Toni Cox Interview Published on: 07, Oct 2020

I grew up riding horses and reading. I hardly ever did anything else, much to the dismay of my school teachers, for homework was usually the furthest from my mind. I read horse stories and fantasy tales, and my role models were the top equestrian riders at the time.

When I was young, I created this fantasy world in my head. Over the years it grew into an entire universe with multiple stories, but I never got the chance to share it with anyone - it was just one of my 'bucket-list' items.

My half-sister gifted me 'The Black Stallion' by Walter Farley when I was a kid, and that hooked me...I haven't stopped reading since.

Where I live in the city, we have bars on all the windows and doors - it's not pleasant. However, where my mother lives in the African bush, she has wild animals roam freely around her house...right up to her front door.

This was not a chosen path, but now having this background in sales is a great help with marketing my books.

The Wolf of Ashford Manor is set in 1863, so a lot of research went into writing this book to make it historically accurate. It is set in the town of Ashford, England, and I kept to the town's history and layout as closely as possible.

The Elemental Trilogy is the first part of the big universe I created when I was younger. Most of the story (all three books) had a skeleton of a structure, it just needed detail when I finally set down to write it.

Resilient plays out right here, where I live. I'd like to think that should something like this happen, that's what I would do in that kind of situation. Erika has a lot of my strengths, as well as fears, which is probably why her character is so believable.

I think to start, you'll need a unique idea, and then you need to have characters the readers believe in, and a conflict the readers can get involved in.

It feels great, of course, but it was a long road getting here, and being here makes it by no means any easier being an author. It does look great on book covers, though.

Chestnut mares rule!(horse rider insider joke) Working with horses is great. It builds confidence, compassion, physical strength, inner strength, team spirit, and connecting with such a beautiful and powerful animal is a feeling you cannot compare to anything else. I'd recommend it to everyone who has never come in contact with these beautiful creatures.

Project Management is all about time management and compartmentalizing your projects. This is especially great when working on more than one book at a time. As I also do my own marketing, I am often pressed for time, so I run my author career like a business, based on what I learned during my studies.

There have only ever been two hobbies in my life that I have pursued with a passion - horse riding and reading. Due to my illness, I can no longer ride, so I have devoted myself to the other half...books. My whole life is books, now. It is what I am and what I do, from the moment I wake up, to when I go to bed.

I am working on several projects, at the moment. Christmas is coming, so hopefully, there will be a romantic fantasy novel for December. I am also busy with the last two Elemental Novellas to complete the set of six. And I am about to start a new 6-book epic fantasy series.

I love the super-easy instant mock-ups, as well as the GIF maker and tweet scheduler. Everything is easy to use, and the tweets are automated, which is great.