About Me

Wendy Robertson Contact:  

wenrob73@hotmail.com  or books@wendyrobertson.com: 

Other queries through agent Juliet Burton: juliet.burton@btinternet.com 

Still Writing –  Dreaming the Reality

From my earliest days they I was called Dreamer or Dilly Day Dream. ‘Always in a dream, her! Can’t do a thing about it.’

Of course a middle child often has time and unsupervised space to dream, to observe frets and battles, conflicts and encounters. She has time to consider what people might be thinking and feeling. Sometimes she ventures to interpret the feelings of one to the other to be met with blank looks.

As I observed the people around me I realized that some people need conflict to establish hierarchy, to take control or just to stop them selves exploding. Dreaming of the lives on the fringes of mine and speculating on (often rejected) solutions is grand work preparation for a writer.

As an early reader I had to call on these empathetic and speculative skills to enjoy a story at its peak. This brought along with it a sense of language on the page and a delighting on the power[1] and the magic specificity of words - a small step, then, to the desire to write my own stories where I could set my own scenes and design my own outcomes.

I got to the stage where I would write a story in my very best handwriting, illustrate it and stitch the pages together to make a proper little book. Listening the other day to writer David Almond on Desert Island Discs it seems  that he did the same at a young age.  Many published writers have told me they did this as a child. It’s one sign that allows you o know that one day you will be a writer.

Bottom right beside my amazing mother

I myself knew this, despite the fact that as a middle child of a widowed mother I’d never met a writer, or any other person – except my teachers – who wore the symbolic white collar to work.

Although it was my secret I was writing seriously and consistently from the age of eight. The ability to construct and deliver a narrative (even in two other languages) was the secret of my exam success across the board. I wrote right through High School and college and continued when I became a young teacher. As a teacher I was a good storyteller. As a storyteller I was a good teacher: storytelling sits at the centre of effective teaching, so that was a help. I got good at it -  good enough to go on to train teachers myself. Of course talking to these potential teachers I preached the importance of storytelling in every part of the educational process.

Me without the flowers

In the middle of this all the time I kept on writing. My first published was a story for ten year olds. (Corgi). Then three young adult novels (Hodder and Stoughton). Then there was the  weekly column in the illustrious Northern Echo. Then a Master’s Degree – the ability to construct a narrative was crucial here. I turned down the offer to apply for a doctorate and kept on writing.

I did get a bit tired! The time came when – over-stressed and ill with overwork in my ‘day’ job – my health swooped down and I had to stop. In the end my health gradually improved and – taking some time-  I managed to write my first big novel Riches of The Earth which was taken on first offer by Headline.

Now, twenty or so years on, with twenty or so published novels and two collections of short stories under my belt, I'm living a more restful life and still writing with the same relish and enjoyment as I did when I was eight. 

Every novel – they are all still available - is a different personal and literary adventure for me and my readers. I've been told that one 'problem' I have is that I don’t repeat the formula with each novel – and keep my readers in their comfort zone. I don’t need to or want to do that. I would be so-o bored by that, as, I feel would my readers.

You can see the novels that show the difference here on the re-designed  front page of Life Twice Tasted.(Thank you Sean!)  Here you will see my novels and in seeing my novels you will know me. I suppose this personal narrative biography here reflects that. In some ways my books are my children.

Of course having a proper family brings some balance to the driven, literary life of a dreamer. My partner Bryan is a great natural storyteller and his stories – in an evolved form – are sprinkled through my novels. My son’s sense of history and ability to build many things – including narratives – much surpass mine. My daughter writes a famous blog Licked Spoon and writes books about the art of creative and graceful living in the city. Unlike their mother they are both great cooks. My creativity stops at words and pictures. I love it when they visit – but not just for the food.

And now we have another generation, the boy who likes chocolate - inspirational and much written about on this blog. His  dreaming is in the scientific direction, dreaming up cures for all the world’s ills.

All of them are dreaming in their own way.

So - I am still writing and still dreaming - now in a complex dream-world of the Twilight of the Iron Age in Britain, with a novel centred on the myth of a Welsh clan princess being courted by - and eventually marrying - a man of Spanish origin who becomes Emperor of Rome. As there is little of no written record of these events, except biased and derivative texts by aggressors and occupiers, this is taking some deep dreaming. But I am up for it.

What I do know is that the dream and the myth can express literary truth. So – if you know the other novels – you will know I am in familiar territory.

And now one of my pleasures is to write this blog. This is magical -  a kind of dream in itself – especially when I know that people all over the world visit and read Life Twice Tasted. I love it when – as well as here in Britain - I see so many people visitors from the USA. And Germany. Sweden. And Russia. And France. And the Ukraine, Latvia, Poland Australia and Canada. Very welcome visitors.

For me  this contemporary encounter with these special people has a dreamlike quality engendered by the modern myth that is the Internet.

So, I am still dreaming and writing. Wherever you are I hope you enjoy my words.

WX

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[1] Oddly enough, many years later I gave my M Ed dissertation the title of Language and Power.