Mike Crowl

If you mean how did it get off the ground, then it started with the idea that I would explain how Mr and Mrs Map, who feature strongly in my first children's fantasy, Grimhilda!, came to be joined together on either end of a map. I wrote a speedy first draft and discovered that that wasn't the story at all. Nor was the intended hero the main character. Instead, his cousin, Della, who plays football, and is known as 'Della the Speller' at school, became the focus of things.
The story had a nasty villain nicknamed The Dog, and he's remained the villain ever since, though his reasons for what he does have changed considerably. In fact almost all of the book has changed considerably! There is still a map in the story, but it's not the one that joined Mr and Mrs Map, and it behaves in quite a different way altogether.
It's proved the toughest of the three children's fantasies to write, and only this last month I had to toss out the second half of it and start again. Curiously enough, after that, an idea I had in the very first draft for a big finale to the story and which had been rejected found itself back in the new version again.
It's been what seems to me to be a long process of working hard to find the real essentials of the story. I'm expecting that by the time it really is finished, it will be a much better story than I started out with.

The fact that I wake up! Plus, being retired, all I have to do is put on my dressing gown and slippers and go into the other room and boot up the computer. I start the day with writing notes about my relationship with Jesus, and my studying of the Bible, plus keeping a diary of what's happened recently. After some chores, I'll get on and work on writing.