Why write a book?
Just before the first lockdown in 2020 Wendy was hit out of the blue with a cancer diagnosis which knocked Wendy sideways and brought on an urgent need to get a very precious story onto paper for Wendy's Son, Zak. Precious due to the many happy times Wendy made up the story for Zak to enjoy when he was 4 years old. (By 2020 Zak was 20 years old). Wendy started writing as fast as she could, all hours of the day and night, feeling a sense of time ticking away and nibbling at her heels, writing became a welcome distraction from the feeling of loss of control over Wendy's life that a cancer diagnosis can cause. After surgery and radiotherapy treatments Wendy was lost for a while, hanging around in limbo until somebody recommended for Wendy to start a daily journal which quickly moved onto Wendy putting her little tale on to paper. Thankfully Wendy is now in remission and had the time and when she had finally finished, was filled with relief and new hope again for the future.
Wendy spent a lot of time recovering from surgery in her garden during lockdowns, blessed to feel the breeze and the dry weather allowing her to recuperate outside despite the lockdowns and whilst watching the animals all around her busily carrying on with their routines (while the rest of us were under strict instructions not to travel anywhere and our lives became suddenly restricted), Wendy started to dream of putting pictures to her short tale.
The book is achieved!
Over the weeks of each lockdown in 2020/2021, the images became so real and were persistently fighting to come alive. Wendy tried to sketch them out and use images from google to create the illustrations inside her head, but ultimately knew that she needed an Artist. Then one day through the power of Facebook, Wendy came across a painting of an Artists daily diary during lockdown (later to become the wonderful Isolation Chronicles by Sue Prince Artist) and hoped that maybe she had found a way to bring her book to life. Thankfully Sue Prince Artist https://sueprinceartist.co.uk/ was very approachable and despite Wendy's reluctance of opening up her book to somebody outside of her family and friends, Sue accepted Wendy's commission to bring her thoughts for the illustrations for 'Phone Me When You're Home!' to life.
Wendy the Author?
Wendy began to think about maybe publishing her book for others to enjoy too. Feeling a new strength and purpose focus shifted to research to see what needed to be done.
There is a lot of free great advice on the internet to research and some of the best advice Wendy found was to ask children to read the very early draft of 'Phone Me When You're Home!" and see what they thought and to ask specific questions to both the children and the adults. using her own experience of spending hours in Waterstones to choose children's books to purchase for Zak when Zak was younger, Wendy remembered that it was just as much fun and of great importance to adults as well who would be reading the stories as it was to the children. Thinking back to what Wendy remembered of how she would always look for lovely stories to read to Zak but also for books where Zak could learn from them, Wendy also started to adapt her book to be more than just a story, to include a little learning along the way, as well as encouraging the skill of observation and thinking about trying to solve a mystery. In its very early stages of cutting and pasting illustration ideas Wendy asked two friends to read the first draft to their children and will be forever grateful to Norah, Aged 4 and Mum Jamie and Nate, Aged 7 and Mum Kate for being the first reviewers/critics.
Tales from Manystones Barn was born!
The inspiring animals keep visiting Wendy in her garden and are all very demanding to have stories of their own!
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