The Story Behind My Next Novel

Aled Thomas - Author - Sat on a wall with a forest behind, talking about his next novel.

My fifth novel, The Half-Baked Treehouse, is due to be published on 1 October 2026.

It's a contemporary coming-of-age story about friendship, first love, family, identity and the messy process of growing up, set against the South Wales landscape.

But the story actually started more than fifteen years ago, with a treehouse.

When I was younger, I built a treehouse with some of my friends. It wasn't particularly impressive, and it certainly wasn't finished. We were kids. We had some bits of wood, some nails and considerably more enthusiasm than structural knowledge.

But it became one of those places that stays with you.

We'd sit up there talking about everything and nothing, imagining what our lives might look like when we grew up. At the time, we obviously had no idea that those moments would eventually become memories, that we'd all change, or that I'd one day write a novel inspired by that unfinished treehouse.

The treehouse itself was never really the point.

It was what it represented.

As I've got older, I've realised how many things in our lives are left unfinished. Friendships change. Relationships end. People move away. We grow out of versions of ourselves that we once thought would last forever.

And sometimes we don't even realise we've changed until we look back.

That became the starting point for The Half-Baked Treehouse.

The novel follows Evan and Lili as they navigate friendship, first love, family and the transition from adolescence into adulthood. They're both trying to work out who they are while simultaneously trying to work out how to love, trust and understand somebody else.

At its heart, I think the book is about growing up before you realise you're doing it.

We often imagine adulthood arriving as one big moment. In reality, it tends to sneak in while we're distracted.

That's something I've become increasingly interested in through my writing.

I'm from the South Welsh Valleys, growing up in Quakers Yard - running the streets of Pontypridd, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff - and I've always been fascinated by the relationship we have with the places we grow up in. You can leave somewhere physically and still carry pieces of it around with you for years afterwards.

I think that's particularly true of childhood.

There are places, people and moments that don't seem particularly important when you're living through them, but somehow become incredibly important later.

The Half-Baked Treehouse is my fifth independently published novel.

My previous books include The Crossroads at Dawn Trilogy and A Setting of Skyes. Writing has gone from something I did privately to something that has become a huge part of my life, although I certainly didn't have a master plan when I started.

In fact, when I first began writing seriously, I was seventeen and struggling with depression while training in the Royal Navy.

Writing became somewhere I could put the things I couldn't say.

I didn't start with the intention of becoming a published author. I didn't have an agent, a publishing deal or some grand five-year plan. I just had a notebook my mum had sent me and a story I wanted to write.

That eventually became my first manuscript.

Then another.

Then another.

And somehow, a decade later, I'm preparing to release my fifth novel.

That's probably the biggest thing writing has taught me.

You don't have to know exactly where something is going before you start it.

You just have to start.

That's also become a big part of what I want to explore outside of my books.

Alongside writing, I work in education, and I've become increasingly interested in creativity and encouraging people, particularly young people, to find their own creative voice.

I think we put far too much pressure on ourselves to be good at something before we're willing to try it.

We're frightened of being rubbish.

We're frightened of being judged.

We're frightened that somebody might see what we've created and tell us it isn't very good.

So we wait.

We wait until we're more confident, more experienced, more qualified, more successful or simply more ready.

I've done it myself.

But the truth is, you're supposed to be a beginner when you start something.

You're supposed to get things wrong.

You're supposed to make things that aren't very good.

That's how you learn.

And sometimes the biggest risk isn't failing.

It's never finding out what you could have done if you'd actually tried.

That's something I've been exploring more and more over the last year through my writing and social media, where I've started sharing more of my thoughts around creativity, ambition and finding your voice.

It's been quite strange watching people respond to those ideas.

When I appeared on the Just One Man Podcast last year, I had around 250 followers on TikTok. I'm now over 1,000, largely from simply talking about the things that are going on inside my own head and exploring creativity.

The number itself isn't particularly important to me.

What matters is that I've discovered people connect with honesty.

They connect with somebody saying, "I don't have this figured out either."

And perhaps that's what ties everything together.

The books.

The writing.

The creativity.

The treehouse.

They're all really about the same thing.

Trying something.

Building something.

Not knowing whether it will work.

Leaving some things unfinished.

Starting again.

And continuing to become somebody you didn't necessarily know you could be.

The Half-Baked Treehouse will be published on 1 October 2026.