The magic of words: Meet Deb Baker

Every week, I will be profiling an extraordinary human being who lives in our community. If you know someone who is doing something interesting with their life, I want to hear about it. Send me an email at laura.maclean@doppleronline.ca.

Muskoka is the perfect place for magic to exist.

And so when Deb Baker sat down one cold, miserable January day 10 years ago to write her first book, it wasn’t a coincidence that the setting was loosely based on the town she lived in.

“There’s a lot of energy healers and workers in this area because of the lakes and the trees,” says Deb, a former chiropractor who has a Master’s degree in nutrition and biochemistry and has also studied natural medicine and homeopathy for 40 years. “My son forages in the forests for herbs for his own tinctures. It’s all here. Magic is just another energy. It’s not that mystical in my opinion. Really, it’s all about focus and intent. It’s just another energy and we all have that access. Here, with the landscape and the fact that we’re not polluted with factories, Muskoka is a natural haven for magic to exist.”

She’s always been one of those people who loves to get lost in a book, and says she lived at the library as soon as she was old enough to walk there. She would read anything she could get her hands on, but mysteries and magic books truly fascinated her. Fantasy novels also had major appeal. She just loved being able to lose herself in a different time. She was moved by tales about witches, dragons and characters who possessed magical powers.

Deb’s son Jamie was also featured as an extraordinary person on Huntsville Doppler back in September last year. She shares a special relationship with both of her kids.

Not only is Deb a self-proclaimed book worm, but she also loves to write. It’s become more than a hobby to her, and over the years she honed her craft as a budding writer. She’s spent countless hours researching and studying methods on what exactly makes a book good. She took part in a special online course hosted by James Patterson, one of her favourite authors, who gave her advice on how to write a real page-turner. (She’s currently toying with the idea to enter a competition the famous author is holding for the chance to co-author a book with him.) To be able to put something out there that’s wonderfully exciting and people can’t put down means a lot to Deb as a writer.

I had an idea for a book perking in my mind for a while. I had a file folder full of notes. It was quiet at the house and it was a cold and miserable January day. I thought what if I just start? What if I just put the lead character in a situation where she’s in trouble and explain how she bails out of that and learns of her destiny for this quest.

And so the writing began. The story focuses on Persephane Pendrake (Persy, as she prefers to be referred to), a young woman from the ^17th century who was brought into the modern world for protection. She grew up in Rock Manor, a place that shares uncanny similarities to Huntsville. (Think forests and lakes and a town tucked away in the Cambrian Shield.) Persy has a great destiny to compete for the acquisition of nine magical objects. Her partner is Thaddeus, a young wizard and there’s also an evil sorcerer vying for the nine objects. The winner controls magic over the planet, via white or black depending on who wins.

Deb typed page after page. She wrote three chapters and burnt a pie that fateful day she started her journey as an author of fantasy novels. She even drew inspiration from her own background, as Persy trains under a powerful mentor in homeopathic and energy medicine and “she uses those remedies when people get into trouble.” Persephane Pendrake Chronicles – One – Cimaruta, the first book in the series was completed in just 10 short months. It was a labour of love.

When I go to write, I start every session by asking, ‘Okay, Persy, what do you want me to do? What do you want them to know?’ And it comes through. Situations and problems and the results just come to me. I’ll write for four or five hours and knock off 5,000 words. A friend of mine is convinced Persy does exits in another dimension and she is channelling through me. And it seems like that sometimes. It just comes. It’s told to me and I write it down.

The books have all been authoured by Lady Ellen, a name derived from Deb’s middle name thought up by her kids, Taylor and Jamie.

“I aim these books at kids between the ages of nine and 15, but that doesn’t hold. People who read these books are anywhere from seven or eight to 98. Trying to say your books are for any particular age group is ridiculous.”

Deb even built a website and ran a few ads for the books before they were even published to get “some traction on them beforehand.” She put a few chapters up and within no time she was contacted by a teacher from Arkansas who asked her if he bought a copy of the book, if she would grant him permission to photocopy the chapters as a reading assignment for his students. Deb agreed. The kids would read a chapter or two and then email her questions on the characters. Communicating with the students through emails and getting their reactions was a lot of fun for Deb.

There’s so much information you can pass along to kids in the form of a really good, fast-paced story. Kids just love that.

In 2014, seven years after the first book, she published The Cauldron of Ceridwen. Both books have received great reviews. And just last week, she completed the third of the trilogy. It’s currently being edited but she hopes it will be finished by the end of the month. Having retired recently means Deb has a bit more time on her hands to write. She says it is her hope to get two books done a year. There will be a total of nine books in the series, with the possibility of 10, but Deb’s not quite sure of that just yet.

She has a decade-old piece of paper that she’s written all the spells and codes on to refer to when she’s writing.

Now that she has retired from her practice, any time Deb has is spent writing. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea and has to write it down, or she will be driving in her car and have to make a voice recording so she doesn’t forget. She’s got a big, brown, decade-old piece paper that contains important information, like spells and codes, that are pertinent to the series. She has neatly piled notebooks in her home office and any ideas that come to mind are immediately written down. It’s not hard to tell: Deb is passionate about what she is doing right now, and it’s all part of her divine plan. She’s highly creative and inspired by colour, which lent a hand when it came to her designing all the fantasy work on her website and the covers of her books.

“Life is really positive when you can find something that really turns your crank,” she says.

(Anyone who is interested in being captivated by this amazing series can visit www.persephanependrake.com. Book One – Cimaruta, is available for free by visiting https://instafreebie.com/author/LadyEllen).

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