It’s only been three and a half years since 16-year-old Alex sat down in front of her computer and churned out her first book The Shadow Thief in her Strangest Adventures trilogy in her summer holidays. During those few short weeks, she took a few bathroom breaks, ate enough to keep up her strength "and just let it pour out until the manuscript was complete". Her mother was so worried, she begged her to seek social interaction.

"It was very intense when I was doing The Shadow Thief because I didn’t know how it was going to work out. I was very impatient and just wanted to finish the first draft. When I began I didn’t know how to balance things. For me it was all or nothing so I just threw myself into my writing. Now that I have deadlines it doesn’t seem quite as stressful because someone puts it all into a timeframe for me. I’m able to maintain a social life and definitely take Saturday nights off."

It all paid dividends for Alex, when The Shadow Thief was published in July 2007 and in one short year she went from attending the Melbourne Writer’s Festival schools program, to being a panel member in a discussion forum. "I wasn’t nervous about addressing my friends at the festival but I was aware how teenagers are not easily entertained and I was worried about how I was going to engage them."

While it didn’t seem like it at the time, Alex’s rise from student to mentor was remarkably quick. After completing and revising her manuscript, Alex researched Australian publishers to find the publisher best suited to her. She waited a mere four months for Harper Collins to get back to her and from there onwards the process went smoothly. "The first book wasn’t changed much at all. I was thirteen when I wrote it and my publishers were keen to keep the voice innocent and fresh. They didn’t tamper with it very much."

A novel is a huge project for a person of any age to take on, but Alex had plenty of drive to get her through her first novel. "I have 101 crazy, wild out there ideas and I put them all into my story. My voice changed as I got older and my head began to fill with more logic driven subjects like biology, so I really need to create room for the imaginative stuff." This made the second book more challenging to write, with schoolwork and editing now competing for her time.

"In order to keep motivated I go to a bookshelf and see my book there and think if I want to see this one in print then I am going to have to work. I have a great relationship with my publisher and I don’t want to let them down." It was different again with the third book, as Alex didn’t want to leave her readers hanging on the final installment.

"When I started first book, I only thought it would be a standalone book - I had tied it up at the end. When I went into first meeting with Harper Collins, they suggested that we should turn the story into a series. It was open ended; it could be three books or five. I preferred to keep it as three." The second book, The Lampo Circus, was published recently and the third book, Von Gobstopper’s Arcade will be published in March next year, all before Alex turns seventeen.

While Alex hasn’t settled on what she’d like to be doing after high school, she does know that writing will always be a part of her life. "I don’t want to be stuck in a job I hate. So many adults hate going into work and I don’t want to be like that. I want to make sure it’s something that I love and writing is certainly one of them."

"The most important thing I have leant from writing is to accept criticism. It’s difficult to be objective about your own writing and it’s always important to remember that editors are trying to bring out the best in your writing," Alex said.

Alex’s advice to new writers is to read. "The more I read the easier it is to write. When I was writing The Shadow Thief I read fantasy books to see what other people were writing. I love that I can get completely lost in a magical world and I try to do the same."

Image courtesy of Harper Collins