Stories That Take a Lifetime

Drafting at my desk in the sunroom 😍

I didn’t quit my job because I hated it.

There was a drawer full of outlines I’d been carrying from home to home since I was a kid, and they had started to feel heavier than any team meeting, or safe career ever could.

For decades, the stories lived in notebooks, half-finished drafts, late-night rewrites, whispered “one day” promises. There were a few that grew up alongside me. They changed when I changed. Learned restraint, learned grief, learned how to breathe. They weren’t fast. They weren’t efficient.
But they were mine.

So I took an opportunity to do something, some say brave, while others are laughing at this stupid thing.

I gave myself some time.

To write like it mattered.
A year to treat the stories Iheld as more than a hobby smuggled into evenings.
A year to try — to really try — to become the writer I’d always quietly been.

And for a little while, it felt possible.
I even published a book 🫶

I wrote every day. Playing with structure, pacing, voice. I revised scenes I’d loved for twenty years and let them die when they didn’t serve the story anymore. I wrestled with plot bunnies and kept going anyway. I learned the business and marketing side reluctantly, painfully, because I knew stories don’t survive on passion alone.

I thought the hardest part would be the writing.

I was wrong.

The hardest part was realising that while I was building something slowly, carefully, with intention, the market was - or is - being flooded.

Not with better stories.
With more stories.

Books written in days. Sometimes hours. Series released faster than I could revise a chapter. Art, blurbs, keywords optimised by people who weren’t writers so much as operators. Content factories stretching the skin of creativity.

And here’s the part that hurts to admit: some of them are succeeding.

They’re visible.
They’re prolific.
They’re everywhere.

And I am… (mostly) invisible.

I watch algorithms reward speed over soul. Volume over voice. I watch readers drown in choice, unable to tell the difference between a story written by someone who has lived with it for decades and one assembled to satisfy a trend.

I don’t hate AI.

That’s the inconvenient truth.

I understand it. I work in tech. I know tools evolve. I know every generation of artists faces disruption and reinvention. I know the arguments about “using it ethically” and “adapting or dying.”

But knowing doesn’t make this ache smaller.
Because this wasn’t just a career experiment.
It was a wager on my younger self.

On the girl who loved stories and didn’t yet know how cruel markets could be, or how fragile dreams become once they have to pay.

What devastates me isn’t that AI can write.

It’s that it has changed the terrain so completely that there may no longer be a path for someone like me - someone who writes slowly, deeply, obsessively. Someone whose work is shaped by time, not prompts.

There’s a grief in realising that the thing you were hoping for your whole life might have vanished just as you arrived.

I used to believe there was room for everyone.
Now it feels like a race I never agreed to enter.
And the finish line keeps moving.

Some days I feel foolish for trying at all. For stepping off solid ground for a year of faith and stubbornness. For believing that a story grown over decades would matter in a world optimised for output.

Other days, I feel quietly furious.

Because stories aren’t widgets.
Because speed isn’t the same as depth.
Because something irreplaceable is being drowned out by noise, and we’re pretending it’s progress.

I don’t know what comes next.

I don’t know if I’ll keep trying to publish, these stories will retreat back into the private space in my sunroom where it was always safe. I don’t know how to compete in a market that rewards abundance over care.

What I do know is this:

I didn’t waste my time.

Even if there’s no path forward that looks like success, I honoured something sacred to me. I proved that my daydreaming and sunshine could become real, that it deserved my full attention, that I could choose creation and surround myself in the luxury of mastery at least once in my life.

And maybe that has to be enough.

The world is just changing faster than my stories were ever meant to be written.

And somehow, heartbreakingly, I’m still here - holding onto sentences that will take a lifetime to voice.

I’ve entered a new role in tech. Not as a defeat, not as an admission that my stories didn’t matter — but because their souls still have to find their voice. I’m putting the notebooks and manuscripts back in my desk drawer where they lived for so many years, not because I’m finished, done, but because I’m not sure I have the heart to keep offering them to a world that doesn’t hear them, or anything, above the noise right now.

Maybe this is a pause, not an ending.
Maybe one day I’ll open that drawer again and feel something.
Hear something other than silence and sorrow.

Until then, the stories can rest.
They’ve waited before.

A New Path: Another Cover Design

There’s a moment in every creative journey where the path unexpectedly forks. You pause, reevaluate the map, and realise: the story has grown. The characters have changed. And the world you thought you were shaping? It’s shaping you right back.

That’s exactly what’s happened with The Lost Relics Mysteries.

When the series first took root, it was rooted in rich lore, layered puzzles, and an undercurrent of ancient magic. But as the story is unfolding and the characters come into their own, something jad become undeniably clear — this isn’t just a tale of artifacts and adventure. It’s a coming-of-age journey cloaked in mystery. The heart of the story lies in the growth of its young protagonists — their resilience, heartbreak, discovery, and the quiet moments of bravery that define who they become.

And so, we’re following that path, and embracing a shift.

We’re officially reimagining The Lost Relics Mysteries as a Young Adult series — starting with a fresh cover design that better reflects the tone and emotional depth of the characters’ journeys.

First concept - gold thread embroidered koi fish on a natural linen background.

The updated cover will lean into that magical realism with a slightly softer whimsical, more historical edge. Think actual embroidery and linen, symbolic artefacts or creatures, a quiet strength in posture rather than action.

This isn’t just a cosmetic change. It’s a deeper realignment with the heart of the story, that has developed its own language over the production of the series and the covers are Easter Eggs to those who know, or are curious enough to find out.

Is this another turn in a long creative road? Absolutely. Maybe it’s because I spend a lot of time drawing while puzzling out how the stories piece together, but it’s one that feels right. Stories evolve - and honouring that evolution means trusting your gut, listening to your characters, and sometimes, redesigning the cover based on an amazing idea you’ve had that ties in better with the audience and the story you’re wanting to tell... again.

First thoughts on ‘The Whispering Amulet’ [Full Article over on Patreon]

By writing The Whispering Amulet, the first book in the Lost Relics Mysteries, I, somewhat inadvertently, created a story that not only transports readers to the enchanting world of ancient Egypt but also highlights the profound impact of family and friendship on young girls' lives. For me, writing this book became an opportunity to showcase how strong relationships can empower girls to overcome challenges and build the resilience to discover their true potential.

Continue reading …