Hello and Welcome!

Hi there! I'm Esme, fantasy writer, mum of two, geek, INFJ, and a Scorpio.

I want to welcome you to my little corner of the internet. This is my first blog post, and the first time I've attempted to set up a website so it's all a bit new, a touch scary and more than a tad exciting. My husband would call it "moving my cheese", more commonly known as "moving out of your comfort zone".

To be honest, the last few years has very much involved shifting cheese around. From stepping away from medicine and a "proper job" to writing a WHOLE BOOK, letting people (other than my hubby) read my stories for the first time, putting myself out there on social media, making friends with a brilliant group of fantasy writers online, not to mention becoming a makeshift teacher, hairdresser, and Zoom wizard during the Covid years. I feel like my cheese has travelled from Lands End to John O'Groats and back.

It can be hard stepping out of your comfort zone. The familiar is safe, reassuring and a safety net to fall back on. But it doesn't always lead to change, or allow you to continue learning. Sometimes we have to make that leap into the unknown.

One of my favourite poems is by Robert Frost; The Road Not Taken. It's about a traveller, pausing to consider which route to take as the path ahead of him branches in two different directions. Does he choose the path that is well trodden, or the other way, because it "was grassy and wanted wear". The traveller chose the second option, in the knowledge that the familiar road will always be there, but experience and choices may not lead him back again.

I felt a lot like this when I stepped away from medicine. I would always be a doctor, the knowledge is still (mostly) there, but I chose the less travelled road. I love writing and I will be eternally grateful for this opportunity. I feel like I have found my tribe in the wonderful writers I've befriended in the last couple of years.

It can be scary taking that leap, sometimes impossible given the wrong circumstances. I know I was lucky to get this chance, and for me it was the right choice. I hope you will join me for the journey. I promise there will be magic and adventure along the way.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost