Former high school teacher turns author

Times Reporter

 

The fantasy bug bit Derek Donais early, starting with J.R.R Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ followed by an appreciation and love of Terry Brooks’ work. His uncle had an illustrated edition of the Hobbit, and when Donais was at his uncle’s house he would sit and go through all the pictures, even before he could read it. Donais has always known he wanted to be a writer, but didn’t always have the confidence in himself to do it. 

“I did the MA in history, and it was the thesis route. So I had to write a thesis. So I finished at 125-150 pages and I thought well if I can write something like that for school why can’t I write a book,” said Donais. 

MetalMagic: Talisman is technically his second book, but he said the first one will never see the light of day, it was too long and complicated said Donais. 

He started his young adult, YA, book, MetalMagic: Talisman in 2005. It is a fantasy book about a type of magic metal, which can only be used by those who can utilize metanduil. 

One fear every writer has is accidently writing a story which has already been written. 

“There are no original ideas, it’s just what we do with characters or the certain events or the certain circumstances surrounding it is what kind of makes it yours,” said Donais.  

“The fun thing about fantasy, is you get to make up some of the facts and stuff but the other time, the other side of it is you can’t make it so out of there and so unattainable from other people that they can’t really identify with it.” 

Donais was a teacher at Holy Cross Collegiate for a number of years, and while he doesn’t teach there anymore he does teach online with St. Paul’s Academy. His teaching career has been a big help when it comes to his writing because he feels by constantly communicating with teens it makes him a better YA writer. During the summer he writes full time, but said the rest of the year he is lucky to manage an eight-hour week. 

He worked for the city police in Regina before starting his master’s degree and he uses some of that knowledge when writing. He still has to do a fair amount of research to make sure things are feasible before continuing on.  Making sure the science is right is important because even if the writer doesn’t know certain facts there are people out there who will.