Discover
Unveiling the Heart of Sylvandria’s Creative Journey
My Story
A Unique Space about what I’ve created.
I was born and raised in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.
At school, I hated English. Literature was dull, archaic books chosen by someone who decided they were “classics.” Poetry? Unintelligible words in short and long blocks, supposedly full of hidden meaning. I didn’t care for it. I didn’t appreciate it.
English language wasn’t much better. Similes, metaphors, subtext, grammar, I had no interest in. A blank page I was expected to fill with words. Nothing filled me with more procrastination and dread. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t do well in exams. I had to resit my GCSE a year later.
I hated reading, too. Didn’t like it. Didn’t do it.
But things change.
My mum was always reading—Mills & Boon, sometimes other books, ones with intriguing covers and exciting titles. Around the age of 16 or 17, I picked up a book called High Citadel by Desmond Bagley. That was it. I was hooked. Adventure, far-off places, heroes and villains. Unlike anything they made me read in school.
From then on, I read anything and everything. My grandmother had a massive collection too—new books, old books, different genres. Whenever I visited, she’d have a few ready for me.
Still, I never wanted to write.
Then I discovered fantasy—The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. I was hooked. Then came The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, anything by David Eddings and Terry Brooks.
For some reason, I never got into Terry Pratchett—odd?
Still didn’t want to write.
So what happened?
Life went on. Relationships, work, family, no time, no inclination to write.
I’ve always listened to music. Constantly. Then came quiet moments at work, listening to music—that’s when the seed was planted. Epic music. I discovered Symphonic Metal—EPICA, Therion and Nightwish. And this seems to resonate. Then, with streaming music, I stumbled across Epicore and Trailer music—the kind of loud, triumphant, cinematic scores used in movie trailers. That’s when the ideas started swirling.
And so, I dabbled.
For the first time ever, I put pen to paper. Just fragments, ideas, nonsense. Nothing complete, nothing I was proud of. But the spark was there. I started reading about writing. The internet is flooded with advice—rules, structures, and techniques. Everyone had their own rules. I don’t like rules.
So, I sat on it for years.
Then came the breakthrough.
I use AI, so what?
There’s one thing AI can’t do:
Take my ideas, my characters, and my locations, and write my story for me.
That’s my job. It always will be.
Nothing should be contrived—and in my stories, nothing is.
Every action, object, character, and place serves a purpose. If something exists, it has a valid reason for being there—a history, an origin, a story of its own.
There are reasons for everything. Nothing appears just in time from nowhere.
The spirits of my world may gently guide my characters, but they do not dictate their choices. Free will is always at play.
I don’t want to give you any reason to doubt that my tale might be true—not here on Earth, but elsewhere. On a planet called Zalara, on an island called Sylvandria.
I want you to believe these are real people, living through real events.
And more than anything, I want you to feel that—given the chance—you’d walk among them and call them friends.