Today, children's author Vickie Johnstone has stopped by for a chat about her new book, The Sea Inside.
Hi,
I live in London and have a thing about fluffy cats. I work as a freelance
layout sub-editor on business magazines and editor/proofreader on books. I love
reading, writing, films, the sea, art, animals, nature, rock music, Milky Bar
and travelling.
Where did the
inspiration come from for The Sea Inside?
I started writing it in December 2009, so it’s hard to
remember exactly everything. I started with the image of a girl with red hair, called
Lily, running along a beach with her red hair blowing all around. I wrote this
as a short story in 2008. Here is the opening of the short story. This part was
rewritten in The Sea Inside:
Her name is Lily. When
she breaks she dances in the colours of a sea of broken glass. When she laughs,
cascades of red rain. When she cries the seas submerge the light in blue. Her
heels sink deep into the glistening, wet sand that tries to root her feet into
the ground. But she flies weightless, a shimmering sight, glowing in the sun.
Her long red hair flicks in cascades of volcanic streaks and her laughter
breaks the silence against the roar of the waiting sea. She giggles, twists and
turns, spinning as the grey dog laps across the sand at her feet, bouncing and
mirroring her turns. And overhead the clouds crash, awaiting the darkening that
must always follow the sun.
For The Sea Inside,
I had the idea that the girl would be in an accident that changed her life, but
she would find a portal that led her to another world where her body was whole.
In the end she would have to choose which life she wanted, and the decision
would not be an easy one. I referenced Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid in the book. I love
that story. In it, the mermaid can walk on land, but has to endure pain to do
it. It’s a theme that inspired my book. I don’t want to give the plot away, but
if you read it, you would see the connection. He was a brilliant writer with such an
amazing imagination. Awesome.
The city of Entyre is
all, bar one grey floor, blue – is that purely to represent the fact that the
city is under the sea or is that how it presented itself to you?
LOL, I can’t remember the grey floor!! Yeah, yeah, it’s
because it’s under the sea. I imagined everything within a globe, so there would
have to be some kind of artificial light and the colours of the sea outside
would bounce off everything. Then I was thinking that everything would be made
of frozen water and look like glass, but materials would be different. There
are even clothes made of algae. Plus my favourite colour is blue and it’s the
colour of dreams, at least to me, like the sky as well – a mystical colour.
It’s funny because Cat City in my Kiwi
books (adventures of a magical cat) is also blue! I guess I couldn’t get away
from it!
It was very easy to visualise the world from your writing and the frozen water as material made sense.
And what about the
inhabitants?
I just imagined them as being similar to us, but different.
If they lived under the sea, they’d probably have evolved differently. I don’t
want to give too much away... But I had great fun with the insects (I won’t name
them as it’s a surprise). My favourite character to write was the insect.
I loved the insect too.The latter half of
the book has the feel of Narnia about it – Did you read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child? If so
did you think that influenced your book at all?
That’s cool because I loved The Lion, The Witch ∧ The Wardrobe as a kid. I think CS Lewis
was a genius. I haven’t read the other books, although I have seen some films.
I think the swashbuckling mouse with an attitude has inspired a lot of
characters (I don’t mean mine!). I cried when Aslan died in the book and loved
the idea that the girl finds a magic world at the back of a wardrobe. When I
was a kid I kept looking in my cupboards trying to find it, and even under the
bed. Alas, only dust! I loved The Folk of
the Faraway Tree and Fantastic Mr Fox,
too; anything with talking animals and magic worlds that somehow you could
stumble across if you were really lucky.
I read the Faraway Tree too - we must have similar reading habits - needless to say my daughter owns a copy of that now. I know you said that
you had to put the book to one side for a while – what got you working on it
again?
I wrote the initial part of the book of just over 6000
words, up until the point where Jayne reaches the undersea world of Entyre, in December
2009. I used to have a bad habit of not finishing anything. I’d get inspired
and start writing something, but not continue it. I never planned outlines or
anything like that. Novels just seemed too big for me. I just wrote poetry and
small stories, so to me, this was a short story.
In 2011, I found Amazon Kindle self-publishing and
Smashwords, and I published the only book I ever finished, Kiwi in Cat City, written in 2002. I mention this because the fact
that my book was out there, with a chance of getting read, inspired me. I’ve
always needed there to be ‘a point’ to doing things. You know, you have
something to aim for. Self-publishing gave me a reason to finish things – they had
to be finished to get published! I’ve written a lot of books since 2011 because
of that.
In 2012, I picked up The
Sea Inside and just had a go at adding some more to it. I felt that, having
completed some novel, that maybe it wasn’t so scary anymore. I decided to try
harder. This year I was really determined to finish it. It became a mission! I
just can’t do outlines, so I started working on the red realm and the part with
the insect (still not giving it away), and I really enjoyed writing that
section. It was pure escapism. Still, it was difficult to bring the whole book
together, as I don’t plan, and it took a while for me to get my head around
making it coherent. But gradually, it came together.
I’m just so happy to have finished it, because I never
thought I would. The ending was a surprise to me. At the last minute after
re-editing the book, I altered the end after a brainwave. I’d like to say more,
but best not as I’d give the plot away. I have to thank my beta readers, Greta,
Nickie and Jennifer, because I didn’t feel very confident about this book. But
their feedback was really positive and that helped me to publish it.
What is your
favourite fantasy creature?
It has to be the unicorn because I was gutted when I found
out they didn’t exist. The idea of them is wonderful because they are so
mystical. I imagine them being strong, white, silvery and majestic. And wise.
Wow, and if they could fly, well that would just be the icing on the cake. I
also like dragons, but who doesn’t?!!
And mermaids. That comes from reading Hans Christian Andersen’s stories
as a youngster. I preferred his stories to those of The Brothers Grimm, but
many of them made me cry, like The Little
Match Girl. The Princess and the Pea
is another one that I loved.
I love dragons, possibly my favourite fantasy creatures, but there's so many to choose from. Okay, now I've grilled Vickie about her book, let's give you some more details.
Thanks to Maja Dražić for
the beautiful cover photograph.
The Sea Inside
Book 1 in the Cerulean Songs series
Time
is all we have; it flows – it cannot stop.
Jayne wakes up in hospital following a terrible
accident, which changes her life as she knew it. While struggling to recover,
she is visited by a mysterious woman who offers her a gift. To the girl’s
astonishment, she finds herself on a journey, on both the physical and mental
plane. It brings her to the mystical realm of Entyre, where life is very
different and power lies with the creatures of the deep. While the threads of
time keep flowing, Jayne must decide what is real, who to trust, and regain her
inner strength in order to find herself and her true destiny.
Excerpt...
Jayne
concentrated on getting better. The dark mood that she had found herself in
grew steadily lighter and she pushed her memories of the blue city to the back
of her mind, dismissing them as dreams, which would gradually fade with time.
That was her hope, for while she slept her mind wove images of the sea,
accompanied by the echo of the whales and a tall man whose hair was the colour
of the darkest waves. He was always there, not far away it seemed, thus was the
lucidity of her sleeping life.
You can get your own copy of The Sea Inside or any of Vickie's other books by visiting her author page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=vickie+johnstone&sprefix=vickie+john%2Cstripbooks%2C258
You can read more about Vickie on her blog: http://vickiejohnstone.blogspot.com
Or follow her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorVickieJohnstone
and Twitter: www.twitter.com/vickiejohnstone
A huge thanks to Vickie for stopping by and chatting with me and thanks to you all for reading.
Marie
www.mariegodley.moonfruit.com
