...solstice

In folklore, the Oak king and the Holly King beautifully personify the summer and the winter. Locked in an endless battle, the shift in power between the two kings causes the constant shift in the light and dark that we’d recognise as the seasons’ perpetuating cycle. It’s a story that feels fable/fairy tale like. But I loved it, and I think it’s worth sharing. Particularly since the Summer Solstice was observed this past weekend – June 20^th.

Owing to Lockdown, I had more time to contemplate the longest day of the year than usual, spending time in my garden’s festooning sunlight with family around me - all social distancing adhered to, of course.

The sun used to be considered the greatest strength, and was greeted on the longest day of the year to celebrate.

Bonfires were lit to represent the fiery aspects of the sun. People would jump over or through the fires for good luck, and dance around them to raise energy. To this day, to anyone acknowledging Pagan or Wiccan traditions, it’s a day of inner power and brightness.

The traditional observations of the seasons have recently taken on a new importance to me, owing to research I’ve been doing for THE BLOOD DRAGON’s sequel.

I’ve hinted, whispered and teased the importance of the sun and the moon in THE BLOOD DRAGON. An importance that I only intend to intensify in the sequel I’ve recently returned to writing. Much of the magick and the mystique in my books stems from the sun and the moon. They’re characters in their own rights, worshiped by the witches, guarded and protected by my main character. They’re responsible for controlling so much in the world, most notably the light and the dark, and therefore the seasons.

THE BLOOD DRAGON is set in a world of darkness, long depraved of the sun and moon’s precious light. And so, the luxury of observing the seasons has long been lost to the people, as have the traditions of celebration.

The seasons, like the folklore of the Oak King and the Holly King suggests, are of course a constant shifting between the sun and the moon, causing the days to shorten and lengthen into what we know as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.


I’ve been enjoying adapting existing traditions to suit my story and creating my own magickal variations of seasonal festivals.

I love it when the fantastical is founded in fact!

To the Wiccans and the Pagans, the solar events that mark out the year were celebrated as festivals known as Ostra (Spring Equinox), Litha (Summer Solstice), Mabon (Autumn Equinox), Yule (Winter Solstice).

Mine will likely be referred to the same way.

I’d forgotten how enjoyable the research behind writing could be. My process has always been exploring and creating in equal parts as I write, and I usually find myself greatly influenced by what I discover along the way.

Who knows, next year when the restrictions of Covid no longer rule over us, I might be hosting a Summer Solstice party and applying some of these old traditions to our gaiety.

~Zuzu 🖋

You can find me in between blogs @zuzuspages on Instagram Facebook Twitter

...howling at the moon

If you're awake to bear witness, you'll know me as a creature of the night, for whom productivity flourishes between the hours of 9pm to 3am. I know that this is the time I can sit at my desk and tap away at laptop keys undisturbed by the world, knowing that most distractions have been removed by the unsociable hours I keep. Just me and the moon, and the beautiful silence that its beams cast over the world at 3am, that can often trick the mind into thinking you're the only person on the planet that's still awake.


As a solitary soul, it works for me. I'm a lone wolf, howling despair at the moon when I can't find the words, and howling victory when they suddenly come together, as if presented to me by the moons unique magick.

It's at this late hour that I feel most at one with the world I've created in my stories. Darkness is such a crucial part of THE BLOOD DRAGON, and it creates the most introspective setting for writing.

Today, after a very long unwanted break, I'm finally writing again, resuming my chiselling to sculpt the sequel to THE BLOOD DRAGON (still informally known as THE SEQUEL until inspiration strikes).
The setting of the sequel has evolved, and I wonder if the darkness will no longer feel fitting to write in. The seasons are becoming increasingly important in all my chapters, and, just like writing about the dark when its light, it suddenly feels wrong to be writing about the first snow of winter when in England it's humid with the threat of summer rain.

Since I am nocturnal by nature, I don't think I could change my hours of productivity if I tried. I'm forever cast as a 3am writer. A three cups of coffee writer. A three hours until I go to work writer. And perhaps that's for the best; for we all know, three is a magick number...

~ Zuzu

Find me in between blogs on social media @zuzuspages Instagram Facebook Twitter

...it's a kind of magick

When describing the magick of my characters, particularly the many witches of variant abilities in THE BLOOD DRAGON, I always use the archaic spelling that refers to magick of an occult nature, meant to differentiate from the performance magic of magicians.

