Today we’ve got something a little different.  Sam Whitehouse, a new author whose work I’ve been reading and very much enjoying in recent weeks is on a blog tour, following my own guest appearance on his blog.  I hope you’ll enjoy Sam’s take on what inspires him to write and his journey so far on the Prophecy of Three quartet of YA novels (If you want to read them yourselves, links to their Amazon pages are below, along with links to Sam's own blog).

Over to you Sam…

Inspiration

If I had to say what my biggest source of inspiration for writing was, particularly with The Prophecy of Three Quartet, it is the books that I’ve read. I was a child of the Potter and Percy Jackson generation and so I grew up in the Wizarding World and Camp Half Blood. And when I would drag myself out of these worlds to write my own stories, I realised that I wanted to create a world of my own: one that I could have complete control of.

I think, for writers, that books are an infallible source of inspiration. They offer the imagination fuel. For me, though, it’s not just books that feed my imagination. I’m a sucker for an epic world and so the Lord of the Rings movies (and more recently the Hobbit trilogy) provides endless inspiration for me. Peter Jackson has been my second favourite director (just beaten by Spielberg) ever since I watched the Fellowship of the Ring and fell in love with Middle Earth. I watched the movies before I read the books, and it was through Peter Jackson that I was introduced to Tolkien’s world. But, in terms of my favourite fantasy world, it has to be J K Rowling’s Wizarding World. It is because of Potter that I wanted to create a fantasy world of my own. She imagined a world so full of rich characters and places that it could exist and it’s very easy to become lost in it every time I return to one of the books. That is what I wanted to provide for readers. I wanted to create a vivid, detailed world that could transport people away from everyday life and give them new places to explore and new characters to know.

The first novel I can remember reading by myself was The Philosophers Stone. And from the moment I first stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, I knew that creating worlds and stories was what I wanted to do.

The Prophecy of Three Quartet took more planning than I had anticipated. In fact, for well over six months I wrote almost nothing of the first book. I just filled several notebooks and a lot of scraps of paper with characters, places, laws, spells, creatures and everything else I thought of to populate the world I wanted to create. Then I planned out the entire arc of the four books. When I did start writing The Keys of Time it took me two years to finish. But I think- I know- that if it were not for the books that I had read, the myths and legends I had lost myself in growing up, The Prophecy of Three would not have seen the light.

The first book in The Prophecy of Three Quartet, The Keys of Time is out now Amazon; Book 2, The Demon’s Hunt is set for release on December 21st.

Everything changed for Simon Falke the first time he fell through the fire... 

For as long as there has been Light, Dark has existed. And now the Dark is growing in power, wielded by the witch Morgana, who wants to eliminate the Light altogether. 

Two worlds, existing side by side, will collide. A prophecy foretold centuries ago is coming to pass. Three teenagers will discover untold power, drawn into a war they knew nothing about. They must embrace their new lives and hone their abilities, if they are to save two worlds. 

Author Bio

Ever since I realized that books did not spring from thin air and that people wrote them, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. Growing up on diet of fantasy and folklore and living in the fantasy worlds of Tolkien and Rowling it felt natural for me to write. The Prophecy of Three Quartet was born from my fascination with Arthurian legend and a love of stories that combine two worlds. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing and if I’m not thinking about writing I’m reading. I am also a huge fan of Marvel and movies (particularly anything directed by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams).

You can find my book on…

Amazon.co.uk : http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Keys-Time-Prophecy-Three-ebook/dp/B00BINAI82

Amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/The-Keys-Time-Prophecy-Three-ebook/dp/B00BINAI82

Links:

The Prophecy of Three official site: http://sam26051994.wordpress.com/

Official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Theprophecyofthreequartet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamProphecy