Louisa Middleditch

LOST IN THE ARCTIC

This is my very first novel, which I wrote when I was 12-13 years old. Although I had started to write many stories when I was little, this was the first time I had written something so long and worth publishing. 

I got the idea for the story when I was in France during the winter holidays. In our village in the Alps, I saw that there were sleigh dogs and that tourists could sit in the sled and be pulled around by the beautiful huskies. I was impressed by the dogs' strength and resilience, especially with regards to the cold. One afternoon, as it was snowing heavily outside and my family had chosen to have a quiet day, I decided to start writing a short tale about huskies. I read the first few pages to my mum, who encouraged me to keep writing. I followed her advice and the plot thickened; I did not know how the story was going to end but I kept writing and coming up with new ideas. However, I eventually hit a wall and found myself a bit stuck, not knowing how to continue and hesitating to put it aside. My sister, Emma, insisted I kept going as it would be a shame to let all that work go to waste. After 6 months, I finally managed to finish the book, and my mum thought it would be good to make a real book out of it instead of it just being a Word document on the computer. My English teacher at the time, Mr Webster, gave us some information on how to go about it, and after another 6 months of hard work involving formatting, proofreading, correcting, designing, and editing, we completed the project and my book was published as a paperback in 2013.

Several years later, I changed the cover and also made it available as an e-book. 

About the title: I wanted a simple title that represented what the book was about without giving anything away. I chose "Lost in the Arctic" as it enables the readers to imagine the setting and circumstance in their mind, yet there is suspense as to who is lost, why they are in that situation and whether they will be able to survive.