One of the greatest pleasures I find in life is to be able to say or write something that impacts a person, either deeply at an emotion level or superficially that is designed purely to make someone laugh or just have a rollicking good ride.

We all have something to say and we all have different ways of saying those things. My chosen medium is through story-telling. I love the idea of being able to whisk someone away from there daily routine and take them to places of warmth, wonder and a world of wow!

I first started writing stories when I was about 12-years-old, my inspiration then was Tintin, I loved the adventure and bravery and intelligence Tintin displayed and so I had taught my self to draw and pumped out three 32 pages comics , starring Stephen Case a NZ special agent, over the next five years, but as collage approached I found I did not have as much time to draw and so stopped. I have drawn comics since, but not with the some amount of fervour I used to.

My family and I moved to Australia when I was 16. We soon found a church to go to, and after one year I was a volunteer helper for the Sunday School and that’s when I started writing puppet skits for kids.  At twenty I went back to New Zealand and lived with my Aunty and Uncle.  I joined a drama/puppet group through my church at the time, and soon offered my writing ability when plays were in short supply. I wrote about 10 plays and puppet shows through those years, which I’m happy to say received healthy praise.

My Aunty and Uncle had a large personal library. It was from this library that I finally read ‘The Hobbit’ . I was inspired and for the first time I tried my hand writing a novel. It wasn’t a bad effort—my tale was Hobbit-like with a large serving of Margaret Weis’s ‘World of Krynn’ as depicted in the ‘Dragonlance Series’. My attempt though was riddled with mistakes and the tenses constantly changed from past to present (still a bit like that today). The action and imagination was vibrant, but the story was all told. I didn’t know about ‘showing’ then. I have to say my play-write experience helped greatly with my dialogue and it soon became a strength.

Sadly, after typing 10 chapters of  my story entitled ‘The Horn of Triumph’ all of the work disappeared off the computer and I never found it again—I was gutted and thought I’d never write another word. One day my aunty with my uncle’s permission shared some of his poetry with me and I caught the writing bug again. So I tried my hand at poetry. It wasn’t very good poetry, but the passion was there.

Late 1997 comes round and my sister gets engaged. In 1998 I fly to Australia  for the wedding and staying  in Australia another four years. I worked hard on my poetry and it steadily improved and I was given opportunities to recite my work at church. I had the time of my life doing that. In 1999 I entered a poem reciting competition and won second prize. The poem I chose was a self-written piece entitled ‘And that is when we Dance’ The prize money was eight bucks and eight buck was the admission prize. O well dem’s the breaks.

There is only so much that you can teach and edit yourself, so in 2001 I  did a writing course and learned so much! Again this was another period in my life that I remember with great fondness. We were a great bunch of people and we even organised a writing camp over a long weekend. It was a magic time of making new friends, learning new skills and sharing our work around the bonfire... not throwing our work into it.

In 2002 I came back to NZ and here I still am. During my time back here I found a little church (I have since left) and they didn’t have anyone to take the children at the time, so I put up my hand. I am not a gifted teacher by any means and so I went with my strength…story-telling.  From 2002 – 2006 that’s what I did. I wrote stories around whatever topic I or another had chosen. Over this time I pumped out many stories one after the other. Three novella’s, one 8 episode book series, one 21 episode book series, three 2-part stories, and three short stories. 'Crisp and the Silver Chalice of Gold', 'Did you Say Something?' (story of Samuel in the bible) and 'Jonah' (the Jonah in the bible).

I have often thought about how wonderful it would be published, but it has only been over the last two years that I have become quite serious about it. I have since bought writing manuals, writing references and writing guides. I discovered fictionpress.com two years ago and posted work up there, but then I discovered WEbook.  Three months ago now, and this site is my favourite one by far.

About my family...

All through my country hopping my parents and sister have stayed in Australia. My sister now has four boys. She has always believed that she would have a girl since she was about 16, but she had to go through the 4 boys before she got her she. She gave her a name that meant promised one. I have not yet had a chance to cuddle my niece and that is what I miss being in a different country to my parent. You can't hug those dear to you over the phone.

About my Book Collection...

I’ve got quite a library of books, audio books and comics. At my last count 26/01 this year I had 371 titles. 24 Audio books, 127 comics and 220 novels and picture books (and these are only the ones I have with me in Auckland, New Zealand I have a further 282 Disney comics and 269 novels in my Mum and Dad’s garage, packed away in boxes. I wish I could get to them easily, but my parents live in Red Cliffs, Australia).

During this year I will have easily collected 50 new titles. My lastest 2 purchases is ‘My Word is my Bond’ the Roger Moore autobiography. (I was fortunate to meet the man a couple of weeks ago and he signed the hard cover. He’s 81 years old and is looking tired, but well) and ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ by the one and only JK Rowlings.

Sad to say it, but I have not finished reading all of my books and comics yet. This is largely due to the fact that I spend more time writing stories than reading them.


Thanks for reading...

...perhaps in the eyes of  the children I've shared my stories with over the years.