Curse of the Tahiéra, Wendy Gillissen – Author Guest Post & Giveaway

A journey through haunted forests, through dreams and time.
A story of love, magic and the power of forgiveness.
A Tzanatzi outcast and an Einache shaman are on the trail of an ancient curse.
Will they save their people from destruction?

AUTHOR GUEST POST…Why write?

Do you know that disturbing feeling in the pit of your stomach that there’s something you’ve forgotten, something important? That is how I felt for many years. Despite doing what I thought I wanted to do, despite reaching goals I had set myself, my teaching, my practice, there was always that eerie feeling that there was something I was neglecting. It gnawed at me. The faint, but horrid sliding sense of not doing what I was supposed to do.

It took me thirty years to find out what it was.

When I was six, I knew perfectly well what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a writer. But the fresh self-knowledge of the child became buried under layers of conditioning fed by my own insecurities… Whatever would I write about? Surely I wasn’t good enough to write? Surely there was no way I could make a living through writing? Everybody said so.

So the creative ghosts kept pounding on my door, but I kept it firmly shut. I plugged my ears with my fingers. I hummed and looked the other way. I didn’t even know they were there anymore. Until I ended up on a Greek island in 2005.

There I was, on the beach at dusk. I had visited a gorgeous castle ruin that day. It had somehow rekindled the old longing to write a novel. If only I could! The thought was quickly buried again. But not for long. The Greek soil does not hold ghosts well.

The sky was turning indigo when I noticed a strange cloud formation. It was the shape of a dancing figure, a man with a crown of feathers. It reminded me of Kokopelli. It threw its head back in enviable abandon and laughed out loud as it was dancing, dancing. It was enormous. A strange sense of inevitability passed through me and I knew things were about to change. My life would never be the same again.

I went home and after a month, I began to write. Out of the blue. I was scared. I didn’t know how to do it. But I knew I had to. So I told myself: ‘Just a short story. Just a simple exercise. It doesn’t have to be Literature.’

I wrote a first chapter. It was a story about a dragon. Shaking, I showed it to my first reader. She was enthusiastic. Then I began chapter two. A flashback, a backdrop to the story. A stranger turned up at the inn where my character was staying. I had no idea who he was, or what he was about to do or say. I surrendered myself to the story. And that’s when the story came alive. I wasn’t writing. I was being written.

Yldich, the middle-aged shaman in storyteller guise, and Rom, the distrustful outcast Tzanatzi, began a dialogue and I had no idea where it was going. They went on a dangerous journey and I had no idea where it would lead. But the words came into my head and I wrote them. Images, thoughts, feelings welled up that were not my own. It was like stepping into a three—no, four-dimensional movie, a world that was already in existence. I only had to step in and allow it to pass through. And once I did, I couldn’t stop. The exhilaration, the thrill. How had I done without it all these years?

I never thought writing would be this way. I thought writers made up stories. But my characters are living entities, and the story is their world. I only have to tap into it and let it pass through my fingers and into the keyboard. I laugh with them. I cry with them. I feel their joys and their pain. It’s amazing. It changed my life and my view of the world for ever. And I never want to stop doing it ever again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Wendy Gillissen is a psychologist and dream worker, and author of fantasy novel ‘Curse of the Tahiéra’. She lives in Delft, the Netherlands. Currently Wendy is working on a sequel: ‘The Search for Tzanáta’. In her spare time she plays the Celtic harp.

‘Curse of the Tahiéra’, ISBN 9781601458391 was published by Booklocker in 2009. Available in paperback, illustrated, 444 pages, $19.95

Visit www.wendygillissen.com for a free excerpt, more on the author, a sneak preview of the sequel including an illustration by artist Michelle Ross, and much more!
Preview excerpt
Find Curse of the Tahiéra on Amazon

FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS…Watch out for a future review of Curse of the Tahiéra by Wendy Gillissen. Thanks to the author for providing me a copy of her book for review and the opportunity to giveaway 1 copy of her book.

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This giveaway will run now through midnight on November 30th, with winner being announced December 1st. Winner will be chosen using Random.org from all valid entries and notified via email. Winners will have 48 hours to contact me before another winner is chosen. Please check your emails AND your spam folders for an email from me if you are a winner.

MAIN RULE – Just leave a comment in the comment section and then complete the below form (if this rule is not followed then no others will count AND you MUST still COMPLETE below GIVEAWAY FORM where you can input your information PRIVATELY).