Enjoy!

Donna Gillespie is the author of the greatest work of gladiatrix- themed fiction yet written, and is the natural successor to Mary Renault as the finest writer of the historical novel for our century. Her Light Bearer books featuring the Germanic heroine, Auriane, are both commerical and critical successes, recieving rave reviews from readers and professionals alike.

Gillespie now resides in San Francisco where she writes full time. The third and final installment of the Light Bearer is in the works at the time of writing, and Gladiatrix.info was lucky enough to spend some time with Donna and and ask her a few questions about her about her craft.

Talk us through your writing process. Do you plan your work in advance or do you free-from your stories. If it's not too much of an oxymoron, what's a "typical" writing day for Donna Gillespie?

I start with very little - maybe, a mental picture of an opening scene that contains a mystery, and feels critical. And a sense that I'm heading in a direction that opens out the story, that pushes the character into interesting dilemmas. I don't do outlines. It's an organic process - I just let the book grow. And I still hand-write first drafts of scenes. There's something liberating about the motion of the hand skating over the page. It leaves you free to surrender completely to the story - no awkward keyboard between you and what you're imagining - and you can feel the rhythm of the words so much better this way. If I wrote my first draft at the computer, I would be over-critical of what's appearing on the page.

As for planning in advance, yes, I do, but foreplanning works best for a series of scenes - and not very well for the book as a whole. Because a novel grows like a tree. You can't predict, when you toss that seed in the dirt, exactly how that tree will grow. If you write every day, shoots will become branches. It took me many years to trust that the creative source wouldn't dry up, to know that it has its own intelligence - and that the solution to those plot blocks that spring up in your path is always concealed somewhere in the material. I used to panic on days when nothing came; it took me many years to trust that the unconscious mind always has more to give you. And scenes do come more easily if you write every day. My old writing instructor Leonard Bishop once said - "Writing begets writing. Even a four day halt can disconnect you from the intuitive source," - and my experience has borne this out.

One writing day might I might spend in a close-up examination of one paragraph, trying to to squeeze more out of it, so that it works in multiple ways. On another day I might race through a first draft, which can result in a satisfying number of pages that are so badly written you could blackmail me with them. On another, I might throw out everything I wrote yesterday. Testing out scenes can be like running experiments in a lab. Some of those experiments will fail. I wonder sometimes how a book ever gets finished, because so much of it is two steps forward, three steps back. Then there's that incredibly rare writing day that's magic - you're not telling the story, the story is telling you. Those days are the carrot dangling from the stick that keeps me going, I guess.

A female gladiator as a protagonist is quite a rare thing, even today - and almost unheard of when The Light Bearer was being written. What made you decide to put a woman on the sands of the Colosseum?

In the very beginning it did seem a little insane. Especially since the idea came before the research - so I didn't really know there were women gladiators when I started out. But I was stubborn enough about the idea that I probably would have put her in the arena even if the research hadn't backed me up. Because I don't think the book would have worked, had Auriane been a man - it would have had a monochromatic feel. Just for the sake of yin-yang balance (!) I needed a feminine energy braced against all the masculine backdrops I was using. And for this particular woman - who was slightly larger than life, who continually challenges the powers that be, and is dazzlingly good at what she does - and for this time - when these cockfights involving human beings were the sport of kings (or emperors) - it just felt so right. Also, for plot reasons I needed for the climax of the book to take place at, what was then, the center of the world - Rome and the Colosseum. All through the book there's a sense that Auriane is being drawn toward the world's center; there's a small-town-girl-headed-for-the-Olympics feeling about it, which was fun to work with.

It was a wonderful moment when I caught on that the research was backing me up - oh, the thrill when first I saw a photo of the Helicarnassus relief. And I felt I'd been handed a winning lottery ticket when I learned that the Emperor Domitian particularly enjoyed watching women in the arena. It was a short jump, then, to plot a scene in which he condemns her to the arena, believing he has sentenced her to death. I loved the friction created by the differences between Auriane's motive for being there from the crowds' motives for watching her. To the people, she's a political symbol, an amusing way to put Domitian's feet to the fire. While she does use this to her own advantage, she does so only because it forwards her own grim agenda. Which I guess is a long-winded way of saying, I did it because it was fun.

