Hi! I’m Jenny and thank you for wanting to find out a bit more about me and the inspiration for my stories.
It all started many years ago visiting National Trust houses and English Heritage castles. Just walking around the ancient buildings inspired me to recreate scenes at home, using my Playmobil and Lego toy characters to play the parts of the people who lived there and the lives they led.
I used to write notes on tiny scraps of paper about the scenes for when the toys needed to be tidied away so I could continue the story at the next opportunity to play. Growing older, the stories became longer and more detailed, with more complex characters and plots.
When visiting schools, I describe the moment I started writing Sammy Rambles as a decision made after a bad day at the office. Like a very bad day. I love reading stories and wanted to create a story of my own. If other authors could write stories and create books, then why couldn’t I have a go?
So, this became the backdrop for my Sammy Rambles books, where Sammy and his friends attend the Dragamas School for Dragon Charming, set in the fictional Dragamas Castle, where they have to work together to solve problems and save the Dragon World from the enemy known only as the Shape. When I started writing, I didn’t know what the enemy Sammy was facing was. It was simply a battle against the darkness and the fear of the unknown.
Half a million handwritten words later, I’d more or less filled 11 A4 notebooks and was scared of losing the work I’d put in. So I typed it all up, edited, proofread, edited, and was finally ready to share the stories with anyone who wanted to read them.
Finding people was fairly straightforward. I started small, selling books to family and friends, then having a stall at a local craft fair and venturing into schools to talk about writing a book and my journey from pen and paper to published.
Overcoming severe shyness meant visiting schools was a big thing. Again, starting small, I saw a group of six children, then thirty, then sixty, then a surprise when I was led into the Main Hall and two or three hundred children walked in, sat down and joined in my “Dragon Talk”. They’ll never know how close I was to running out of the room! But it gave me the confidence to take my author talk and writing workshops to more UK schools and International schools in person and via Zoom.
At one of the school visits, someone commented they’d like to play Dragonball like Sammy Rambles and his friends, thoughts echoed by teachers and more children at another school. So, with help from sports coaching friends, we developed Dragonball Sport, taking the concept of Dragonball from the books into a real-world inclusive game for children (and adults) of all ages and abilities.
Whilst selling books at a craft fair, someone asked if I’d thought about attending a literary festival, so I booked a table and ended up speaking at the festival as well. Taking things one step at a time, this led on more events, having a table at Comicons, featuring on International podcasts, TV and radio interviews and more.
Someone asked why Sammy Rambles is a boy and could I have a female protagonist – yes, meet Molly Manila, the girl detective who talks with animals to solve the problems in her village.
Someone asked why there aren’t any pictures in my books and could I create a book with pictures please – yes, meet Bumper the Bumblebee and his friends in the Bumper and Friends series, where the garden and seaside friends work together solving problems and learning useful things like it’s ok to be yourself, not to give up, colours of the rainbow, days of the week and more.
Obviously, the dream is to see my work on the big screen, to invite my friends to a cinema premiere of Sammy Rambles and the Floating Circus and who knows, maybe it will happen one day.
But in the meantime, I’m writing new Bumper and Friends stories, visiting schools talking about my journey and inspiring children in their writing and creativity. I’m working on merchandise to accompany the books, playing and coaching Dragonball and seeing what’s next.