Magic, to me, is parlour tricks, still displaying a level of skill, but skill that's been learnt rather than existing naturally as an extension of the body, as a witch's might.
Magic is the sort that belongs to magicians who might delight children by pulling a rabbit from their hats. Or at the next level, Derren Brown, performing skilled tricks and illusions that deceive the mind.

Magick in my story is a gifted ability born onto you, or inherited, that you can't always help or control.
The witches in my story are dark wisps of women consisting of little more than magick and air. Their power is what fuels and sustains them - too omnipotent for me to be able to think of it as mere "magic".

Magick typically is meant to be neutral, neither dark or light in nature. Neither good nor evil. But fairy tales have warped our perception of it, and it's hard not to be influenced by them. However, in my book, the line between good and evil is blurred and confused, I hope lending a sense of realism to the idea that nothing is ever simply black and white. There are always extenuating circumstances that will affect a story and a characters' journey through it.

I love fantastical magick that is decidedly otherworldly in its charactristics. However, I do my research, making sure there's grounding in my supernatural creation. If it's so far out as to be unbelievable, then what's the point? I want the magick in my book to feel unreal-ly real!
I'm aware that I sound like one big walking contradiction. But doesn't magick always come across as the impossible made possible? The improbable, made probable?

Think of the most magickal books you've ever read... For me, the lines between the real and fantasical are always best when they're seamlessly blurred. "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern is a perfect example of this, "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman, "Caraval" by Stephanie Garber. And from middle grade literature, "The Divide" by Elizabeth Kay, and the ultimate example of magickal surrealism, "The Adventures of Alice In Wonderland" by the fantastical Lewis Carrol.

I admire all variants of magic/magick in literature. Fantasy is my preferred genre to read and to write. I've said before that it knows no bounds!
If you'd like more reading recommendations, I've got a fair selection of book reviews in blogs, and also a list of recommended books.

Don't forget, you can follow me across social media in between blogs @zuzuspages Instagram Facebook Twitter


Zuzu 🖋

...fantasy knows no limits

The beauty of fantasy is that there are no rules. No limitations. And this summarises everything I love about the genre, both to read and to write.

To quote Lucy Maud Montgomery's character, Anne Shirley, "It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it?"

And of course, writing is the way I aim to bring my particular "imaginations" to life, but sometimes when I can see things so clearly in my mind, I get so excited that I have to try and translate what I'm picturing to paper - whether successfully or not!

I keep a red leather notebook that is essentially a collage of pictures and notes dedicated to character and world creation. This is purely for my own benefit as I most assuredly would not inflict notebooks and sketchbooks on potential agents or publishers - (stick to the submission guidelines people!)

But for my own purpose, it felt very important that I accounted for every nook and cranny of my world. That I could walk the roads in my mind as clearly as I could walk through the village I live in.

There are maps and drawings to cover each of my three kingdoms, detailing their various landmarks.

So many pages I wish I could share, but they are too many spoilers splashed amongst them.

Colour is a key component to my story, due to the presence of the fantastical: dragons and phoenix and such. And therefore colour is as important as appearance when I'm trying to transfer my imaginings to paper.

The sun and the moon are characters in their own rights in my book, and they've long since become symbols that I'm minorly obsessed with. Even now that my story is written and complete I find myself painting them often, or buying jewellery that bears one or the other... Okay, perhaps it's a major obsession...

I'd love to know if any other writers out there (published or unpublished) also feel the need for a visual approach when writing!


~Zuzu
until next time, find me on Facebook @zuzuspages

...what's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Or so says Shakespeare, but I've never quite agreed.

I believe names have power, and therefore I take great care when selecting them for my characters.

Being a fantasy writer, I'm granted a greater freedom than most when it comes to name creation. And thank goodness! In fantasy, you're not restrained by rules. You can invent names, change the traditional, make things more magickal.

I like my names to mean something, and to have special relevance to my characters. I've been known to frequent name websites (20000-NAMES.COM is a good one) and flick through books, searching for something with magickal connotations, or simply something that sounds unusual.

Disclosing a couple of my characters' names from THE BLOOD DRAGON might make the easiest example.
Many of my characters are witches, and their names all pertain to their individual magick. Yarrow (meaning: a medicinal herb) is a healer witch. Sera (meaning: fire) can conjure flames.

The guards in my book all have names that relate to weaponry: Archer, Hunter, Lance. Or they have names that mean something strong: Art (meaning: bear man), Killian (meaning: little warrior).