What is the possibility of a Light Bearer movie? The production team at the Hallmark Channel were looking at it a while back I know. Can you tell us of any further developments on that front?

Hallmark Entertainment bought the option back in 2000, then renewed it two years later. During that time, a screenwriter in England wrote a script, which was approved by the producers. It was all so exciting. Then suddenly, nothing. I believe it fell apart at the level of funding. But sometimes these projects can be resurrected overnight. There have been two additional nibbles since then, so I haven't given up.

There was a fair gap between the release The Light Bearer and your new book, Lady of the Light - some 13 years - why the long hiatus?

Hey, that's 12 years. T.W.E.L.V.E. Are you calling me slow? :)

And I really wrote Lady of the Light in six years (a blistering pace, for me). Here's what happened. First, I got a late start. For a long time, I thought Light Bearer didn't need a sequel; it felt complete in itself. The book had ended in such a positive place. I didn't have the heart to mess up Auriane's life again, after all she'd been through. The poor woman deserved rest. Only gradually did I realize that this wasn't, realistically, the end of her story. In Light Bearer I'd set it up that Auriane was to become the next high seeress of the tribes, and this isn't going to work if she's in her cozy nest in Roman suburbia with Marcus, two kids, a station wagon and a dog. I had to be willing to hurt my creation. It was for her own good. And for the good of the novel, too - because novels need conflict, the book needed to begin as Auriane's stable existence starts to crumble.

Then, one day my German translator flew out to San Francisco, wanting to know where the next book was. (This was the man who had translated Light Bearer into German.) His publishing company wanted a trilogy. Light Bearer had been a bestseller there. Three years had passed; surely the next book was just about done? I thought - omigod, it's nowhere, I have a last chapter, and a chapter somewhere in the middle. But I said, "It's coming along fine. In fact, it's nearly finished." The biggest lies are sometimes the best. To add to the pressure, he already had the next two books named - "Mondschatten" (Shadow on the Moon) and "Mondgottin" (Moon Goddess - I guess it sounds better in German.)

So I leaped in with both feet. To assuage my guilt about the torments I was getting ready to put Auriane through, I gave her seven years of peace in her riverside villa before doom catches up with her. I quickly discovered that having a deadline from page 1 is like having your head in a vise. And the Germans were in a hurry - sometimes the translator was just one chapter behind me, translating. It was like having a dog nipping at your heels.

So, in 2002 the second book was finished. (It was called Fire from the Moon, then.) The Germans published it right away, but my publisher in New York turned it down. Too much time had passed between books to warrant a sequel, she told me. A novel has to be a super bestseller before you're allowed this much time between volumes. Also, it was too soon after 9/11 - the economy was in a sad state and publishers were cutting their lists. So I began the 3 year struggle to sell it here in the U.S.

During that time, I rewrote the book while not under pressure (Note to Self: I don't write well with my head in a vise), ripping out scenes and putting in others, adding on another chapter at the end, and hoping the Germans never figured out they published my first draft. And I freshened it up with a new title - Daughter of the Ash. Well, the economy got better, the book got better, and in August, 2005, the miracle came - my editor who earlier turned me down changed her mind. She also changed the title; as Lady of the Light, Auriane, volume 2, made it to the book store at last.

The Light Bearer received great praise from both critics and readers alike. What has the reaction to Lady of the Light been like?

So far, I've been lucky - the reviews have all been positive, and reader reactions have been encouraging. But it's a little soon to tell. It's been like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was intrigued, and puzzled, that Publishers Weekly called it "historical fiction for adrenaline junkies; the pace is furious, the action ferocious, the suspense unrelenting" - because the whole time I was writing it, I worried endlessly that the pace was too slow. Maybe I overcompensated or something.

