It takes me hours to get to sleep every night. My brain never stops working. It is constantly churning out new ideas, processing old thoughts, overanalysing everything… it’s frustrating. When I finally do get to sleep, my brain continues on, feeding my dreams with vivid images and stories. New movie-esque dreams play out in my head every night, and I wake up in the morning having brand new story ideas. I wanted a way of recording my thoughts and dreams and wondered what they would look like in the real world. This thought process led me to start writing Refraction, which answers that very question.
Refraction
I’m a champion for equal rights. I grew up in Yorkshire in the ‘80s. Racism, sexism and homophobia were commonplace talking points, yet I never felt comfortable around these conversations. I would get annoyed when people would casually use racial slurs, and ask them to stop. When I hit puberty and realised I was gay, I was suddenly one of those minorities people would slander. As an adult, we can easily learn more about the world and the people in it, with a simple Google search. Realising all human beings originated in Africa and all of our ancestors were born with black skin, makes racism even more non-sensical. Learning that 12 countries still put to death anyone who is gay, proves being gay isn’t a choice, as no one would choose that life when living in those countries. Knowing that whether you’re female or male, we are both the same species with the same thoughts, hopes and dreams, makes you realise no one person should be elevated over the other. All of these things I have learned outside of my school days. I wish more people would do the same.
My favourite film is The Neverending Story. I was five when it was released and it’s the first movie I remember seeing at the cinema. Obviously, nostalgia plays a big part in why it’s my favourite, but I still think it stands up today due to the amazing puppets and animatronics used. You really feel like you’ve been transported to Fantasia and that these creatures and characters could actually exist there. The score by Klaus Doldinger is superbly atmospheric, adding to the incredible story and the message behind it, which has deep-rooted itself into my psyche. I think about The Neverending Story almost every day and so when it came to writing a book about dreams being created in our world, of course I had to include one of my favourite characters from the film.
I can’t listen to music with lyrics when I write. I find the words either distract me or urge me to sing along with them, sometimes taking over my brain to the point where I’m writing down what I’m singing. I started building a playlist comprising of only orchestrated and instrumental music. A lot of these are taken from films, TV show and games (I’m currently listening to Dr Ford from the West World soundtrack.) Over the past few years, this has built up to a 23-hour playlist, which sounds like a lot, but when you’re working 12 hours a day, you tend to repeat the list every few days. I’m always on the lookout for more tracks which can help with the writing process. Some of them inspire, some guide emotional scenes and others motivate the action portions of my stories. Music is an important part of my life and a driving force for my writing – as long as no one is singing!
The four main characters of my book are all parts of me. In the first chapter you meet Abby, Terrell, Jake and Ryder; they are all very different people living in different parts of the world. The first third of the book brings them all together to Silicate where their adventure really begins. It would have been a lot easier for me to write Refraction from a first-person perspective, but I felt it needed these uniquely different characters to tell the story in their own way. Abby mirrors the trouble I have sleeping, Terrell is the projection of how I felt at school; a creative geek and a bit of an outcast, Jake is a gay guy growing up in Yorkshire as I did and Ryder’s disability is something he has to live with, yet doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him. In these four characters is also a lot of diversity. Abby is a 14-year-old girl, Terrell is black, Jake is gay and Ryder is disabled, yet all of them first and foremost are people. Their diversity is never the focus nor a hindrance, it is just a part of who they are.
I love travelling. I always think I’ve seen a lot of the world and then look on Google Earth and realise there is still so much left to see. Until I met my husband, I’d never been to Asia, now we return every year to see his family in Singapore and sometimes hop on a plane to visit Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. We have been talking about going to Australia and New Zealand in the next few years, as the flights are considerably shorter from Asia. I’m a huge Ancient Egypt geek and would love to visit the pyramids, Valley of the Kings and Deir el Bahri, but they have strict anti-LGBTI laws in place, which means I can’t travel there. There are still quite a few countries I can’t go to which is demoralising to say the least. I had hoped by this point in my life, they would have educated themselves past petty prejudice and homophobia.
My beautiful cat died earlier this year. She was my friend, always there through the best and worst times and when she died, it hit me hard. She was a rescue cat. The RSPCA found her locked in a shed along with her mother and siblings, only she and her sister were alive when they found them. My friend took her sister and I took Megara. I named her that after my favourite Disney heroine, as she too was abandoned and wary of other people. It took me a long time to earn her trust, but once I had, we were bonded for life. She died as I was writing Refraction and so I wrote her into the book. Not just a passing character, she’s an integral part of the story and now I’ve immortalised her forever.
Terry Geo, author of Refraction (real-world science fiction, 2019)
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https://refractedworld.com/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Refraction-Terry-Geo-ebook/dp/B07XDC1PPS