How did you get started, what inspired you initially to write?
O.K. The first question that many people ask me, especially the kids when I visit a school is;- how did you start writing and, did you want to be a writer when you were at school? Somewhat of an obvious question for schoolies, don’t you think?
In actual fact I had never imagined that I would be doing what I am today, though I always remember my one moment of fame when I was 10 years of age, and I wrote a story which was obviously so entertaining the head-teacher chose to read it out to the whole school, during assembly. The positive side was that everyone loved it and I was in the good books with the teaching staff for some time afterwards, the negative side was that everyone – particularly the head teacher in his infinite wisdom – decided that I needed to write the sequel to the story, because I had left it with an annoying cliff-hanger. The truth was I had lost interest or was suffering from the proverbial writer’s block. I forget, but whichever, I never did any more writing.
So that aside, I have started writing the Chavos Novels, let’s hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. Uhm! No chance. Without a doubt, that’s likely to happen because I’ve started something that I’m determined to finish and, as I’m clearly full of ideas it seems that I will be writing for quite some time to come.
So back to the original question, a story which I have not often told because it is quite bizarre, is that it all began with a vision. Something I am unable to explain other than to state the pure fact that I had a vision of a doll. To which point I wrote a short story for pre-school children, not knowing that years later it would become the basis for the Chavos Novels.
I most certainly intend to write a book about my first visit to Mexico, how I handled that trip, and what has grown from a small seed – birthed at that time – to be the development of the Chavos Brand today.
The Vision;-
The doll I have called Rianbo for obvious reasons, in the story was given as a gift to a little homeless girl who I named Dolita – after my Spanish teacher Dolly. I had, as a matter of fact, been researching poverty in Spanish speaking countries and had homeless children on my mind at the time. I knew that it was important to educate children even at a very early age and the picture book developed by me, and sketched by one of my nursery nurses, was a great hit and a talking point. Consequently we all fell in love with the little girl who, ‘didn’t have a mummy or daddy, didn’t sleep in a bed,’ and to the children’s despair never cleaned her teeth!
Several months later I was walking the streets of Mexico City – what an amazing story that was – and the daily journal that I kept was to become the firm foundation for the first novel, The Kids of Distrito Federal. Fiction based on Fact. The main plot being the survival of a group of homeless kids and the main protagonist Dolita, abandoned as a baby.
Tell you more in the next blog.
Anna
