I started my story telling when I was 11 years old when I wrote my first play for the Christmas Party at my boarding school. The play was about a goody sheriff hero (me, of course) fighting off the bad guys. I don’t remember too many of the details except our boarding house master reminding us to react to being “hit” with some grunts etc. I also remember that we hadn’t mastered the art of simulation, so the hits were real!

Although over the years I wrote a number of skits for school and office Christmas parties and punned names of attendees for other events, it wasn’t until I my eldest daughter was about five years that I created my first children’s stories. The reasons I did this were mainly two fold. The first was that I felt I could make up a story as good as some of the ones that we were reading and the second was to make up stories that personalized the story to my daughter. These original stories have yet to be published but they are under way.

I continued making up stories as my eldest grew and then with my twins who are 12 years younger. These stories were mostly personalized ones based on events that had happened in their lives. I recorded these stories for them to listen to as an aid to sleeping.

Over the years as they have all grown, (and my stories were supplanted by stories for older children, especially Harry Potter, which I love) I have worked on converting these stories into picture books and some will be converted into chapter books. This has taken more effort than I originally thought it would as I have had to learn the craft of creating picture books and letting the picture help tell the story. Perhaps I shall use some of the earlier audio stories as the basis for audio books where description is required.

Simon signing copies of The Soxies for Megan Parker's (illustrator) father who had a few printed some years ago. 

I really enjoy the process of creating a story, even if, at times, it seems more of a grind than an inspiration. I enjoy “having an idea”, then finding the next step and then finding the best way of telling the story, even if it ends up completely different than from what I had originally envisaged, I greatly enjoy working with other creative people, editors and illustrators, to create the finished product. Whereas at times, working with editors can feel as if I am back at school, opening my mind to the fact that they are trying to enhance my story, as opposed to giving a grade, allows me to welcome their input. The joys of the creation process are such that an idea can “hit” at any time and lead to a series of stories or simply a one off. I enjoy writing new lyrics to existing, well known, songs to enhance a story and I really look forward to working on animation stories.