The Blood Dragon's human name (which I will skirt around unapologetically because...spoilers), literally means red dragon.

My main character (who, despite the title of my book, is not the Blood Dragon), possesses a name of my own creation - which will remain a secret...because again...spoilers...
Since I invented her name, I also got the privilege of inventing its meaning. And so, my heroine's name means Saviour.

Of course, for the most part, I'm the only one aware of the meaning behind any of their names, but for me as an author, I feel that knowing this detail subtly - and sometimes tremendously - impacts my writing, and the way my characters develop and come to influence the story.

I know my main character wouldn't be the same if she had a different name. She wouldn't have the sense of mystery that surrounds her, or the strength that sustains her, or the compassion that compels every decision she makes throughout the story.

There's a Joni Mitchell song called "Little Green" that makes this point about names shaping a person so very well. The lyrics say:
"Call her Green, so the winters cannot fade her.
Call her Green, for the children who made her.
Little Green - be a gypsy dancer."

Names are so significant to writing.

I bet there's not a single author in history that has selected a name for their character with a "that will do" attitude.
Think of some of your favourite characters from books, or even films. Who are they? Would the story you know them from feel the same if they were named something else?

Charles Dickens is a good example. The Artful Dodger, Fagin, or even Oliver Twist. I'd speculate that the book wouldn't have had quite the same reception if he were named Oliver Brown.

As a writer, I don't think it matters how you get to that name, as long as it feels right! And who knows when or where inspiration may strike!

Jacqueline Wilson gave an interview about how she came up with Tracy Beaker's name: "I was lying back in my bath one day, thinking about this brand new story that I wanted to write about a little girl in a children's home, desperate to be fostered. And I was trying to think what her name would be. I knew I wanted to call her Tracy. It's a lovely modern, bouncy sort of name, but I couldn't think of an appropriate surname for her. So I was looking all round my bathroom for inspiration, and thinking rather madly, should I call her Tracy Soap, Tracy Flannel, Tracy Tap, Tracy Toothbrush, Tracy Toilet. The ideas got sillier and sillier, and I decided, well, I am never gonna find the right sort of inspiration here and now. So I got on with washing myself. I wash my hair, and to rinse off the soap suds I don't have any elaborate shower attachment, I just keep an old beaker on the end of the bath, pull it under the hot tap and then just rinse my hair. So I picked up my beaker, and then looked at it, and said: Tracy Beaker. And there was something about the name that made a little tingle go down my back." (click HERE to watch this interview)

Evidence that inspiration truly is everywhere!

~Zuzu

find me on Facebook @zuzuspages

...a surreptitious little blog

Ahhh…so you've found me?
Welcome to my surreptitious little blog, Zuzu's Pages, a humble space within the confines of which I hope to share my love of books with you and tentatively introduce myself as an aspiring author...tentatively only because I am unused to calling myself such.

I am not yet a writer by profession, but at the grand old age of 26 (old soul you see), I have the equally amazing privilege of calling myself a performer. With this profession comes a deep love of words and an appreciation for all genres of storytelling, be they written, spoken, or sung. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by eloquent language and lyrics that inspire me everyday. It's a wonderful and erratic career, and I must say it's been brilliant for building me an armour for rejection. It's protected me from all the disheartening emails you receive when you first start submitting your manuscript to agents and publishers.

I am proud to say, my first novel, THE BLOOD DRAGON, is in its second year of completion, but sadly its eighth month of rejection (a horrible, negative word for which I wish a better synonym existed).

Feedback from agents has been sparse, but when I do receive it, I snatch it up like a hungry wolf and carry it into a safe corner to savour in solitude.
When receiving positive feedback attached to a rejection, you begin to wonder what you're doing wrong. But the simple fact is that my book just wasn't right for that particular agent, and, as they tell me, they didn't feel passionate enough about it to offer me representation.
And how can I begrudge that?
I'm glad that they rejected it, because I couldn't accept representation from anyone that didn't believe in my book as wholeheartedly as I do. And I do. I truly do believe in my story, and in the fictional world that I've created. It's a wonderful one, glowing with colourful characters; its skies are crowded with witch-spirits and dragons, it's waters run deep and desolate, and it's very core sparkles with gold flecks that are indisputably magick.

Perhaps in time I will tell you more about it, and maybe even insert a couple of extracts. But until then, thank you for reading. Thank you sincerely for your interest. I'm excited by this writing project, even if it only reaches a few marvelous people.

~ Zuzu