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Rae Stoltenkamp

I write therefore I am

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Back catalogue secrets

Back Catalogue Secrets II

March 15, 2020 by Rae Stoltenkamp Leave a Comment

The Main Characters

Brueberon – A very lonely over-sized dragon in need of a friend.
Clarissa Henry – An extreme reader who dreams of worlds other than the one she lives in.
Kastaspella – A dastardly witch who detests Clarissa and hopes to make her life even more miserable than it already is.
A Book Is Born

My intention was never to write a children’s book. Before I started working at Inkhead I actively avoided little children quite simply because I was afraid of them. Okay, terrified is more accurate a description. As a teacher I stuck with teenagers. Despite their erratic qualities I related to them very well. Perhaps I was still a teenager at heart.

Ultimately I assumed my writing would focus on teen and adult themes. At the time I was already writing the first in my Sci Fi series and was almost done with the final edit of my debut novel. So I was a little stunned to find myself writing The Lonely Dragon. I’m even more surprised now to find myself producing a sequel. And still more astounded to find myself sucked into writing the memoirs of a character I considered to be minor. I of course mean Jinx, Kastaspella’s cat and feline Familiar. Let’s just hope he doesn’t read this as he’d be particularly miffed that I ever considered him minor. I can assure you, my thinking on that score has been totally revised.
If you ask where the idea for The Lonely Dragoncame from, I honestly don’t know. The book wrote itself. Bruberon was the character most prominent in my thoughts. In my mind’s eye he was like the dragon from The NeverEnding Story but without the sophistication and assurance that dragon displayed.
Clarissa’s character is probably most like my own as she spends a great deal of time reading and daydreaming. The rest of the story is made up of my love of mixing fact and fiction till the lines blur.

The front cover came about because I worked with a young artist, Anastasia Scudamore and a group of children she was teaching at the time. The aim was to show them that art can be used as the basis for an income. I provided extracts from the book and the children created the most marvellous paintings. The first edition cover featured every single drawing even though book cover designers were appalled. I very much wanted every child to know their work was appreciated. The new edition still uses a cropped image from one of those paintings.
To celebrate the fact that Memoirs of a Feline Familiar (the spin-off inspired by a once supposedly minor character) is due for release as soon as all the final edits are done, the e-book of The Lonely Dragon is available FREE until 20 March. 

Enjoy!


Filed Under: #giveaway, Anastasia Scudamore, Back catalogue secrets, Free books, Jinx, Memoirs of a Feline Familiar, spin off, The Lonely Dragon, The Neverending Story

Back Catalogue Secrets I

February 21, 2020 by admin 2 Comments

When I wrote my debut novel Six Dead Men it was meant to be a stand-alone piece. I was already working on a Sci Fi Novel and had several other ideas floating about for new novels. It also had a very different ending to the current one. My ART at the time (a writing group run by Caroline Natzler) were insistent I change my planned ending. Here was this bunch of hard core writers who demanded the perfect word in exactly the right spot and my realistic ending was proving too traumatising for them. Who could have predicted it? Certainly not me.
It took me a while to rethink my ending (an entire summer if I recall correctly) to find a closing which didn’t involve a rewrite of the entire novel. This made the writing process a touch challenging but I believe it produced a better book. However, it also woke the voices of the subsidiary characters who then demanded I write something just for them. It’s the reason I now also have Six Degrees, a book of short stories in the series. But that is a post for another day.
That first step of listening intently to what my readers were saying was a crucial one for me to take. Collective sighs of relief flooded our writing group when I returned with the altered ending and Kleenex lost out on a considerable amount of revenue that day. It was initially this experience which made me realise the importance of having an ART and is the reason I insist on each of my new books going through the same process. I end up with gut wrenching anxiety each and every time but know it will be to the book’s advantage in the long run. With this in mind there is a whole lot of nail biting going on as my ART goes through their reading of Memoirs of a Feline Familiar. I look forward to all the comments and edits to come.
Without my readers I am at best a mediocre writer. Giving you what you want makes me up my game and improves the quality of my work on a daily basis. So huge thanks for all the feedback.
A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOU

If you haven’t read Six Dead Men as yet please take this opportunity to get hold of a FREE e-copy today.

Filed Under: Advance Reading Team, Back catalogue secrets, Free books, Mailing List

Back Catalogue Secrets I

February 21, 2020 by Rae Stoltenkamp Leave a Comment

When I wrote my debut novel Six Dead Men it was meant to be a stand-alone piece. I was already working on a Sci Fi Novel and had several other ideas floating about for new novels. It also had a very different ending to the current one. My ART at the time (a writing group run by Caroline Natzler) were insistent I change my planned ending. Here was this bunch of hard core writers who demanded the perfect word in exactly the right spot and my realistic ending was proving too traumatising for them. Who could have predicted it? Certainly not me.
It took me a while to rethink my ending (an entire summer if I recall correctly) to find a closing which didn’t involve a rewrite of the entire novel. This made the writing process a touch challenging but I believe it produced a better book. However, it also woke the voices of the subsidiary characters who then demanded I write something just for them. It’s the reason I now also have Six Degrees, a book of short stories in the series. But that is a post for another day.
That first step of listening intently to what my readers were saying was a crucial one for me to take. Collective sighs of relief flooded our writing group when I returned with the altered ending and Kleenex lost out on a considerable amount of revenue that day. It was initially this experience which made me realise the importance of having an ART and is the reason I insist on each of my new books going through the same process. I end up with gut wrenching anxiety each and every time but know it will be to the book’s advantage in the long run. With this in mind there is a whole lot of nail biting going on as my ART goes through their reading of Memoirs of a Feline Familiar. I look forward to all the comments and edits to come.
Without my readers I am at best a mediocre writer. Giving you what you want makes me up my game and improves the quality of my work on a daily basis. So huge thanks for all the feedback.
A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOU

If you haven’t read Six Dead Men as yet please take this opportunity to get hold of a FREE e-copy today.

Filed Under: Advance Reading Team, Back catalogue secrets, Free books, Mailing List

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