#amreadin

The story around the book is most certainly a book I should write some day. It is a most fascinating observation of the law of attraction in play.

Back in 1999 I was 15 years young and living on the outskirts of a beautiful town called Totnes, surrounded by rolling fields of countryside.

I was not the usual teenager to go out clubbing and drinking, and I was many years from entering into any form of a relationship as much as I desired to explore my sexual nature.

I would sit up in my small box of a bedroom and draw out my fantasies, and write them out in detail. I would stretch my mind to imagine more than what I knew about, seeking the answers to my big questions about creation and this curious thing called God. All I was equipped with was the science and religious education I had learnt at school and parents who both had spoken of their paranormal experiences either seeing spirits or having prophetic dreams. With the tools of knowledge I had, I dug deeper and deeper into my curiosities and created the best answers I could imagine.

In 1997 my grandfather died and I remember that I was not sad. I had observed death as something one should feel sad about as many people when they talk about death become very serious and feel grief and loss. I remember encouraging myself to feel sad and cry in the back of the car on the way home from the hospital. They were forced tears, just as the laughter was forced when I was even younger and joined in by laughing at a joke that everyone else was laughing at. I remember the thought process being in order to cry and show that I was sad as it is expected; I was to think of all the things I loved about my granddad and that I would not experience them again.

Oddly enough I found the Christmas of ’97 to be extremely enchanting. My parents gave my sister and I the joint gift of a PlayStation and two games, one in particular that sparked my imagination, Oddworld, Abe’s Oddysee. I grew up enjoying such fantasy films as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The Never-ending Story, and loved the otherworldly magic and creatures. Whilst on dog walks in the woods with the family, my parents would encourage my imagination and speak of goblins, elves and faeries that lived there. I loved exploring the great outdoors and letting my imagination run wild. With the game Abe’s Oddysee from the opening screen where the character invites you to join him on his journey, I was totally transported to another world, and I revelled in it.

What child does not love magic? From a young age I marvelled at the pencil as it created a simple circle. It was just a circle, but it was magic as I watched it being drawn. As my drawing ability was encouraged, it evolved into my fascination of animation and bringing my cartoon character to life. I was spell-bound by Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and a cartoon coming to life was real to me. On discovering the magic of animation I was able to start bringing my imagination out for everyone to see.

Whilst on a family holiday on a beach in Spain, 1999, I observed lots of dead wasps being washed ashore and amongst the wasps were many cigarette ends littered everywhere. I was raised to care for the environment and never to litter. Suddenly my imagination was inspired because out of nowhere this little furry character clad in creamy leathery clothes came out with a little sack and went about clearing up all the litter.

I have scratched the surface of the inspiration leading up to the creation of the world created in my book. Music, dreams, life and paranormal experiences blended into the mix although my greatest inspiration was my desire to be in a place where I could explore my ever desire.

All that I dreamt of doing and being I could explore and do in my fantastical and beautiful world. I would have the loving companionships I wished for; I could fulfil every dream, fantasy, and desire. The world of my imagination is where I would go to help me deal with the so-called reality I wished to escape from, the ‘real’ world that everyone wished to pull over my eyes; a harsh place filled with judgemental people who all lived limited lives. I dreamt of a world where I could be myself and be loved, adored even, and there would be no limitations. Where did this world exist though?

I could not just climb through a rabbit hole, step through a portal, or push my way through coats in a wardrobe, how would I arrive at this world both in terms of in the story and how I truly wished to get there in reality? Dappling around depression, as much as I wished to escape this world, I would never bring myself to any harm. I cared a huge amount about myself; I just did not wish to be here any more and felt trapped more and more.

I came to imagine that it would be my young death that would lead to my spirit being carried to this other world where I would live out my final life, experiencing everything I had ever wished to experience.

One day in my hysterical depressed state, I thought that maybe a bath would make me feel better. I hugged my knees and cried in the bath, filled with despair. I felt so trapped in this world and wished to escape all my worries. In the stillness and hugging my knees the most amazing voice of love, comfort and understanding came from my mouth, “I am always here for you.” I felt comforted immediately as though the awareness within me would always be loving me and guiding me, no matter how physically alone I may be, I would always have myself.

From then on I knew myself best as the observer within and I was here to look after this body named Matthew. I observed how emotions were inspired within me and how thoughts would trigger emotions. I would lay and feel the energy flowing through me and would wonder if I could feel a rush of chemical released from my brain or whether I was becoming aware of an energy field streaming through me.

One night I dreamt of a creature, a magnificent beast I had no memory of seeing in this lifetime. On awaking I drew what I had experienced and seen, and loving the presence I felt of the creature of my dream, I tried to recapture it with writing it into the story. I named the creature Sal Cada-umba as I loved the idea of being original and creating new names. I had already manufactured my own creature and named him Acunza, and began my adventures in the story with him, and now I had a beautiful beast of long, creamy-white fur to accompany on my journey.

The story I wrote was unfolding as I wrote it. I had no plan on where the story was going, I was simply having an adventure on another world and enjoying myself. Life itself appeared to have no plan; it is made up as you go along, so why would my story be any different?  The difference in this world was that I had the power to bring instantly into creation anything that I could imagine. This was original thinking in my mind, and so I was very secretive about sharing my story unless I trusted that the unique ideas would not be stolen.

From school to college and all my time at home I would spend hours bringing my character Acunza to life as I worked on an animated film and lots of concept art. It swiftly became my ambition to turn the story I was writing into a film experience, as much as I wanted it to be a virtual reality world I could just step into. With my affiliation with animation it made sense to study it at university where I had hoped to gain the experience to bring my book to life.

