Why do I write?

It’s an interesting question. I’ve always been a passionate person. About life. Love. Freedom. Respect. Accountability. Equality. And though I’ve dabbled in music and art, writing is where I feel that I can truly express myself without any barriers. It comes as naturally to me as breathing. I think in writing, in prose, in poetry. It just doesn’t stop. Ideas, stories, phrases come to me in the middle of the night, or while taking a bath, or going for a walk, or making love. Much as a musician can’t breathe if they can’t make music, I can’t function if I can’t write. Whatever muse or muses stand at my shoulder, they keep providing me with the energy and inspiration to write, to inspire others, and for that, I am utterly grateful each and every day.

I began writing fiction at the age of thirteen. I had read The Lord of the Rings, and my world opened to a vast realm of possibility. I saw myself in the books that I read, and created new stories around those ideas. But by the age of twenty-three, after I had been rejected by publishers who stated that the stories were “too advanced” or that they were looking to sell books “for sixteen-year-old boys”, I gave up.

In my thirties, I returned to writing, but this time it was non-fiction. I became a published non-fiction author, writing about different aspects of Druidry and then in my forties about Witchcraft. I was able to share my personal path, walked over decades and miles of forest, countryside and city jungles. I was able to inspire others, and every email, message or comment on how someone’s life had changed because of the words—it meant everything to me.

My life took a completely different route in 2024. My love for fiction never left me, and the self-publishing industry allowed me to write what I wanted, for whoever wanted to read it. It levelled the playing field, so to speak, for writers to not have to kneel before whoever decided who the readership would be.

We simply got the chance to write the stories that flowed through us.

And it was the best thing that I have ever done.

For I had never, ever left my true love. I couldn’t—creating stories is who I am as a being. I am a storyteller, and even in my non-fiction, I wove real-life narratives and tales into the work. But now, well, now the sky is the limit, and my muses are one hundred per cent behind me.

My Witches of the New Forest fiction series has really taken off, and has a dedicated audience that I am so blessed to interact with. When I write for them, I often don’t know where the story will go; I only have a vague inclination as to the paths the characters will choose. I simply sit down and write, allowing the muses to speak and flow through me. All that I know is that I want to create tales of women coming into their own power, and discovering love, loss, mystery and adventure along the way. It’s been a long, roundabout journey for me to return to my first love, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to do so.

My writing is a reflection of who I am. They are my stories that I am telling, as well as the stories of other women, both fictional and in real life. They are all through the lens that I view the world through, in all its Mystery. It is the breathing in and the breathing out, the taking in and releasing, the cycles of the ebb and flow of the vast oceans and the turning of the seasons.

They are stories of hope.

And this is why I write. It is a part of me, it is who I am, and what the muses encourage me to do.