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Although the Demontange Saga is fiction, St. Lucia is a real place with a wonderful story of its own. We are psychotherapists with an intimate knowledge of psychological processes and motivations. The columns in this section provide insight into the settings, culture and characters in our works as well as perceptions about the writing process... We want to share this material and our perceptions with other authors but believe that many of our readers will find these columns of interest as well.
Recently we took back all our rights to A Dream Across Time and are now self publishing the Demontagne Saga. It is very gratifying to have the entire publishing process under our control.
If you would like to see what we have been up to and to see some of what we are dealing with as we move to self publish, go to our blog at http://letmedigress.blogspot.com. We want it to be interactive so join in. The columns from the Author to Author section will also appear in the blog.
At the end of the latest column, you'll find clicks for past columns.
Column 14
A Book Walked in the Door
Recently I had the experience of having a book walk in the door. Well, not just the book. The concept of the book complete with characters.
When we started writing A Dream Across Time we just thought we were writing a book. Vaguely we thought there might be a continuing story but not a whole saga. We built a home in St. Lucia and it took over our lives. First came the house, then came a travel business focused on the Caribbean and then a saga.
I used to believe that a person could plot their course in life. Now, after all these years I realize that life will often plot our course for us. That is exactly the case with what has developed from our first novel, A Dream Across Time. After A Dream Across Time was finished we began work on what we thought was the second book in the series. It was more of a struggle than the first book. Our lead character,Yvie, was giving us fits. She is a character who would not behave herself in the book and she wouldn't behave for her creators either.
Then one day I went out to run errands which I find really boring and so my mind drifts. At the time we lived way out in the country and so I spent a lot of time on the road. While I was out, the second book walked in the door or at least into my head. Maybe I should have expected it after reading Stephen King's On Writing. After all we were struck by the validity of his belief that writing novels is like unearthing fossils. If we viewed the saga as a fossil entity and that it is unearthed piece by piece, then it is perfectly logical that we were going to find things which were unexpected.
When I got home I laid out for my wife the plot, the characters and found myself detailing what will be the book, A Circle of Dreams. It was clear that we could not write the book we had started until we had written the second. The characters for the third book were begging to be introduced. No, actually, they were demanding to be introduced in a book which lay between the first and the one we had begun work on. What was even more appalling was that we found we had inserted plot elements and characterizations in the first book which were prerequisite to the second book.
And I thought I could lay a course and was in command of it. I really needed to get real.
Past Columns
Column 1 - St. Lucia
Column 2 - Jamie Elliott
Column 3 - Andre Demontagne
Column 4 - Paul and Danielle
Column 5 - Marcus Deroche
Column 6 - Bertille Deroche
Column 7 - What It's Like Living in the Tropics, Part 1
Column 8 - What It's Like Living in the Tropics, Part 2
Column 9 - Taylor, Clarisse and Barbara
Column 10 - How Does Our Writing Partnership Work?
Column 11 - Goal, Motivation, Conflict and Creativity
Column 12 - Family Life is a Saga
Column 13 - Toward A Circle of Dreams; I don't believe in ghosts.
Column 14 - A Book Walked in the Door
Column 15 - Every Woman Knows This Story
Column 16 - The Bridge
Column 17 - Why the Mystical Element in A Dream Across Time?
Column 18 - Gaia and myth in the Demontagne Saga
Column 19 - Carl Jung, Mythology and the Demontagne Saga
Column 20 - Carl Jung's Concepts in the Demontagne Saga
Column 21 - Martinique
Column 22 – Janine-Yvette Demontange (Yvie)
Column 23 – Anne-Clarisse Demontagne (Lissa)
Column 24 - Philippe Diamant Demontagne (Philippe)
Copyright© 1987-2006 Annie Rogers LLC dba Bivens and Jensen Publishing. All rights reserved |
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