My first review of the story so far was from a tutor I trusted who described my book as beautifully descriptive but lacked structure and would make a great computer game.

2004 I visited my father who had moved to Spain and on occasion visited a spiritualist church. A medium picked me out of the audience telling me that she had my grandfather with her and he has one message for me, which was not to worry, “You will make it by the age of 30.”

The crush I had whilst at college had already made it into the beginning of my book as the beautiful girl and my crush whilst at university soon was written in as my handsome hero, but as I left university behind in 2006, the story came to a stand-still as I decided to look into modelling, thinking it would be an easy way to make money so I could fund my film ambition.  My dreams seemed too big for the part of the country I was living in. I blogged on Myspace about my dreams and my plans to achieve them, which attracted the attention of someone who introduced me to the law of attraction with the documentary The Secret and another called What the Bleep Do We Know?! With hearing all these people around the world who shared my way in thinking I became very emotional, and was quick to grasp the law of attraction as it was something I had unknowingly been writing about.

By 2007 I had been encouraged to do a TEFL course as a friend’s daughter had done it and said it helped give her direction, and I was currently unsure of what steps to take to get to where I wished to get with my ambition. There was the option to do the TEFL course in numerous countries around the world. My father had told the most exciting stories of his time in Peru 30 years back, and the pan-pipe music I was raised listening to had me drawn to going there for the one-month course. During that month I fell in love and I also visited a place that mirrored something I had written about in my novel. Not wishing to teach English, falling in love, my film ambition clinging close to me, I found inspiration again to continue writing the story so that it paralleled the experience I was having at that time. The experience fell deep into despair after 9 months out there.

Falling in love inspired me to write and compose many songs, which helped me through the unrequited love.

With a new baby sister and wishing to share my wisdom with her, in 2008 I began writing and illustrating a book for children with my two favourite characters from the story I had been writing nine years on and off. I showed the children’s book I had created to my grandmother and she looked through it whilst I played a song of my own on the piano.  When I came and sat beside her, she was smiling and admiring my pictures and said, “You will make it by the age of 30.” Hearing these words again was reassurance as I had heard those exact same words some years before.

As I was the main character in my story I decided to go ahead and start making my film in my bedroom. I stuck green paper to my bedroom walls to create a green-screen for the time in the future that I could insert the fantastical creatures and otherworldly landscape. After all, back in 2006 when I wrote to Peter Jackson looking for work, his secretary wrote back his reply, which was to “Just make your film!” So who knows, one day my younger self may appear in my film.

Over time I practised and gained a better understanding of the law of attraction and really homed in on my visualisation. I created a Vision Board of many things I wished for in life and made the image the background of my laptop as I would see this every day.

Within a month of visualisation a young man from the Philippines found me on a social network. He was a film student and showed a huge interest in my fantasy story and film ambition. Looking through his profile photos I observed a few images that closely resembled the ones on my vision board. Over the space of a year the film student ended up working at the film studio and had spoken to his boss about a job there for me and the deal was on. I flew out and the deal had already fallen through but having become a good friend, I stayed with his family and gained experience as an actor for student films and a model in the Philippines. I found it easy to write the spin-off children’s story book featuring Acunza and Sal, so continued to write these. Whilst modelling, I spoke to a modelling agent who showed an interest in my background, telling her of my story and film ambition, that I write song etcetera and she said, “You will make it by the age of 30.”

2011 to 2012 I stayed with this friend’s family and had lots of time on my hands, yet no inspiration, especially when I sat down one day to continue writing my story. I sat on the bed with a writing pad and wrote down my void of inspiration experience, which turned into one of the best poems I have ever written. Further inspiration came from an internet friend who I had fallen in love with, which turned out to be some kind of ‘Catfish’ story years before, which had inspired another character in my story. With an almighty clash of conflict in me questioning their identity again, I received an email that rained the terror of darkness into me, casting me into the shadows. What was to follow inspired a major element to my story.

Now a love song I had previously written fitted into the story perfectly too and the structure was finding itself. The story had structure all along, it was just hidden and awaiting more pieces of the puzzle to be added. I got excited when my friend and I sat down and went about turning my story, which now had an ending, into a script. With the input of my friend, the story was becoming more of a good versus evil plot, and although I liked some of the ideas, this was not the story I felt I was writing. I knew the story needed a fresh re-write, although it was soon apparent that it was not going to happen here.

By 2013 I was living in London and sat at the dining room table illustrating my second children’s book, I thought to myself how lovely it would be to be paid to do this thing I enjoy doing. I dwelled on that thought and that feeling and soon after gained a job where I had lots of free time to work on my own projects. I completed all the illustrations for my second children’s book and thought it was about time I get down to business with rewriting the book I had begun all those years ago. In 2014 I would be turning 30, so I found myself wishing to fulfil the prophetic words I had heard numerous times over the years, “You will make it by the age of 30.”

Late 2014 I completed writing my book, I turned 30 and was looking for publishing agents who may be interested in my novel. My mother had been talking to a new friend of hers that she had known for just over a month. The friend had published a book of her own and on hearing about me and my spiritual-natured book, she wished to meet me. She highly recommended the publisher she went through, who on contact suggested that I try out their new platform where the public decide whether or not your book gets published. I thought it was worth a try, and so had my book edited and submitted to the website where all those years of love and experience that went into your life’s ambition stand to face as many people that I can encourage to take a look.

As soon as the book was complete, a sequel was already planted and growing into a new story, even more profound than the first, but the first was a necessary introduction so that we are all on the same page as we move forward.