iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Thank you, Julia and Emma! Sorry to have dropped out half way through but I've caught up. #ukteenchat

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

That must have been a lot of work!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Thank you for having me! It's been great! Thanks for the questions, and thank you for everyone who joined the chat! Make sure those cat stories get written!

media.tenor.com

a cartoon of alice from alice in wonderland says " thanks for the invite "

ALT: a cartoon of alice from alice in wonderland says " thanks for the invite "

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I think it might. I had a very unusual upbringing (long story) so my books were all bought for me by my mum from a list of excellent books for teens! Yes, raise a formal complaint! 😉

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

...get hung up on your first story - write more, and more, and more!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

There's a space for adapting your writing to audience - if you want readers, it's got to be accessible! But don't go so far as to sacrifice your true voice. Writing from the heart is better than writing from the head, trying to be smart and witty. And don't...

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I think both of you are younger than me, but I was led to a fair amount of authors whose books were marketed at younger teens - Alan Garner, Rosemary Sutcliff for instance. They were fantastic.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

A short story about a cleaner who gets locked in a museum overnight and hears mysterious singing coming from one of hte rooms...I really ought to be editing one of my many half-finished projects, but the sparkle of the new calls!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Wow, I think I should have been given a warning about how scary this chat can get! 😅

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I like writing in cafes, but mostly because it's a good excuse to drink tea and eat cake. Currently I'm doing my best writing (as in, it flows out of the pen well) in my dressing gown on the sofa first thing in the morning, pen and notebook, tea and cat.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

That's such a fab idea that I think there's room for more than one in the world!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I suspect the real secret to getting kids to read is to pretend to ban all books!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Both! Some stories were plotted, others I just sped through. Some were pantsed then needed a lot of plotting to wrestle into shape - or sense.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

It was! But oh my, it took a lot of work!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Whimsical adults who haven't quite grown up. There aren't elements that are unsuitable for children overall but the problems the characters face are adult problems.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

You may be right! Maybe he's just a pussycat really!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I'm going to have bad dreams tonight!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

...the first (an archaic style) and the last (where I finally settled on something more likely to appeal to a modern audience while at the same time feeling like "me".

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Oh, that's a tricky one! OK, I'll say the fairy tale type of the beast bridegroom. Because it was a very early attempt at a fairy tale, and I had to rewrite my version six times before it was accepted by the editors of the anthology it went into. My style changed dramatically between...

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Absolutely! And the costumes are so much better, too 😁

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

But that stare! Yikes! Or am I just a big woos?

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Yes! But some need wrestling to the ground!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Even if my magic were all-powerful, I'd be wary of that cat, though!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Not all of them, but some. That was a bit of an accident! And yet, aren't weaving and sewing a type of alchemy?

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Historical won't really let me go! A lot of my stories are set in the past. And the first novel I after I left HF behind was HF with fantasy!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I did do a lot of reading into the history of fairy tales before writing any of them. But that was simply out of interest. The idea of writing my own came later. I used to write historical fiction and it's so nice to now write a genre where I can just make it up!

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Sort of! One in an out of print anthology, and two in online magazines. Maybe they'll go into a second collection...

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

...then they went out of print one by one. And magazines don't want reprints. So I decided to self publish a collection of them.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

That gif made me laugh! The stories are inspired by a range of things, from loving a fairy tale type and wanting to make my own version, to frustration with tropes of the old tales. As for collecting them...quite a few got taken and published by magazines or anthologies, which was great, but...

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Yes! It's a collection of stories inspired by fairy tales, folk songs and legends. A few are reimaginings of a traditional story, changing out the setting and characters for my own variants. Some are "what happens after". Some are created from elements of old tales.

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Lynden Wade @lwadewrites1066.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Hello! Thank you for having me, Emma!

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