Tag: magic

On holiday with the family while trying to write

My regular update is a little late this month because we’re on holiday in the Lake District. I had planned to get the latest chapter of George Square finished before we left, but the plague rat that is my 3 year old inflicted me with a throat infection in the weeks leading up to going away 😪

Penrith Castle on the way to a playpark

While my children are of course a wonderful addition to my life, a holiday entertaining these two can feel like just as much work as time at home, if not more, because you’re out of your usual routine (the wifi isn’t great here so the 3 year old is discovering scheduled television and realising that watching something 500 times on repeat is a luxury not available wherever you go 😅 ). As a result, being on holiday has meant having less time than usual for writing so getting this blog post written has taken me what feels like forever. However, it is nice to have a wee change of scenery and a chance to explore somewhere new – if you find yourself in Keswick in the rain, I recommend checking out the Puzzling Place, where visual illusions abound – entertaining for both children and adults.

Multiple reflections of me and my girl at the Puzzling Place

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The Amber Genie

Since starting this website I’ve been going through my work to see which stories I would be happy sharing with the world. It’s taking time because I’m often interrupted by a baby deciding they’re hungry or a toddler needing my attention!

However, I’ve recently added The Amber Genie – click here to check it out.

This is a story that I wrote with the intention that it would be part one of a three part novel/novella, with each part focusing on one of three women who were known as the amber genie. I haven’t managed to finish parts two and three as yet, but the first part can also be read as a standalone story, so I figured I might as well upload it.

The idea for the amber genie started with me learning more about the myth of the djinn. The myth originated in the Middle East, though my understanding is that the origins are a bit muddy. They’re referred to in the Quran but also in pre-Islamic literature and it seems that the ideas about them mixed up with various different beliefs about spirits over time. They were powerful spirits who were worshipped but also seen as being similar to humans, and they could be both benevolent and malevolent.

My understanding (feel free to correct me, any experts out there) is that djinn, or genies, became associated with wish granting after the publication of One Thousand and One Nights and our notion of the wish granting genie in a ring is a largely Western concept that’s become more developed over time with popular fiction.

With The Amber Genie I wanted to capture a bit of a mix of the modern Western concepts with the older ideas. Dembe, the focus of this story, is both a benevolent nature spirit and a genie in a ring, offering humans the possibility of vast power. The setting is a world where the djinn live in another realm but are known to appear in our own, with their appearance being common enough for the narrator of the story to not be hugely surprised when he finds her ring.

My hope with parts two and three would be to expand this world further, showing more about the realm that the djinn come from and the impact their power has on humans and on our world.

But for now, please take some time and read Dembe’s story. I hope you enjoy it and, as always, comments and feedback about the story are always welcome.