Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I live in Cornwall and have written since I was 22 having had two agents one for my children;s books and one for my thrillers. I am bringing to publishing about fifteen children books, I have several plays and two thrillers to prepare and I have published some of my poems.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Midrak Earthshaker came out in December 2013. It was just an idea, like all my books, of someone ending up in another world and being terrified. From that initial page I went on to make it up as I explored the characters and the storyline developed.
I did enjoy Midrak as a character though and he now appears in the epic fantasy I am publishing in the autumn of 2014, Ruzniel. I wrote the first page of this story in 1988 and knew exactly how it ended but I have had an ill mother to look after and so only picked up the threads of the story in 2009, it is now finished at 880 pages and 320,000 words. Ruzniel looks at the last three days in the life of the universe and the titanic battle to ensure the new universe created from the next big bang has life that is free to make choices and not ruled by a cruel tyrant. It draws on the laws of magic hinted at in Midrak Earthshaker and expands on the whole magician / Ruzniel theme.
There are two shorter sister stories to Midrak Earthshaker the second story I ever wrote, Fulminar the Good Magician and The Mirror of Flame which explore two themes that come out in Ruzniel, that of living again and the idea of servitude.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not that I know. I mean writers I have read about had to have their clothes taken away in order to get them to write, so i missed that one. I don’t stand up to write, I don;t keep to a set time. I do get up tp make tea every hour but that started when I was revising for my degree.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I enjoyed CS Lewis, Tolkien and all the Treasuries of short stories from around the world. I was amazed at Peake, and always liked Dr Doolittle. I am influenced into believing that whatever you writ should be literature. Wind in the Willows transcends children’s book writing as does Alice in Wonderland, the Waterbabies, Watership Down and a few others.
What are you working on now?
Ruzniel is being beta read and then a final edit is planned for the summer. I am also talking to talented Eleanor Bennett about a cover for my first serious novel Helen’s Daughter. This is about a woman I met when I was 24 and how she had five children by different men and how society treated her from a child.
There is also a story Mr Binks illustrated by Nia Ellis about an alchemist who finds the secret to eternal life but it becomes a curse, and tells of how three modern day children help lift the curse.
There is also the fourth installment of the series Blueskin the Cat about a highwayman who is reincarnated as a cat and all the adventures he has. Of the many reviews only one has been negative and all the others have been four or five star out of five. The watercolours by Gabriela Sepulveda are wonderful.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
www.footsteps.co
The publishers who publish me.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
It is a hard way to try to make a living but it is the life you chose.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel
Horace Walpole.
What are you reading now?
Trying to wade through The Origins of Totalitarianism but though it is a political classic of the twentieth century I am finding it hard to get the time.
What’s next for you as a writer?
A sequel to Ruzniel and more Blueskin books and lots of editing.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would want a collected verse with all my favourite poems in. I would also take the complete Shänne Sands who, part from being a brilliant poet is also my mother so i am in some of them. There are very few people who can say they are in the poems of the great poets so that would be a continued honour.
I might also take a survival manual because it sounds like I would need it. And of course even in a desert I would have my pen so a notebook to write and if it came to it, to write my last words.
Author Websites and Profiles
Daniel Nanavati Website
Daniel Nanavati’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Pinterest Account