Hello, I am Maria Mar, author of the upcoming magical novel Ana Danza & the Soul Sarongs.

Those who visited our website from the beginning may be confused with the changes my novel has gone through. The first title of the book was Women of Ache, Women of AchE (accent on the lst e.  AchE, with an accent on the E, means grace, word and saliva in the Yoruba culture I learned as a Caribbean woman). But the title change is nothing compared to other changes that have taken place in the last years. This blog tells the story of my novel's evolution.

At the beginning, I thought I was doing a book and a workbook. The book would contain 7 short stories, which I had already written and was now developing. The workbook would contain the 7 Medicine Stories. The Medicine Story is the non-fiction self-help counterpart of a healing fictional story. Well, was I in for a surprise!

Have you ever heard that the characters in a story take a life of their own and tell the writer what to do? Well, believe it. It is absolutely true! But not only the characters boss you around. The story itself is an entity shimmering in some alternate universe, summoning you to it, enchanting you to enter this universe and fetch her out. The enchantment grows as you come closer to this universe. The characters want to tell you the story of their whole life. But the landscape speaks, too. This is what happened to me as I wrote the book, the ONE book I thought I was writing.

To make a 5-year long story short, the ONE book became many books. The short story began to get more intricate. The Medicine Story had to grow, to reveal the growth of Ana Danza, who now wanted to tell me her secrets. Then the Dream Forest came into existence. Ana lived in a forest, but it was no ordinary forest. "Don't think that for a minute, lady author. Get your facts straight. I am the Dream Forest. I am the true storyteller here, not you."

The Dream Forest became an enchanted realm where the natural world and the sacred world meet, as it should be, as I experience as a shaman. Then came Reality. Yes, the tiny world of the tiny humans who believe their civilization is so important. Reality, to the creatures of the Dream Forest, is only a gorge, and they call the humans living in it The Gorgers. That's us, you know. What is Reality? The town of tiny humans that live surrounded by the Dream Forest, but are trapped in a trance that disconnects them from the magic of this sacred, beautiful natural world.

Do you see what I faced a year ago? The book concept itself had changed. I had a novel. It was fiction, as I intended. It was also true, as my fiction is a metaphor of my own life adventures as a Woman of Power. But it was no longer a short story. It was a novel! Are you asking yourself, "But how is she conveying the Medicine Story?" I asked myself the same question. And did I get an answer!

A new character stepped out of the Dream Forest. Her name is Forest Mother. She is the Dreamkeeper, the Keeper of the Dream Forest. She is a shaman, a wizard, a Wise Woman. She is the Medicine speaking directly into the story, as part of the story.

 Forest Mother told me that she had met Ana as a little girl, and if I wanted to know how Ana Danza had become a healer, and if I wanted the readers to learn the Female Power Principles she had taught Ana, I had to start at the beginning. Guess what? That's where I am starting. As a result, the spiritual novel has grown into a series of books. The first one tells the story of Ana Danza from when she became an orphan as a child up to the time of her first Initiation Test as a Dreamkeeper. Each book contains the story of how Ana Danza passed a Test of Power by creating an alchemical art object. To create this Power Object, Ana had to master the power lessons Forest Mother was giving her.

These Power Lessons became the outline from which I drew the Bewomaning Diva Journey, so that women who want to assume their Female Face of Power can actually follow the story and create their own Power Objects. I am now developing internet downloadable products that allow you to create those Power Objects, quest for your Female Face of Power and awaken the magic in your every day life. This is the great gift that the world of my magical novel has given me. The story came from my own journey, but in telling the story, I began yet another adventure that expanded my potential and generated more venues for your quest as you read the book.

There are stories within stories.

Now you know the truth behind the many changes that my book has undergone, the many changes that our website has gone through, and what to expect as we update the entire website to catch up with the characters of our stories!

I would love to hear what you think of this saga. I would like feedback about my story, of course, but I also have a question for you:

How does this journey resonate with aspects of your life which you planned or expected to be one way and surprised you as they took a life of their own?