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Last year in June I decided I wanted to write a shorter LesFic novel with a romantic storyline. I had a little idea for a straightforward lesbian Alice in Wonderland meets Shirley Valentine, set in a wonderful holiday destination that I know really well — South Africa, specifically Cape Town.

Well, those were my famous last words.

I did manage to knock out a first draft of what I thought was a pretty straightforward LesFic holiday romance, but when I read it, I hated it! It felt like it was missing something key. I tried very hard to get enthusiastic, so that I could get on and write the next draft… but, I just was stuck.

As I started to reread my first draft again, I began thinking up all sorts of plot twists which then buzzed and fluttered around my brain and I almost had to sit on my hands not to start rewriting immediately. I sat with this, mulling away for about a month last summer, while I was in Lesbos and then the Maldives, where there was enough to distract me and keep me focussed elsewhere.

But, when I got back to the UK to start re-drafting in earnest, before my research recce to South Africa, I couldn’t resist the inevitable and soon my simple holiday romance took a more sinister turn. Before I knew it a psychological drama emerged, with plot twists and turns I could never have envisaged at the start.

Although “Alice” was always intended to be another one of the Toni Mendez adventure, it really was meant to be a straightforward romance!

I think I have to come to terms with the fact that I am incapable of writing a lesbian romance without complicating the plot!!!. Meanwhile, I had another idea for a short series of Maldivian romances, based on the island where Toni and Lizbeth go on holiday just before “Alice” in their timeline, but even those have turned into something more complicated and mostly darker… so, watch this space!

You can find out more about “Alice: A Woman’s Flight for Freedom” here >> http://Dukebox.life/Alice