MY Journey

When I began this series, Dr Elena Delange was an anthropologist who kept her distance—studying myths from afar, as if history and legend would stay safely behind glass. Elena evolved, but so did I. The act of writing these books and designing their graphic world reshaped my own sense of voice, adventure, and risk.

Brainspace: Beyond Paper, Into Realms and Celestial Holography

My creative journey isn’t just a neat becoming on paper. Most days, I write with stamina pouring out of me; I write for ten to twelve hours, enough time for a Mont Blanc refill. Some days, I’m swept up in mourning, stress, or memories so vivid they threaten to overflow every line. And sometimes, everything flows through my seventh chakra—wild, luminous, impossible to tame.

That’s why she’s never just one thing: one chapter she’s all brawn and bravado, the next she’s tangled in philosophy or desire, and sometimes she’s a storm of both. There’s always a cup of coffee cooling beside my notebook, fueling the marathon. (or a shot of Vodka)

Every book, every graphic is born in this messy, unpredictable space—part energy, part grief, part memory, part raw spirit. I let all of it in. That’s where the transformation happens for me, and for Elena.

From Drafts to Design

Most of what you see here began the old-fashioned way: scribbled by hand in a notebook with my trusty Mont Blanc, ink smudges and all. From there, my words migrate into the digital wilderness—first through Grammarly, where I wage battle with commas and passive voice, then into Google Docs for shaping and structuring, and finally onward to WordPress, where they find their public home.

The graphic images, too, have changed as I’ve learned and experimented—each one an attempt to capture the fever, the danger, and the strange beauty I encountered along the way.

A Woman’s Becoming—And the Trouble With Age

Some readers might notice: Elena shifts radically in appearance. She starts as a fifty-year-old woman, but in Book IV, she appears to be thirty. This is not a continuity error: it’s a reflection of the ages at which those adventures, and the inner awakenings, happened in my own life. Elena is never one static figure; she’s a mirror for every stage of courage, desire, and transformation I’ve lived through.

And let’s be clear: I refuse the tired AI stereotype that fifty means “wrinkled and worn out.” Elena at fifty is fierce, sexual, and unapologetically vivid, just as every real woman I know defies the silent judgments of the algorithms.

On Asking for Support

Here’s my iron-hot dilemma: Do I dare schlep my creative wares to the digital marketplace and ask you—dear reader, sharp of mind and taste—to pay for chapters, art, or a backstage pass to the hurricane of ideas? Creativity flows endlessly (sometimes obnoxiously so).

Yet isn’t it strange: how giving, pouring out stories and art, comes so easily, almost compulsively, while asking for support or recognition feels like a high-wire act without a net? The real adventure isn’t just in the making, but in the fraught, vulnerable negotiation of worth. Elena’s wildest escapades pale beside the tightrope walk of valuing one’s own work.

Will I cross that line? Maybe. For now, know this: these worlds demand more than time and imagination—they run on risk, relentless self-revision, and a gladiator’s stamina for wrestling distractions (and the odd existential crisis). If you’re here, your attention is already a precious coin in the tip jar of my neuroses.

Stay tuned: the Naples, London, Novi Sad, and interlude London rewrite are coming. Whether you arrive from Book I, jump into the middle, or linger only on the graphics, you’re part of this journey.

I.Ph.

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