware of what another is reading or seeing in their mind’s eye.”

“Like theatre stages?” asked Yas, remembering something her grandpa had said to her a long time ago. “So, the realms are a collection of stages on which different stories can be played out by readers?”

“Yes, quite so,” confirmed McVale. She seemed pleased that her student was understanding how the realms worked. “They may not always be geographically or historically accurate, but the realm provides a gathering place for the most read stories. “Look up there,” she pointed to a rooftop further up the street, where chimney smoke billowed upwards and characters were dancing.

As they moved away from the park, Yas looked around with renewed interest. She was intrigued to see what other stories she could spot. Either side of them were more business fronts and shops, with two or three floors above. Occasionally also, there were steps leading down into basement dwellings.

Up ahead, at the entrance to an alley, police were gathered around someone who was still on the ground. They caught glimpses of a plain clothes detective bending over, wearing a distinctive hat. Several ethereal readers floated about the scene.

“Is that?” Yas pointed. “Yes,” replied McVale. “You know your fiction.”

Intrigued to learn more?

The above excerpt helps explain how the realms work within the Word Guardians series. If you want to learn more, please visit the link below and buy book 1.

The Word Guardians book series

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Book 4, The Lost Beginnings, is now available on Amazon

I’m excited to share that book 4, The Word Guardians and the Lost Beginnings is now available on Amazon.

It’s been a work in progress for the past year and I’m really happy with the result.

It’s another multi-layered story, set in the familiar (if you’ve read the other books in the series) setting of the magical realms.

Yas and Sam feature in this book, along with some other memorable characters from previous books. There are some new faces too.

I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, for helping me through the editing stages and Larch Gallagher for the wonderful cover design and cover revisions for the other books in the series.

A different take

I wanted the story to be a slightly different take on magic and realms. Whereas previous books have seen the characters move between a number of realms, book 4 is a tale of just two realms, the outer world (set in Vancouver, Canada) and an inner realm, ostensibly also the same city.

The inner realm is hidden though, the doorways are locked and only accessible to a few. There are reports of missing people in the outer world, and flashing lights that resemble portals. Yas and Sam become interested and do some investigation of their own.

If you could conjure anything you wanted, would you be happy?

Yas and Sam find a realm in which magic is an everyday commodity. You would think that in place where anyone can conjure anything they desire, life would be rosy. Yet, most don’t and everyone seems miserable. People seem trapped, having forgotten how they came to be there. Something or someone is at play behind the scenes.

New characters and relationships

This all sets the scene for new characters, a man that Yas and Sam find in the outer world who knows about the realm, the boy he’s kidnapping, a police officer, and more. In order to escape back to the outer world, Yas and Sam have to help the police officer discover her lost beginnings, uncover the identity of the mysterious Controller and foil whatever plot he or she has in mind.

Where to buy book 4

Book 4 is available to buy on Amazon using either of the buttons below. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Book 4, Lost Beginnings, on Amazon
The Word Guardians series on Amazon

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Delving deeper into the magic of the Word Guardians

The magic of the Word Guardians is word based and doesn’t need wands or specific incantations to wield. It made sense to be that way because, just as readers create worlds in their mind’s eye, the magic is imagination forming reality.

In worlds powered by magical ink, words are wielded as magic and the created objects have strands of the words visibly embedded.

But that’s not all the magic…

Delving deeper into the magic of the Word Guardians, all the stories have multiple layers. There’s additional storylines that play out which portray the development of the characters and their relationships and this is also key. I feel it is important to portray people who are believable and different.

For Yas, there’s her story of discovery of the realms, magic and the Word Guardians in The Battle for the Peacekeepers and that then leads onto questioning who is an ally and who is not. There’s the Controllers, (bad guys who my wife claims are misunderstood) who readers want to understand their motivations.  Then in the mix also is the mysterious Penn whose motivations seem to be obvious initially but then leave the reader questioning (you’ll have to read through into The Shadow Readers to answer these).

Stronger together

I particularly enjoyed writing characters that seem to blend well together, like Raelinn and Wheeler. Both are struggling in life from previous circumstances but find that they can help each other to be stronger together.

The upcoming Book 4, The Lost Beginnings, is another example of how multiple story layers come together. I’ll leave this as a teaser for now, you’ll have to wait and see how this plays out for the lead characters there, Mira and Sunyal.

What is the magic of the Word Guardians for you?

Part of the joy for me in reading is finding those parts of characters that I relate to (or feel abhorred by) in some way. It’s a window of discovery into yourself and something that I find also helps me become invested in learning how the story ends for that person. So, I’d like to ask you ‘where’s the magic for you?’ Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and check out the series on Amazon using the link below.

The Word Guardians book series

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Excerpt from Book 1: When Yas discovers magic

This week I’d like to share an excerpt from the first book, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, when Yas discovers magic.

As you’ll see, she literally falls through a portal and it’s a key discovery point for Yas. She starts to realise that not everything in the world as is normal and mundane as she thought…

Excerpt: When Yas discovers magic is real

Yas remembered the book McVale (her employer) had mentioned, the gift from her grandpa. She wanted to have a look and now was the perfect opportunity.

She walked to the back of the shop and grabbed the kick-step. She moved it and nonchalantly stepped up on top of it. As she did so, she felt something brush past her leg, like a draft of air, yet more substantial. It startled her and made her step one foot back down.

There was no bell tinkle, so she knew it wasn’t the front door. She looked around her. There on the floor near her foot was a yellow leaf, about three inches long. It looked too large to have been tracked in on the bottom of someone’s shoe, yet too far from the door to have been blown in. No matter, she figured. It wasn’t important. She’d put it away in a moment.

She took a step back up and reached for the top shelf. Immediately, her head felt a little light and she could have sworn she heard someone call out “Psst.” She stopped still, reaching out to the shelves to steady herself.

 “Hello?” she called nervously, looking left and right around her. Had someone sneaked in without her being aware?

She strained her ears to hear. Nothing. Only the electric buzzing of the lights overhead. Odd, but not overly suspicious, she returned her mind and eyes to the task. She reached up, to grab the book. Her hand on the shelf should have given her more stability, but it started to vibrate under her touch. The original sense of movement also returned, this time for longer. She glanced down. Her light headedness made the floor seem much further away.

The shelves too started to move, and her hold was more akin to a sponge than a solid piece of wood. The intensity increased, vibrating, much like a truck passing outside, except deeper and stronger. The bookshelves started to wobble in front of her eyes, and she swayed backwards and forwards in response. Yas moved her right hand to gain a solid grasp of the book, but in doing so, her left hand was absorbed inwards to the shelf. It pulled her forwards and off balance. She cried out in alarm, and then stopped and tried to regain her composure. Perhaps this was another mild earthquake she figured, but the sponge like shelves indicated that this was something more. She wasn’t sure whether to try and step down or stay put.

The vibration increased in intensity. Now a deep roar, it was accompanied by more movement of the shelves. In her head, the sound was like a swarm of angry bees, but deeper, and which vibrated through every fibre of her being. A headache appeared behind her eyes, with flashing lights. It was the type she remembered from her younger years. That worried her. She wasn’t sure if what she was seeing around her was the result of distorted vision or really there. The bookshelves now also seemed to be swaying back and forth. They were fluid, instead of fixed, the shapes changing. The books were sliding backwards and forwards and taking on this sponge like fluidity, also. She felt nauseous and was going to hurl at any moment.

She made a move to step down. As she did so, there was a new sound, like a ‘whoomph’, and the air changed around her. Whether related to the migraine she thought was arriving she did not know, but ultimately, the floor was not where her foot expected it to be. That coupled with her left hand not finding the solid purchase she was looking for, she lost her balance. The top half of her body wanted to fall further forwards, so she leaned backwards to counteract that, hoping to find the floor. The floor wasn’t anywhere close, so she started to fall backwards, flailing with her hands for some other grip. She shrieked out in alarm, both bracing herself for a hard landing while also looking around herself in desperation for something to grab onto. She had a split-second image of herself landing heavily on one foot and then limping around the shop the rest of the day. To her surprise, there was no such landing.

Instead, where there should have been a dark blue carpet with small orange diamond motif pattern, she seemed to fall much further. Into what, she did not know. The world around her turned darker and the air smelled different, an outside smell. She heard and felt herself smashing through leaves and slender branches, until two limbs caught and held her, firm but not rough. The limbs creaked and cracked as she was lowered gently to touch the mossy ground below. Then they let go slowly. She realised that her fall had ended, and she was laying on her back, on damp, cold grass.

What happens after Yas discovers magic?

Hopefully, I’ve whetted your appetite and you want to read more. To see how the story continues, please check out the link below to view and buy book 1 (The Battle for the Peacekeepers) on Amazon.

The Word Guardians book series

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