The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

I can’t remember the specific day or time I got the idea for my new YA post-apocalyptic series, The Day The Earth Turned – but I do know the place.

From my house, if you come out of the gate and turn left you are standing beside a busy road but if you turn right you head down a pleasant leafy lane, lined by ancient oaks. Beyond the oaks are fields and farmland, a small copse, and as we reach the end of Mill Lane and turn left, the Moors river ripples peacefully through.

Heading this way, the thick hawthorn hedging on your right gives glimpses of the fields beyond – fields that have been quarried one by one over the years, each one taking their turn to be ripped up and then eventually, left to recover. And recover they do. The field behind our house was a field when we first moved in – then months later it was quarried for sand and looked awful. The grass gone, the earth overturned, huge machines ripping up the land. Once they had finished, they moved on and the grass and wildflowers grew back.

down the lane

About four years ago we heard that the quarrying had reached its end and the fields were earmarked for development. The landowner, who happens to also be our landlord, was considering various options that would continue to make the fields profitable for him and one proposal was a fake lagoon or water park.

We listened in horror. Not only would the land be built over, but tons of concrete would be poured on top of it, then thousands of visitors would be encouraged to flock to this new leisure facility daily. As residents of a semi-rural village that already has an airport to contend with, we felt the look, feel and pace of our home would be ruined forever. The busy road I mentioned is always busy and it only takes one accident, or one local event, and the whole area gets gridlocked. Thankfuly, the lanes linking around the village are relatively quiet and peaceful which means they and the surrounding fields, rivers and woods are a haven for wildlife.

The plot of land they want to develop is beautiful. Its mostly fields, surrounded by thick hedging and trees with a long copse in the centre. We see small herds of deer on the fields behind our house almost daily. We also have barn owls and tawny owls, buzzards and sparrowhawks, stoats and weasels, rabbits, badgers and even hares in the area. I felt devastated when I pictured those fields built on. Not even for much needed housing, but for a water park when we live ten minutes from the beach?

fields behind our house

Where would the wildlife go? They wouldn’t stay, that was for sure. The quiet lanes would become a nightmare of jammed cars or they would have to be widened and that would mean more trees being felled and ancient hedges being ripped out.

It was a horrifying thought and it still is.

I was almost thankful for Covid putting a brake on it all. The village was even more beautiful and peaceful during lockdowns.

At the moment, not much has happened. The land has been left untouched and as far as I know the planning proposal for the fake lagoon never went through. But something will one day. After all, rich people who already own land and houses, need more money, right? Poor things.

Anyway, I think that was the spark that set this series in motion. I was so pissed off. I walked down the lane thinking about how under threat it all was, how everything is constantly under threat from mankind, how humans just rip it all up, tear it down, stamp all over it, pollute and ruin it. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world…

It’s shameful.

Walking down the lane to the river usually fills me with peace and gratitude, but sometimes it makes me sad and angry too. It’s a hot spot for fly tipping and its even worse when you find they have chucked it in the river. I can’t understand people abusing the earth they depend on. I can’t understand people who chuck rubbish out of car windows. I cannot understand seeing a beautiful plot of land and wanting to build something so ridiculous on it.

I felt angry and I felt like nature was angry too. Or it should be if it could be. I started thinking, if only Mother Nature was a real conscious entity, what would she do to us? She would perceive us as a threat to her life and she would seek to eliminate us, I’m sure.

That’s where the idea came from. Almost wishing nature could do this, almost wishing wildlife would turn on us for a change. When you consider what we have done to the natural world and to animals over the centuries, we ought to be ashamed, and we deserve to be punished for it. I’ve often wondered how different our relationship with animals would be if they could talk. If they were to go up a level in consciousness, intelligence and self-awareness, for instance. Would we still find it so easy to destroy them and their homes?

