Many, many people would be under the illusion my writing journey started at University, but they would be sort of correct and mostly not. My journey started quite a bit before.

‘Passionate about reading since she knew how to read’ is a phrase my family have used to describe me. Not just reading either, I just loved stories. TV Shows. Movies. Video games. Books. I always needed more. A passion that was nurtured and encouraged by both my parents and I am always grateful that they did.

In my younger years, I was obsessed with stationery. Ok, ok, not just my younger years but I was. My parents would buy me pens and notepads with nothing else to write in them I started to write fan fiction. Now, at the time I had no clue what fan fiction was. Revealing my age a touch, the internet was not as widespread and things like AO3 or Wattpad just weren’t a thing. Plus, I was quite young and didn’t have access to it even if they did.

So I wrote stories set in worlds I enjoyed. I wrote and wrote enrapturing myself in the security of what I had created. Course, these stories were no doubt awful but the heart was there. The heart that yearned to look at stories and add my footnote to the world. As I grew older the stories did too. Even in my teenage years, I took to writing stories. I wrote a novella at one point. I was obsessed with Twilight at the time and War of the Worlds. Strangely, I wrote something that combined the two. With dyslexia to contend with and back then I hadn’t quite worked out how best to get words on the page despite my neurodivergence.

After High School, I embarked on the Acting world for a brief spell. Even then I wrote. I wrote plays and monologues. None of which saw the light of day because for me I was met with this overwhelming imposter syndrome.

The first time people saw anything I wrote was at University. I wrote short stories for both University and the world online. I had this insane idea of posting a short story a week to a blog so that it would combat my fear of having people read my work. You may be asking yourself ‘Uh, did she have these preplanned?’ No. No, I did not. I wrote a short story on Monday. Edited it and drafted it by Wednesday. Got someone I know to read it and come Sunday it was up for the world to see.

This exposure therapy actually did in fact do wonders for my fear. Hence why now I am querying an entire book. A feat that if I told past me, she would have had a heart attack. Although the short story phase of my life was never built to last. Life inevitably got in the way and the demands grew too much. Plus, there was this strange itch in my head.

An itch that grew and grew. An itch that told me, ‘Hey, Danielle. Here’s a world that is just yours – what if we wrote a book about it?‘ That itch grew into an idea. Then it grew into characters, then a story. Only for it to pause entirely back in 2019/2020. For a far, far bigger itch that came to me. One that seemed to cease all systems and make me want to indulge.

This bigger 2020 itch is what I call Nebula City. A city of greed, capitalism and neon backdrops. Since then, I have written two books set in this world and however I am querying one. I do not know if that second will ever be seen, but God have I loved every second this world has expanded. The City is a character in and of itself. I could write an entire book on its lore. I would love to one day. Character journeys have always been important to me and these two books resemble that. The first features a story of generational trauma as well as self discovery. The second is all centred around building yourself back up after grief.

But what about that first itch? The one Nebula City paused? Well, as I embark on querying, I have returned to it. A fantasy world inspired by great stories my parents introduced me to and ones I found on my own.

My Writing Journey has been long, it has been emotional but it has brought me so much joy in a world that I often find confusing. I hope one day I introduce the world to my itches that grew into books and I get to repay storytellers with tales from my heart.