Today, my blog features a special guest–fellow Momentum author Justin Woolley, who’s also my book-release buddy, as his debut novel, a dystopian YA novel titled A Town Called Dust, comes out tomorrow, along with my own Trinity: Koldun Code.

In this fascinating post, Justin writes about the influences behind his creation of the distinctive world of A Town Called Dust, but first, to set the scene, let’s get a taster of the book from the blurb:

Stranded in the desert, the last of mankind is kept safe by a large border fence… Until the fence falls.
Squid is a young orphan living under the oppressive rule of his uncle in the outskirts of the Territory. Lynn is a headstrong girl with an influential father who has spent her entire life within the walled city of Alice.
When the border fence is breached, the Territory is invaded by the largest horde of undead ghouls seen in two hundred years. Squid is soon conscripted into the Diggers – the armed forces of the Territory. And after Lynn finds herself at odds with the Territory’s powerful church, she too escapes to join the Diggers.
Together Squid and Lynn form an unlikely friendship as they march to battle against the ghouls. Their journey will take them further than they ever imagined, leading them closer to discovering secrets about themselves, their world, and a conspiracy that may spell the end of the Territory as they know it.

Wow–that’s some set-up! Over to you, Justin. We’re all ears!

Inspiration for a book is a funny old thing. It never hits you as one fully formed idea; at least it never hits me that way. For me it’s more like that scene in Jurassic Park where Robert Muldoon, the park game warden, is facing off against the velociraptors. The ideas all sneak up on you and ambush you from different directions sometimes leaving you quite surprised. “Clever girl…” That’s how it was with the inspiration for my debut novel A Town Called Dust, a dystopian young adult novel set in a post-apocalyptic version of the Australian outback, inspiration came at me from many directions. Continue reading →