Lady of the Light is a shorter novel than the Light Bearer. Did you receive any comments from readers that they were hoping for another saga-length work? Why did you decide to trim down the length for Lady of the Light?

Well, you could say Lady of the Light is a saga length work - it's just the first half of that saga. Remember, the Germans asked for a trilogy, and at the time I wasn't in a position to argue. If left to my own devices, I probably would have written one huge sequel, as long as Light Bearer, instead of three volumes. I have received a few comments that the book was different than they expected - though so far, it's only been expressed in a positive way. I couldn't have written the same book twice, using Light Bearer as a template. The only way to keep your writing alive is to try new things. This time I was trying to create drama within a family. Putting Auriane through the same sorts of conflicts as before wouldn't have even been realistic. She's older now. She's a mother. I loved the idea of showing her in radically different sorts of situations, putting different kinds of stress on her. If you think of the old maiden- mother-crone tri nities, Light Bearer might be called her "maiden" book; this is her "mother" book, and the next would be her "crone" book - except that it's not altogether hers, it's Avenahar's, Marcus's and Arria's, too - so I guess I'll waffle on that analogy and say it isn't a perfect fit.

In Lady of the Light, Avenhar follows a similar path to her mother's, yet is a very different character. Can you tell us what you think the similarities between mother and daughter are, and the differences?

I'll be lazy and quote Auriane - Shame will never cling to her as it did to me. I raised a daughter who knows her innocence. In some ways, Avenahar is what Auriane would have been had she not been so wounded in her earliest years. However, there's a price. Avenahar doesn't have Auriane's sensitivity. In some ways, she's Auriane broken out in a rash. Auriane faces injustices; Avenahar rages at them. Auriane seeks balance; Avenahar seeks a good fight. And Avenahar has that rootlessness that leaves her yearning for a stable place. She's never had a home that wasn't taken away. There's a corrosive sadness in her, because of that. The similarities are there, too - in their early years, both are contemptuous of their true nature and are in flight from who they are. And both have a sense of having fated lives, and can't really separate themselves from the fate of their people.

You have so many wonderful characters woven into both novels, from Domitian to Marcus Julianus, Decius, Avenahar, Witgern, Odbhert and of course, Auriane herself. Who are your particular favourites, and why?

Let's see.I guess, because Auriane is just too close to me, and it's hard to think of Ramis as a character (there's something too creepily real about her from where I sit).and while Domitian was more fun than a barrel of monkeys I didn't really like him.I'd have to say Decius. Maybe I have a weakness for the lovably obnoxious type. It's not Marcus Julianus because he was so difficult to create; I kept getting him wrong in the beginning, and having to tear him up and start all over again.

We've already touched on the fact that there was a long wait between The Light Bearer and Lady of the Light, but this time we're left with a cliff-hanger. How is working going on the third book in the series? Can you tell us anything about it, a title, when we can expect it to be on the stands and so forth?

I'm having fun with this one. There's so much less pressure now. This book is still Auriane III to me, as it's presently nameless. I'm hoping for a publication date some time in my lifetime. Sorry about the cliff hanger. No, really, it should be finished in a couple of years. The story opens with Marcus Julianus, who has been captured by the Roxolans, a semi-nomadic Steppe tribe. (I don't think I'm revealing too much by mentioning that Marcus survived that fall from the Dacian King's stronghold - everybody probably guessed that one.) They are sacrificing the Roman prisoners one by one. Escape is impossible, but he must try. Simultaneously, Auriane is on her way to return her father's sword to his grave - but with the whole Roman army hunting her, and all of Chariomer's men on her trail, well, she doesn't make it. I'd better not say any more than that; you're a writer too - you know how talking about it can kill it!

When work on the Light Bearer Trilogy is complete, what else is in the pipeline if you can look that far into the crystal ball? What do you want to try next?

I can't. It feels like predicting what you'll be reincarnated as. I'm still immersed in Auriane. One book at a time. I have to trust that I'll come up with something when I get there.

Have a link to a Donna Gillespie story/interview/etc.? Drop me a line at webmaster @ donnagillespie.net and I'll put it up!