Book 4 of 6: Just Beyond the Horizon: The de Laisser, Ravenscar, Santiago Series
I’m not sure I should write this about a character I wrote, but Elijah “Lije” Ravenscar is very appealing. He was from the moment he showed up in his brother’s story, Somebody’s Calling My Name. As written in the product details, he is still breathlessly appealing…and I really wanted his story to reflect that.
It doesn’t. I actually found myself writing about labyrinths and the circular path one takes to find wholeness. To become balanced and complete.
Then it hit me that my novels, while still containing lovely moments of romance and suspense, focused, as well, on spirituality. My characters’ paths were not simply about forging a strong and enduring love with a partner. They were about finding one’s own strength and peace in the face of challenges.
I wanted Lije’s story with Sachie to be less “heavy” and more light-hearted, but that’s not how it wrote itself.
I’m still of two minds about scrapping the whole thing, unpublishing the book, and starting all over.
But every time I try to do that, something stops me. The process for writing this book was akin to being in a labyrinth. Perhaps I need to embrace the book as is, with the understanding that the path it took to write it was the one I needed to walk.
The villains are boilerplate and to be honest, bring very little to the table in terms of plot development.
So it’s quite possible to say that the bright side of dark, as per the title, was not about overpowering the villains, but staying the path in spite of them. An internal battle, not an external war.
Of all of my books (thus far), this one required the most work. I had to actually sketch out a labyrinth and try to understand the language I used, the imagery. It was more than challenging. There were days when it was daunting, and I wanted to give up.
Maybe that’s the takeaway from this. I fought for this book. I found the path.
I finished it.
And that’s a good thing.
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