This is part one of an online series where I will be taking you the reader behind the scenes of my latest project. It’s so recent that it’s not even finished yet, it’s barely even begun. So here’s the run don on the project:

I have written a story (which will remain secret for now) about a girl, you’ve guessed it, called Gwenonwen. Gwenonwen? Gwenonwen means lily of the valley in Welsh. I’m not the biggest welshie you’ll find, and this book certainly won’t be in Welsh, but it is set in Wales. All the characters and settings will be based on indigenous wildlife to Wales. The aim of this is to do a bit of promotion for little old Wales, while still making the book accessible to a lot of people, rather than just those who can speak Welsh. Wales is a very beautiful country if you look hard enough, and that’s partially what I want to show off in my book!

Right, enough yammering on about Wales; let’s hear more about the story! We have Gwenonwen, who mysteriously appears in the middle of the forest. Where did she come from? We don’t know, but we will know where she’ll go. The story starts simply with that image. Gwenonwen (although for now she’s just ‘the girl’) asleep in the forest.

The text that goes with this illustration is this: “There was a girl in the forest, and she had no name. She was a girl, that she knew, but what happened before the forest, nobody would know.”