☾ 𝔚 𝔢 𝔩 𝔠 𝔬 𝔪 𝔢 𝔩 𝔬 𝔳 𝔢 𝔩 𝔦 𝔢 𝔰 ☾

𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒚?

Greetings!

This is my first newsletter so please bare with me as I navigate through this unfamiliar territory - but I hope to send one every week, if all goes well <3

Let me introduce myself - hi! My name is Gabrielle Bennett, I’m a queer 24 year old who lives in the UK, about an hour away from the Lake District (Alexa play The Lakes by Taylor Swift). I’m chronically ill, a mother of one frenchie, my partner and I have been together for over four years, and I hope one day to be a published author!

I’ve wanted to write since I could first pick up a book - which was the ‘Tales of Pixie Hollow Series’ by Kiki Thorpe (iykyk). I wrote numerous short stories that will NEVER see the light of day, but it was enough to keep me and my erratic mind occupied.

But as I got older, passing through middle school and high school, I stopped writing. I thought I wasn’t “academically smart” enough to pursue it. So, I found my happiness in acting. As a daughter to an actress and singer, I had always grown up surrounded by the arts. When I turned eighteen, I attended university to study acting and found a new dream, and hopefully one day it’ll be a full-time profession. Only, life doesn’t always turn out that way. As the three years went on, I suffered badly with my health. I spent my last year stuck in my accommodation bedroom in agony.

I had always suffered from ‘bad periods’. And I was always told by my doctors that it was ‘normal’ to pass out from being in so much pain, have blood clots the size of tennis balls, heavy periods, debilitating fatigue and nausea, and crippling pain all over my body. Again, I just dealt with it. I was fortunate to have my partner, Cam, by my side through this, as well as my family and his. They pushed me to force my doctors to look into my health properly and finally, after seven years, I was on the waiting list for a laparoscopic surgery - the only way to diagnose endometriosis. And after a couple of months of waiting, I had the surgery, and was diagnosed with it. They found scarred endo tissue all over my bladder/bowel.

It’s an odd thing to be diagnosed with a chronic illness. Part of you is relieved that you were right - all the medical gaslighting, dismissive attitudes from doctors, and their constant drive to force me onto contraceptives as a way to silence me - it all came down to you being correct. After all, you know your body better than any medical practitioner. Then there’s the other part that slips through the cracks - You’re chronically ill. There is no cure. You will be like this for the rest of your life.

Let’s just say, I didn’t react to any of this well - and it didn’t help that we were in the middle of an epidemic and were forced to stay indoors. During lockdown, I didn’t know what to do with myself. For the most of it, I spent my time curled up in bed, dizzy from strong painkillers. But on the days I felt well enough, I baked banana breads, tried new foods, made a scary amount of iced coffees with hazelnut syrup. But nothing worked to keep me happy—keep me occupied. Then TikTok blew up and I made an account. I found myself fixated on the lives of others, and that’s where I came across #BookTok. I started to read more; finally returning back to my bookcase and to my large TBR pile. I read and read and read until I eventually sat myself at my desk and began writing again.

I wrote my first book - Between Cursed Storms.

Art by Instagram (@_clxarts)

As a first draft, it was messy and full of plot holes and I kept switching from present tense to past tense depending on my mood in every chapter. It was nowhere near ready or perfect to even think about getting beta readers or querying it to possible agents/publishers. But I had done it: I had finished a full manuscript and thus my love for writing peaked again.

That was enough for me.

So, I naturally turned to TikTok - after seeing many aspiring writers like myself post about their WIPs - and I made a video. It was a silly video, I didn’t think anything of it, and with only 12 followers it never mattered if only those people saw it. Until I woke up to find it had reached 170.7K views, 35.5K likes, and over 300 comments. I suddenly became aware that people were interested in my story - my messy first draft about an isolated mentally unstable witch and a witch-hunter pirate on a bloody revenge path, who find themselves stuck on a coastal island in the middle of a storm. I pitched it as dark cottagecore and people loved it - people actually wanted to read it!

This, my dearest readers, was the start of my new hyper-fixation. That was in 2022 - now two years later, I haven’t stopped writing since. All those years writing messy drafts about unapologetic angry women and the men who adore them, helped me to become a stronger writer but I still have a long way to go… But damn does it feels good.

What am I currently working on?

I’m currently writing the second draft to a high fantasy adult romance: THE MASKED PRINCESS.

SYNOPSIS:

When the Gods walked the realm, the world was in chaos. Until they bestowed the gift of dragon-bonding to four individuals, thus creating the four kingdoms of Aubrath: Odiakou, Eloria, Anka, Vyria - all ruled by the Draggari Order; those with the power to bond with dragons.

Princess Efia of House Abebe, heir to the kingdom of Odiakou was born to be the future empress and consort to Aenwyn of House Aeriar from, Crown Princess to the kingdom of Eloria. Yet the life as a wife and empress is not all she hungers for—power sizzles in her fiery veins, driving her to be the best sovereign the realm has ever seen.

The disgraced Willa Blackthorne yearns for a life far from loss of her friends, Princess Aenwyn and Princess Efia, and away the kingdom of Eloria who were responsible for exiling her from court and into servitude after her parents traitorous connections with heretics. Maybe one day she’ll find the courage to leave the world who shunned her and make a life for herself alone?

But when the kingdom of Eloria is attacked by the heretics from the Rebellic Armies—bred against the Draggari Order and will stop at nothing until every dragon and their bonded individual is dead—and the royal House of Aeriar perishes, they are miraculously saved by Crown Prince Drazhan of House Haelstorm from the reclusive eastern kingdom of Vyria. Efia speculates as to whether Vyria harbours more sinister intentions than playing the role of saviour in the attack, and if they are the real reason behind it.

In a twist of fate, old childhood friends, Efia and Willa are stuck together and hatch a plan to infiltrate the kingdom of Vyria and find out the true reason behind Eloria’s attack. Disguised as the deceased Princess Aenwyn, Willa places herself intimately with the esteemed Vyrian Prince, Drazhan, who may hold more secrets to her past than she cares to admit. Meanwhile, from the shadows, Efia must unlock hidden mysteries within the history of the four kingdoms without notifying the Vyrian Queen Saera of her true intentions, and suppressing her own emotions towards the ice-cold queen.

Within the dark and unruly kingdom of Vyria, Willa and Efia must keep their wits about them as they navigate through the different political systems, a twisted court, and discover more about the Vyrian king’s strange illness and how it may be connected to Eloria’s downfall.

Can they succeed in their task of destroying a kingdom, or do the Gods have another plan for them? After all, fate is cunning and cruel, and it spins a web far more twisted than Efia and Willa both care to admit.

I’m currently on the second draft of this book and I hope—once it is finished (finger’s crossed, end of October very soon!) and thoroughly edited/revised—to bring it to possible beta readers. And then start querying! It’s all very exciting.

If you’d love to hear more about my writing journey, let’s please be friends! You can follow me on my socials on my Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/gabriellebennett and subscribe to this newsletter as I journal my experience of writing, editing, querying and living my life as a chronically ill person.

Have a lovely day!

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