I didn’t set out to write books. It wasn’t really on my mind.

As a five-year-old, my greatest ambition in life was to live inside a giant cake. I remember sketching in crayon the giant oven that was going to bake it, and the buckets of lollies and other surprises that would get baked into the mix. The idea was genius. When you live in a cake, if you suddenly decide you need another room, you just eat one. If you want a spiral staircase, or a secret passage from your bedroom to the kitchen … you guessed it. Yep, I had it all figured out. If only life could be that interesting.

I was never much of a reader

I didn’t read many books when I was a kid. If I walked into a library, I’d see those endless shelves with thousands of books in perfect order, all marked with white coded stickers on the spine, and get a sinking feeling. I knew if I took one of those books and didn’t put it back in exactly the right place, the ground would swallow me up, or something. In those days, libraries were quiet places you only went when it was raining at lunchtime.

But I did stumble across a few books that I liked. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis), The Sword in the Stone (T.H. White), and the Hardy Boys (F.W. Dixon) were some of them. I once read a quote from one of these authors, who said he wrote books that he would have liked to read. That idea always stuck with me.

A life changing moment

Later, in my twenties, I set off on an overseas adventure and visited some orphanages in other countries that were staffed by Christian volunteers. These were kind-hearted people who had given up their lives to help these kids and give them a hope that was bigger than the harsh grey world around them. I never forgot those people, but even more so, the children I met.

These kids didn’t have any family. Some of them had been abandoned. Some lived on the street. Some had been born deaf, or with a disease, or even an addiction. And a bunch of other things that aren’t nice to think about.

For most of these kids, their greatest hope was to have a family. One boy who had been born with a serious disease asked the carers if he was going to die before he got adopted. That’s hard to hear, but it showed me what’s important. Kids have a way of seeing things clearly. Finding someone who actually loves you, even when you find it hard to believe, is a theme you will see in the Georgie Tanner series.

The big idea for a book

When I got home from that adventure, I really didn’t feel like going back to work. So, instead, I wrote The Magician’s Daughter. It’s about an unwanted girl who has to decide if she has finally found that magical person who loves her like a daughter. That is the deeper side of the story. The big idea. But this was also an experiment to write a book that twelve-year-old me would have pulled off the shelf of a library.

I hesitated, eyes uncertain, fingers hovering above the keyboard. Black clouds of doubt swirled in my head. Hmmm … I’ve never done this before. Can I really do it? Will it be any good? Will anyone like it? Then again, it’s this or go back to work.

That did it.

What came out was probably a light parody of the fantasy genre. I didn’t plan it that way, it’s just my style. I made sure there was enough suspense mixed in to keep it interesting, and that big idea to give it meaning. Like some of my favourite children’s fantasy books, aspects of the plot were guided by an allegory. Creation – a curse – belief – sacrifice – resurrection – redemption – a new beginning. These themes are like stepping stones in this series. But it’s mostly about that big idea of a girl who thinks nobody wants her.

I find a lot of fantasy books get a bit dark, while many of the lighter fantasies are written for younger children. So I use humour to lighten up my books, mixed with quirky ideas, like combat croquet, and a dose of peril to keep it edgy. You might notice at times I put my voice as the storyteller into the Georgie Tanner books as well. It just seemed to work.

Well, that’s it. Not as impressive as a giant cake, I know, but hopefully worth the read. (If not, I know where you can find a good book.)