I live out my fantasies ..then bring the mall to life in my stories
Author on visiting far-flung lands to help form her magical tales of wonder that have grabbed the imagination of children all around the world
MOST authors dream up their books from the comfort of a favourite armchair. Not Abi Elphinstone – she lives out all of her magical adventures before putting pen to paper.
Travelling the world in search of her next story, the 32-year-old daredevil has taken part in plenty of adrenaline-fuelled exploits.
From doing star jumps on a peak in the Italian Dolomites to watching the Northern Lights dance across the Arctic sky in Norway, Abi’s done it all in the name of research.
But nothing comes close to her latest adventure – hunting foxes and wolves with golden eagles in the wilds of Mongolia.
Abi, from Edzell, Angus, said: “To make my children’s books magical and believable, I feel I need to have experienced the adventures for myself. I live out my fantasies, bringing them to life in my stories.
“I went out to Mongolia after seeing a photo by Asher Svidensky of 14-year-old Eagle Huntress, Aisholpan. I remember thinking there was a story buried up in her life but I never imagined I’d meet Aisholpan and go hunting with her father, Agali.
The former Stracathro Primary pupil, added: “I think the closest I’ve come to experiencing a miracle was when I watched him lose his golden eagle, Balapan, over the Mongolian mountains to hunt for a fox – the hunters use fox fur to keep warm in the bitterly cold winters.
“The spectacle was mesmerising – a man in traditional Eagle Hunting dress complete with felt
hat lined with rabbit fur and topped with owl feathers, a horse that scaled unimaginably steep cliffs and an eagle who glided effortlessly on wind thermals before diving towards the fox.
“Although Wikipedia might have told me that there are families out in Mongolia who use eagles to hunt, the experience taught me what a golden eagle’s cry sounds like and what the owl feathers on Agali’s hat felt like. I hope my book will be all the better for these details.”
Abi is now busy weaving her escapades into her next novel.
Meanwhile, her latest book, The Night Spinner, which is Waterstone’s Scottish Children’s Book of the month, is based on her adventures closer to her old home in Scotland.
It is the final part of her fast-paced trilogy for eight to 12 year-olds, which follow Moll, Sid, Alfie and wildcat Gryff ’s quest to find the Amulets of Truth and destroy the Shadowmasks’ dark magic.
The story is inspired by Abi’s childhood scrambling over moors in search of eagles’ nests and hidden waterfalls and careering down the river on lilos.
The former English teacher, who now lives in London, said: “When I sit down to write a book, the first thing I do is draw a map because it is only when my characters start moving from place to place that a plot unfolds.
“For The Night Spinner, I looked at the fictional setting I had named the Northern Wilderness and realised it was a map of my childhood and every place was somewhere in Scotland I had explored as a young girl. I grew up
beside a farm and though I couldn’t possibly know I was going to re-invent this landscape in a book years later, I did have a feeling that there was something magical about where I lived, and about one particular walk that I used to do with family.
“After you leave Edzell, you cross an old stone bridge. On your left, there is a little blue door. You could miss it if you didn’t know it was there but my parents knew about it and they pushed it open. What lay beyond could well have been Narnia.”
Abi, who volunteers for national literacy charity Beanstalk and gives talks in schools, added: “Through this door I watched salmon leap from the waterfalls, I read books tucked inside the hidden folly and I listened to my father’s stories about trolls and fairies beneath the curved roots of an old beech tree. It was only a matter of time before I borrowed it for one of my own stories.
“In The Night Spinner, Edzell becomes Glendrummie, the village Moll, and her tribe come across after heading north. The blue door becomes the gateway to the northern wilderness and the river beyond becomes the Clattering Gorge, home to a coven of witches.
“We often take where we live for granted and assume that to find places of interest we have to travel for miles. But I think we are often closer to stories than we realise.”
Abi, whose mum Lucy is headmistress of top girls school Francis Holland in Sloane Square, London and has ghost written several books including the autobiography of Irish Eurovision winner Dana, admits Scotland is the reason she became a writer.
She said: “I am a writer because the moors, glens and lochs in Scotland stamped a sense of wonder on my soul – and whatever book I write next I know The Night Spinner will remain closest to my heart.
“Writing it was like re-opening a door to my childhood and realising giants, witches and goblins had been there all along.”
Abi, who attended St Leonard’s School in St Andrews, is keen to encourage pupils never to give up on their dreams of being a writer.
She said: “I’m dyslexic and I had 96 rejections from literary agents before Simon & Schuster accepted my manuscript for The Dream Snatcher.
“I know a fair bit about perseverance. When I talk to children in schools, I encourage them not to give up. If you give up, you’ll never find out if your dream of being an author might have become a reality.”