Mothers come in all shapes and sizes. The important women in our lives are often role models. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and other strong female family members. For some of us they are matriarchal (bossy) strong women who teach us how to cook, clean, sew, and look after each other. Others are hippy dippy, off with the fairies and will feed their children pizza and chocolate frogs for breakfast. Emotionally tuned in, or emotionally remote, some appear to be selfish, others selfless.

Big families, close families, argumentative, loving – there are many types of relationships we notice as we grow up through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Unless we are shielded, on purpose, or accidentally and we don’t. What if we don’t have the role models or the people around us to help make the right decisions?

There are reasons why I didn’t experience positive family experiences when I was younger. No blame, no malicious intent, it was just what it was. I didn’t realise what I’d missed until I was older.

In my determination to not repeat the mistakes of the past, I inadvertently presented with similar, slightly different shortfalls of the only parental relationship I knew. I wasn’t a strong enough woman, up against stronger, louder personalities. Now that I’m older, I see the errors I made when I was a young, stressed mother. Too late now to fix those mistakes. This blog isn’t about the story of my failed childhood or parenthood, though that does explain part of why I write.

The one thing I know is that my experiences have shaped my writing. I want to explore what motivates people. I want to learn what annoys them and what makes them smile. The different types of mothers, aunts and grandmothers I create for my stories, are partly from people I know, characters in books, movies, television and my imagination.

In the first few series I wrote, the main characters didn’t have mothers or families who were present in the story. They were background noise, who shaped a little of the main characters life. The same is true of my two stand alone stories. Probably because it’s easier to write what I know, when it comes to those types of family relations.

Then the Blackwood women arrived. Quietly, in my mind and on the page in front of me. Daisy, her cousin Alice, her mother Trudy, aunts Billie and Bianca and Grandma Minerva. A family where the women shared everything, including magic. A household where the women have each other’s backs.

The other side quest in the Blackwood women series is the old high school sweetheart. As you may have guessed, relationships of any kind aren’t something I’m good at. My other stories tease at boy-girl friendships, and in Spirit Town and Misty Vale there is budding romance.

The Blackwood Woman – when Daisy arrives for Christmas in Tilberry, the last thing she expected was to be sitting across the table from the guy who dumped her in their last year at school. Nearly ten years later, Casper was just as handsome, but that wasn’t the point.

But I digress. I’m nearly finished the second the series, and my plan is to develop the main characters and their interactions throughout the series.

Mother, mum, mummy, mom, grandma, grandmother, mama, aunt, auntie, sister, cousin. We are all part of a bigger picture, a story we can’t always see straight away. The past may shape us, but it doesn’t define us. Books are the perfect window into the world of relationships, families, magic, and possibilities.