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This week my guest blogger is Jeanette O’Hagan. Jeanette has practiced medicine, studied communication, history and theology and has taught theology. She has had a passion for telling stories and writing them since primary school and loves wondering about people, why they are the way they are, what motivates them, their hopes and dreams. She is currently caring for her children, enjoying post-graduate studies in writing at Swinburne University and writing her Akrad fantasy fiction series (). She is actively involved in a caring Christian community.
You can find her on her Facebook page or webistes Ìý,ÌýÌýÌý& .

Thanks Lynne, for having me on your blog. I’ve enjoyed reading the other blogs in this series. It is fascinating learning about the different journeys of other writers.

My passion is writing faith-inspired fantasy, poetry and memoir/biography. I am a few thousand words away from completing the first draft of my fourth full manuscript in the fantasy series Akrad’s Children. I also love to blog on life and faith, books and films, and the writing journey.

You asked me how I came to write my first book.

It started with a dream I had in my early twenties and when I say dream, I mean that literally. I dreamt about a young girl standing by a fountain and holding up a lamp in the night. She was calling for a wild creature to come to her and was surprised by what happened next. It was such a vivid dream that I kept the story going even after I had woken up and over the next several months I followed the trail of imagination. The story became part of the world I had begun creating at the age of ten. I began to write the story down � in notepads, on spare pieces of paper, in gaps of time until one day I had a first draft. I even devised a sequel.

Some years later, I revised it and a friend typed it out for me. I sent it off to two publishers and one loved the story and main character but then decided it wasn’t the type of book they published. So my first book languished in a computer file, while life in the form of a career change and having a family took over.

A few years ago, my life took a new direction and I revisited my passion to write, enrolling in a Graduate writing course and dusting off my old manuscript. I revised the book a couple times more � and then began writing a prequel.

The writing is the easy part and the most joyous. Finding a publisher has not been a fairy tale experience for me but I realise that I’m not alone in this. So I keep writing. I have another two books plotted out and some ideas for short stories. I keep learning my craft through my course, conferences, workshops, networking and web pages. I keep knocking at doors. And most of all, I keep trusting God to guide wherever this journey may lead me.