My Story

So I was creating my website, and I decided that I should put up a more detailed post about myself and how I started writing. Here it goes!

Here I’m just writing a bit about myself and how I became an author. Since word-limits were never my forte, ‘a bit’ may be a stretch.

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up with my parents and sister in the city bowl. Carla – my sister – was born two and a half years after I was and we fought a lot when we were younger, but we like each other more now. From a young age, our parents – Colleen and Steve – read us stories before bed. That was when I first discovered that I loved going into other worlds.

I went to St Cyprian’s School all my life, a private girl’s school near to my house. Carla spent many years there as well, but she moved when she was fourteen, wanting a change. Change and I are not good friends, so I stayed at St Cyprian’s. My mum was a junior school teacher for many years, and many of those years she taught at St Cyprian’s.

When we were taught to read in school, I hated it. I despised reading and resented being told to do it. Of course, my teachers and parents insisted that I had to. I went on hating and rebelling against it until one day my mum gave me a new book to try. Gritting my teeth, I angrily started with this new chore.

That was the book that first got me into reading. I loved it and flew through it faster than I had anything else I’d been asked to read. It was called The Headless Ghost in the Goosebumps series. From then on, I would only read Goosebumps. As you can see, even as a child I was very rigid about many things.

Over the years, I branched out from Goosebumps, sampling other genres. My parents had read Narnia to me when I was young, as well as The Neverending Story – both of which I had loved – but the first fantasy I remember making a huge impression on me is, of course, Harry Potter.

I don’t remember this, but my parents told me that when I was nine, my teacher said something insulting about Harry Potter. I stood on the desk and screamed at her, refusing to sit down until she took it back.

As you can see, ‘fan’ is an understatement.

Over the years, Harry Potter was always with me, and I reread it constantly. I also tried other books and finally found my genre in fantasy. I still carry a book everywhere – I’ve been doing it for so many years, I feel naked without it. Some of my favourites apart from Harry Potter are The Sword of Truth, Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Law of Nines, Hush Hush and The Host.

Of all of these, The Sword of Truth has changed my life the most. Terry Goodkind goes out of his way to teach as well as to tell a story, and so much of what I know about life, I have learned from him. If you asked me which one series I would take to a deserted island with me for the rest of my life, I would spend hours agonising, but in the end probably say I’d rather not have water on the island, as there’s no way I can live without Harry Potter and The Sword of Truth.

When I was fourteen I got depression. The next few years are kind of a blur in my memory, but I do remember I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when I was sixteen. At the time I was too depressed to care about anything much, but knowing that about myself has certainly helped me in later years. I now see a specialist in Autism who helps me with things like social skills which I struggle with.

One of the main aspects of Asperger’s is rigid thinking, which I certainly have! For one thing, I fail to understand how people can ‘not read’. I consider myself deprived if I don’t read for at least two hours every day.

This is for everyone who says they don’t have time to read: we all have exactly the same amount of time – twenty four hours every day! We choose how to use them. If you choose to prioritise other things above reading, that’s your business, but don’t try to pretend it isn’t your choice.

One other main aspect of my rigid thinking is very harsh views on punctuality. I will not cancel or be late, ever. Even if I’m terribly sick, unless I’m in hospital, I will drag myself to whatever arrangements I have, no matter what. Unfortunately, I expect the same high standards from everyone else as I do from myself, which obviously leads to a lot of disappointment and frustration for me.

When I was seventeen I started tutoring maths. I didn’t know what it would be like – when the head of the maths department came asking for volunteers, I thought I’d give it a try. In fact, I loved it. To this day I still tutor every afternoon. Most of my students are in high school, but I have a few juniors, too.

When the time came for me to leave school, I had to make a choice. I had to choose between science and fantasy. The two things I always loved at school were maths and English creative writing. I had an amazing talent to take any topic – no matter how normal it sounded – and turn it into a fantasy story. I also had an inability to remain below word limits, but my teacher was really nice about it.

However, while I lived for reading, I hated most of the set works the school chose for us – for someone who loves fantasy, The Great Gatsby was just incredibly dull. If I studied English at university, I wouldn’t be able to specialise in creative writing for years, and I’d have to suffer reading books I hated. I decided that was definitely not an option.

So I went for maths. I got into UCT and started off my BSc. It soon became evident that this wasn’t the right path for me, either. I hated it and was really miserable there. That’s when I started writing.

I hadn’t written anything in the year since school ended. I just sat down at the computer one day and started. I had no idea where I was going, but a story emerged from under my fingers. From that day, writing has become every bit as essential to my life as reading.

Because of my Asperger’s, I often find the real world very difficult to relate to. Fantasy is always there for me when life is too much, whether it is reading or writing I need. I form intense connections with characters, more so than with many real people.

It took me a long time to decide to send my book to publishers – I was afraid of rejection and how it would make me feel. Finally, I decided that it was worth the risk, that I wanted to be published more than I wanted to feel safe and secure. I started sending.

Of course, I got the usual reams of rejection letters, which I coped with quite well. I just kept trying. I can be stubborn; very stubborn. I decided that publishers and agents would get tired of rejecting me before I got tired of sending books to them. Even if it took twenty years, by the time they were looking at my 50^th book, cringing, feeling sick at just seeing my name one more time, they would give up and accept me. Fortunately, it didn’t take that long.

Equilibrium was the first book accepted – the third book I’d sent to publishers and agents. It took two years of rejections, but it was well worth it! When I got my acceptance letter from Black Rose Writing, I was in a state of complete shock – I guess I’d gotten so many rejections, I was beginning to think it would never happen.

That shock wore off and turned to joy and triumph when I started preparing for the release. Firstly, I joined every social network known to man, then I did what I do best: I wrote lists. Every single possible thing that could need doing for my book, I listed and I did. I posted, tweeted, organised book launches, talks to schools, commissioned artists and video specialists, arranged interviews… you name it, I did it!

I am determined to make my books a success – they will sweep the world like Harry Potter if it’s the last thing I do! You don’t believe me? Just you watch.