And funnily enough, recent years have seen an increase in wild animal attacks on human populations, probably partly due to humans encroaching more and more on their territory and of course, made worse by the effects of climate change. Just yesterday I was reading an article about an orca who seems to have trained her pod to hunt and destroy fishing boats after she was injured by one.

In The Day The Earth Turned series, I delve into a world where the adults have been culled by nature itself. She has shaken them free, destroyed them to save herself. The children remain, but can they figure out how to survive in this new world without enraging Mother Nature again? In this new world, animals have reached new levels of aggression and consciousness. This turns out well for a character called George who befriends an otter, but not so well for another character called Gus when he is ambushed by crows and a dog at the same time. Even tiny robins can cause problems and everyone needs to stay out of the path of the furious stag.

The animals are angry. They are filled with rage. This is their world once again, and the children need to learn fast to survive.

I wrote my ideas down in a tiny notebook four years ago, and then two years ago I finally started writing the books. It was a stop-start process at first as I was also finishing up The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, but once that was done I dedicated myself to this new post-apocalyptic series. It was hard to write! But more on that another day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about where the idea for this series came from.

The book is available for preorder on Amazon right now and I’d really love it if you gave it a go!

Here is the link!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Earth-Turned-Book-Summer-ebook/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1685093948&sr=8-2: The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

The End of The World Is Here…

I’m hoping that got your attention.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But really I just wanted to let you know that my new YA post-apocalyptic series is nearly here!

The Day The Earth Turned is a four-book series set immediately after a huge apocalyptic event. Not just one pandemic, but several, have decimated the population and only the children remain.

Here is the blurb:

The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed.

Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side of a rural village, traumatised, bereaved and determined to survive.

As tribes form and territorial lines are drawn, can they overcome their differences and find a way to rebuild?

Or will gang warfare end this emerging new world before its even begun?

Each of them have their theories about what killed the adults and as the dust settles on the old world, a far bigger, darker, and angrier threat is bursting to life all around them.

It’s taken a long time to get here! Over four years of jotting ideas down, creating characters, writing each book in the first draft one after the other, then going over them again and again, changing the tense from past to present and constantly feeling like I would never get there! This was definitely the hardest writing project I’ve ever worked on. I loved it from the start but just kept feeling like I couldn’t do the idea justice. I’m happy with how it all turned out though!

“Summer” can now be preordered on Amazon for just 99p for the ebook. Paperback coming soon! I would really love to share these books with you so if you have any interest in apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, disasters and stories about survival and the environment then please give book 1 a go and see what you think. I’ll be blogging more about the book and the characters as we head towards release day!

Here is the link to Amazon!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3S22CL8I39EPH&keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1684488101&sprefix=c%2Caps%2C809&sr=8-1: The End of The World Is Here…

Those Small Moments

Do you ever feel like life consists of small moments that seem to repeat themselves again and again? Often made up of the somewhat repetitive actions we perform day after day. I think about these small moments a lot. Sometimes I feel like I am living out groundhog day, always doing the same small things, reliving the same small moments that make up my life.

Often the day itself becomes a fast moving blur and the moments I feel trapped in, the moments that seem somehow illuminated are those at the start and end of the day. Perhaps they are the routines I practice the most, whereas the day itself can vary due to outside influences such as other people, even weather.

For me, I feel like I am always waking up wrapped in my warm blanket, dying for the loo. Then I am always outside letting the chickens out. Then I am always on the sofa eating my breakfast, drinking my tea, checking my phone. Later on, I am always getting ready for bed, writing, followed by reading or Netflix back in my blanket cocoon, waiting for sleep. Those are the longest, brightest moments that repeat themselves so much.

Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay

But there are others as well, all so familiar to me, all ingrained little habits and routines, such as sitting on the bottom stair, my body angled towards the shoe rack, where I pull on my Converse and tie them up, or the way I always have an ice lolly just before I go to sleep, because I’m thirsty but I know having a big drink will mean I wake up in the night to go to the toilet.

