In this third installment of Jennifer’s Xlbris Blog contribution, she talks about her story concept hitting a snag and finally seeing the light of day.
Deciding to Publish ‘From Dust to Man’
The mission to tell the story was my objective. You must feel real passion about the tale you are spinning. I once read that you should write about what you know, and I must say many components of society at that time fueled my fervor.
A lot of people ask me how I came up with the idea of the From Dust to Man series and why did I wait so long to publish it?
It was simple: From Dust to Man was too controversial in the early eighties.
While starting to write the story in 1979, I opened a stained glass studio called Spinny’s Studios in Myrtle Beach, SC. I was one of the few women in town that owned their successful business. Most women at that time were secretaries, teachers, nurses or homemakers which made me the odd duck out. There was a great conflict between women wanting to do more and men wanting women to stay in their “proper” place. A few women were defending their right to work and others were defending their right to stay at home. Many women found themselves in heated argument with one group resenting the other. I can’t tell you how many times I was told my children would suffer from my selfishness. But working didn’t interfere with spending time with my family, and my children seemed well-adjusted and happy.
Most men looked at my business as an extension of my husband’s saying, “Isn’t that nice?,” but never took me seriously even though I had people collect my stained glass creations across the US. When women ask me to talk to their clubs, I wanted to talk about how to open their own business and they wanted to talk about their favorite recipes–frustrating.
A great antagonist in my life, my brother Roger bated my enthusiasm in writing my story, and said that men and women would never be equal. He suggested that if I didn’t like the inequality, I could just write about killing off the males and sustain the women’s existence with the existing sperm banks today. I thought that was a good idea, but I didn’t want to kill off the males even though I did the deed. Once males were extinct, I had to give the brainwashed male another chance. After all, centuries of male domination had created this creature that wanted to control everything. What if all this masculine history suddenly vanished?
That’s why I wrote my book from Dust to Man. At that point, everywhere I looked, great inequality and discrimination between men and women existed, particularly in racial and gay issues. The Vietnam War was still in the minds of our people along with the pointless loss of lives and the overall damage that resulted from it. Like a true Aquarian, I longed for greater understanding between humans and animals and our environment. It wasn’t happening. That’s why I created a character in the 1980s that originally and unknowingly looked a lot like Bin Laden and started a war that would kill off all the males on the face of the earth and with a great deal of hope, brought one male child back in a societal sea of women.
Catch more of Jennifer’s story in the final installment of this Xlibris blog feature. Read the previous entries here:
Xlibris Author Jennifer Van Wie Befriends Her Fictional Characters – Part 1
Xlibris Author Jennifer Van Wie Befriends Her Fictional Characters – Part 2
More promising authors are featured on the Xlibris Indie Authors Roundup. Learn writing, editing, and book marketing know-how from the Xlibris Writer’s Workshop.