Writer

Writer of fantasy-historical novels

It is in July-August 2017, Erik Zakhia took the difficult, courageous decision to dedicate most of his time to writing.

He was a skilled engineer, and he successfully worked as a transportation engineer for around two years, but Erik understood that practicing engineering in a firm was not his real passion, and life pursuit.

And in life, sometimes, it is necessary to make hard, courageous choices. Erik understood that he needed time, and freedom, in order to build the fantasy worlds and universes in which his novels would take place. His ambition was to write High Fantasy novels, which is a terminology used to qualify the rare handful of novels where the writer builds an entirely original fantasy worlds, with its own, coherent rules, setting, countries, towns, tongues, etc. High Fantasy novels are supposed to be like a doorway toward other, fictional, imaginary worlds.

What gave the courage to Erik to take this courageous decision to dedicate himself to writing is his encounter with his twin soul, that happened in October 2014, in Lausanne. Annelies Broeders had engaged herself on a similar life path: she studied to become an Architect, while dreaming to become a High Fantasy writer. At the beginning of February 2015, Annelies Broeders and Erik Zakhia started co-writing their first historical-fantasy novel, in parallel with their studies, and internship.

The idea of writing novels together never abandoned them, despite the challenges along that path, as writing a High Fantasy novel recquires a person not only to be a skilled writer, but also to dedicate four, five, six, seven, eight hours per day to writing. Someone working as an engineer or an architect cannot dedicate daily four to eight hours to writing. A writer is supposed to write even on Saturdays and Sundays. There is no weekend, and there can be no pause, while writing a novel. And outside the hours of writing, there must be several hours dedicated to thinking, imagining, pondering, drawing, mapping.

Therefore in order to write a truly successful High Fantasy novel, something that only a few handfuls of writers have successfully managed to do around the world in the last century, a lot of time and mental energy to create and focus is needed.

That is the consideration that pushed Erik to abandon the idea of working as an engineer in a firm, in July 2017. From that moment on, he started working on building and developing the fantasy universes where the novels he and Annelies Broeders planned to co-write would take place.

The aim here is not to disclose the content of the writings project on which Erik and Annelies have been working together since 2017, because, as long as their two first novels are not published and printed, the content and title of their books is confidential. You can however discover a trailer about one of their novels on the following webpage: "A Fantasy-Historical Novel" https://theprinceofylliriel.wordpress.com/

Underneath is a list of the writing projects on which Erik Zakhia and Annelies Broeders have been working together since 2017; the books ready to be published are in bold:

- Hzn* (July 2017 - ongoing): Hzn* is the name of the cosmos in which the high fantasy novels of Annelies and Erik will take place; a lot of time has been dedicated in developing the construction behind Hzn*; around 500 pages of loose texts, descriptions and shorts stories have been written. Hzn* serves as a basis for all their future novels.

- Fln* (May 2018 - December 2023): Fln* is the title of a fantasy-allegorical novel of around 400 pages co-written by Annelies and Erik, in between the months of May and July 2020; its last chapter was however written in December 2023. Other 200 loose pages were written in the universe of Fln*, and might later be used in another novel.

- TGWCL* (May 2023 - ongoing): TGWCL* is the title of the most ambitious fantasy-historical novel Annelies and Erik are co-writing; the first two volumes of TGWCL* are ready to be published, for a total length of around 1500 pages. There will be many other volumes to come.

Annelies Broeders and Erik Zakhia have also been working on other, poetry books, and non-fictional books. In particular they plan to publish a book called "My Twin Soul Journey To Reunion" telling the story of their extraordinary encounter, of the long and unusual path to find one another and to heal of their wounds using writing and art as a therapy, and of how their dreams to become historical-fantasy novelists perfectly intersected. More and more people meet their twin soul around the world, and Annelies and Erik wish to relate their experience, as it could interest and help other persons who are confronted with the beauty, intensity and pain triggered by meeting one's twin soul. Around 1000 pages of loose texts, poems, short stories are written already.

Therefore, in conclusion, Erik and Annelies have co-written around 4000 pages in the last seven years, of which nearly 2000 are ready to be published. Their aim and their dream is to make of TGWCL* a bestseller translated in many languages, and to write many other volumes that follow the first two, within that same high fantasy world, with the same characters, as these characters grow up. 

From July 2017 to March 2019, Erik worked on his writing projects in Lausanne. From April 2019 to August 2020, he was based in Beirut. And since August 2020, Erik is based in Amchit, located in Byblos' countryside (Mount Lebanon Governorate). 

The two pictures below were taken during a holiday in Sardinia, Italy in August 2018, where the ancient, historical landscapes proved inspiring during the worldbuilding phase.