Saturday, January 26, 2008

Journey of Spirit

Michelle said...
I have a question about your book of poems but did not know where to post it until I found the archives. You might want to have another general post on the mainpage. Where do the poems in "A Blaze of Light" appear in your books? Have the poems in Shadow Dancing been published elsewhere? Why were they included if that book is not published?

Many thanks for the good suggestion, Michelle. I will follow this up with a new welcome post.

The poems in my book, A Blaze of Light, are all from my trilogy of novels. It is true, the third novel, Shadow Dancing, is a work in progress and not yet published. At the time that I considered publishing a book of poems, I was far enough along in the writing of Shadow Dancing to have several wonderful poems ready. I thought that the series of poems was enough to adequetly portray the journey of spirit of the main character of the trilogy. When Shadow Dancing is finally published, it may have more poems than those included in A Blaze of Light, but the poems already included will not be changed or left out. My hope was that the book of poems might pique interest in the third novel, and I will have anticipation for its release. Thanks for asking. Molly Brogan

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How long does it take for you to complete a novel?

Molly Brogan said...

When I started writing Remember Me, I was working full time and had two teenagers at home. That book took five years to write. I can look back now, and smile at all of the stolen moments I spent with my journal and lap top on that book. I finished Chasing Twilight in two years, but as I was finishing it I was also studying the Rudolph Steiner teachings, specifically, reading his lecture on "The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers." It occurred to me then, that the opposing spiritual powers were much like the anti-heroes in novels, providing the opposition necessary to move the plot along and allow the characters to change. I decided to create a trilogy and began sketching out the third book while re-writing Chasing Twilight to accommodate the Steiner teachings and the broader palette of a three novel series. Because of this, Chasing Twilight also took five years to write. Five seems to be a magic number. Thanks for asking. Molly

Anonymous said...

Can you tell me about "the Opposing Spiritual Powers," and how they are like anti-heros?

Anonymous said...

Do you ever just sit down and write, without thinking about it first?

Molly Brogan said...

With some of my poems, I begin by accessing that place inside that wants to be expressed, and just begin to let the words flow. These poems rarely are kept unedited though, and usually end up quite differently than they began. I have developed a personal rhythm and symbology for my poetry that I like to use consistently.

In younger years, I journaled quite a bit without forethought or edition. But as I looked back on those journals, there was very little usable material.

However, I've had times in my life that writing was an anxiety relief. I had what I called "morning pages" (although they were sometimes written at night.) On these pages I would just pour out my worries. I never kept them, but they did serve the purpose of emptying the vessel so that I could get on to happier times.

Thanks for asking. Molly