As a child I would spend hours making up stories and writing them on paper in my childish hand. Fantasy stories were my safe haven and I found endless pleasure and joy in them.

At age 12 I got a scholarship to a prestigious school as a result of my prowess at taking a person on a wild adventure with my words. By 15 I was winning fiction literary awards.

Then I had to start thinking about what I would do after school in an era before online blogging and social media. I had to think of getting a 'real job'. So I put my writing to work and focused on assignments, then on producing reports and copy for my workplace. Over the years I would pick up an art brush, I would crochet on the odd occasion, but my head was filled with ministerial speaking points, media releases and board documents. I eventually found a job that allowed me to storytell again. But only real life stories, because the world was a hard place and people were in pain. I wrote 3 books to help people and I produced thousands of articles.

After years of 'doing the work', I found myself having the recurring dream of an old lady. She was sitting at a desk and was signing books. She was laughing. She was cheeky. She was alive and I got the impression she did not care much about anything. I asked her 'who are all these books for?' And she said 'why, you dearie'. Then I would wake up.

My shamanic teacher suggested I try ask a different question, that this was spirit playing games with me, encouraging me to open up to something as I underwent my 45 year rite of passage.

The next time I dreamt of the old lady, I asked her "why did you write these books?". And she said "for fun, dearie". And I saw on the spine of the books stacked next to her my own name: Rebecca Park.

I woke up knowing, over the next 26 years I was going to write 13 fantasy novels. I was going to do it for me. I was going to do it for fun.