If I’m honest, I like my little routines and derive comfort for them. Every Saturday I have a long bath around 3 or 4 pm for instance, and I look forward to it all week. It’s my chance to close the door, shut myself away, submerge myself in warm comforting water, read a good book and drink a glass of wine. It always plays out the same. I feel disjointed and uneasy if this routine is ever interrupted. It always feels like the worries and strains of the week flow right out of my body and mind as I slip into the water.

But some moments are less fun, less desirable and instead they become monotonous. Driving my husband to work, turning around, driving back, driving my son to school, driving back. I could drive those roads blindfolded and I look forward to breaks in these routines. I could happily live without them forever, in fact.

Sometimes I think that’s what life is. Small moments, repeated, small moments savoured, small moments dreaded, small moments strung together to create a life from start to finish.

And it’s always the small things that mean so much to us. It’s the little things that count. It’s always the little things that make us smile and keep us hanging on. I recently wrote this little list poem about the small moments that come around again and again in my life:

New Day

Wake in warm blanket cocoon

One sock off, one sock on

The floor is cold

Socks don’t match

They both have pink toes

But one is long, one is short

No one will know

A dress with stars and skulls on it

Belt gets caught in the loops

I don’t have time for this shit

Sit on the bottom stair to tie up shoes

Day after day

A cold wind blows at the petrol stattion

It starts to rain

People huddle at bus stop

All the lights are red

As the Universe thwarts me

A man gets out of his car

To shout at the one behind

Nothing happens, we move on

The radio sings

This is a beautiful day

This is a new day

Character Interviews: Amelina Scott (The Curse of Time series by M.J Mallon)

Welcome to a new feature on The Glorious Outsiders where I’ll be interviewing unique characters from other people’s books! You’ll find a character interview at the start of each month and today, I’m chatting to Amelina Scott from the YA series, The Curse of Time. I’ve read and enjoyed Bloodstone and will be starting Golden Healer very soon. So, let’s find out what Amelina has to say!

1. How old are you?

I am sixteen now. My story includes flashbacks to my thirteenth birthday when my dad disappeared. Since then, nothing has been the same.

2. where do you come from?

Believe it or not, I originate from this long line of Krystallos (crystal) magicians. It came as a shock to me when I discovered that.

3. where do you live? Describe it to us

I live in Cambridge in the UK, in a normal suburb. Don’t let that fool you! Our house has a hexagonal hallway, with a magical attic study, overseen by a key that talks and there is a much needed lookout point on the upper floor. If you visit, check out the clocks and the mirrors, too. You will find some mysterious surprises! Our house and the surrounding land is creepy and oppressive. I swear the house is a living entity; it makes a lot of grumbling, whispering noises! As our circumstances changed – with Bloodstone magic – the house reflected this by becoming altogether quieter.

Nearby, a short walk takes you to the river and the train tracks, where there is a pathway representing light and darkness. At the beginning, my mother warned me off going there, but how could I resist when there is a magical crystal cottage hidden there?

4. do you have a family, if so tell us about them

Yes, we’re a peculiar lot! There’s my dad who disappeared. He’s musical like me, a talented guitarist who lost his way. It is a long story… He surrendered his powers and succumbed to a terrible aging curse. It was up to me to cure him, to improve our life. Mum suffered too… and this manifested in her vicious tongue and her scary face. At the time, she wouldn’t have looked out of place as a scary wax exhibit in Madam Tussaud’s. I don’t have a sibling but I have a ‘sister,’ Esme. Some evil person, imprisoned her in the mirrors of our house. In the past, poor Esme used to self harm and suffered terrible mood swings whilst locked in the mirror.

My gossipy Aunt Karissa is such a hoot! We’re really close and I often confide in her. She has this habit of crushing you when she hugs you. I call her hugs corset-cinching. No family portrait would be complete without mentioning Shadow, my vanishing, mysterious black cat who knows a lot more. If only he could speak! Or can he?

5. who is your best friend and why?

