I think of my books as mainstream and that’s were most people who read them look for them in book stores.
Life is neither static nor unchanging. With no individuality, there can be no change, no adaptation and, in an inherently changing world, any species unable to adapt is also doomed.
I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.
I really fell in love with Africa.
Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.
I had an idea for a story about a young woman who was living with people who were different, not just superficially different – such as hair colour, or eye colour, or skin colour – but different in some significant way.
I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I’m not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.
From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.
I don’t write for publishers, certainly not for critics, and not for readers, But I am delighted that so many people have found my books enjoyable and want to continue to read them.
It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years.
They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.
Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it’s the science of prehistory – palaeontology and archaeology – rather than astronomy or physics.
The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story.
Again Creb grunted. It was the usual noncommittal comment used by men when responding to a woman. It carried only enough meaning to indicate the woman had been understood, without acknowledging too much significance in what she said.
Ayla, I looked for you all my life and didn’t know I was looking. You are everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of in a woman, and more. You are a fascinating enigma, a paradox. You are totally honest, open; you hide nothing: yet you are the most mysterious woman I’ve ever met.
She loved him, more than she could ever find words for, but this love he felt for her was not quite the same. It wasn’t so much stronger, as more demanding, more insistent. As though he feared he would lose that which he had finally won.
You weren’t being punished. You were waiting for me.
I had tears coming out of my eyes. And it was the characters that got me there.
I can’t tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don’t know what my influences are.
I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.