Jade is my best friend, but we’ve had our ups and downs. Life became complicated when we both fancied the same boy, Ryder. I discovered some creepy things about him and warned her off. She doesn’t listen to advice about boys. She has her flaws, but I’ve known her since we were little. There is never a dull moment with Jade. That’s why I like her so much.

6. who is your worst enemy and why?

Ryder. Appearances can be deceptive. He’s beautiful, but his heart is anything but. He has this hypnotic personality that draws you in, fools you into believing everything he says. I discovered the real him, his darkness within, his shadow demon, which mars the sunshine, hiding the truth.

7. what are your talents?

I’d sum that up with five words: magical, poetic, artistic, musical, Krystallos. I harness the power of crystals. It was my destiny to meet Leanne and Eruterac, to discover the crystal cottage and harness the power of the crystals. I’m brave, and always a loyal friend.

8. what are your flaws?

I lose stuff. I should listen to Leanne. She advises me on all things crystals. I’m frightened of horses! I can be naive, but I’m learning not to be.

9. what do you think people think of you?

My friends think I’ve been here before. I caught them gossiping about me one day. Most people think I’m peculiar – if you saw me painting during my art exam – you’d think I was strange too. My aunt gives me gifts and sometimes they give me unexpected superpowers!

10. what do you wish people knew about you?

I wish they would be me for one day. It would be fun to see what they would make of all the crazy things that happen to me… meet the ghoulish repugnant spirits, fly aboard the grasshopper of time, and spirit walk out of your body to a crazy rollercoaster ride. If you stick with me through this series, you’ll see what I am talking about.

11. what’s your biggest fear?

Art coming alive! When I first met Eruterac, I nearly died. I painted him – and like a Halloween apparition; he came knocking at my door. Only joking, he’s not as scary as he looks… No, my biggest fear is the rollercoaster of time, and the master who controls the grasshopper. You’ll find out more about them if you read the 1st Bloodstone and the 2nd book in this YA Fantasy series, Golden Healer.

12. what’s your biggest hope?

To save civilisation from darkness… we are in great danger and I want to prevent disaster. I hope that light will prevail.

13. what’s your biggest secret?

I know how dangerous Ryder could become. He’s toying with his abilities like a cat with his prey.

14. I what is the worst thing you have done to another person?

I used to fight with my mum. She was horrible to live with after Dad disappeared. I hated her sometimes.

15. what kind of friend are you?

Loyal, and kind, I’m one of the good gals.

16. Is there anything about your life you would change?

I’d never take my aunt Karissa’s mad dog out for a walk. Never again, just saying, he’s a nutter! And I’d avoid taking my aunt, Shadow, and Toby to the cottage all together. Cats, dogs and crazy aunts and magical flying mats, say no more.

17. where would you like to be in 5 years time?

I’d like to be in Edinburgh sitting on a park bench in the sunshine. The one o’clock gun will sound and there’ll be fireworks in my heart because I’d know that my family and Esme are safe and free.

18. do you have any regrets?

My only regret is keeping this story a secret for so long! I kept it hidden in my camphor wood chest. I’d love The Curse of Time series to become more widely known. Please read this series, find about my family, review and share this story so everyone will know.

19. how would you like to be remembered?

Krystallos Girl, my mission is to save the earth from lies, darkness, and shadows.

20. What are your hobbies/how do you relax?

I play music, drums and guitar, write poetry and paint, harness the power of crystals… Heck, I bring art to life, and yes, my brushes talk! Pretty cool, hey?!

If you’d like to know more about Amelina and her amazing adventures, here are the links to follow author MJ. Mallon

Author Bio

I write YA fantasy, paranormal, horror/supernatural short stories, flash fiction and short form poetry. 

I’ve been blogging for many moons at my blog home Kyrosmagica, which means Crystal Magic. 

My eclectic blog shares my three loves: reading,  writing, and creativity: https://mjmallon.com/

You can access all my links here: https://linktr.ee/mjmallonauthor