Reserve novelist enjoys experience
Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 14, 2004
By SUE ELLEN ROSS
Staff Reporter
RESERVE – Writing a novel has been a lesson in patience and creativity, as well as determination, according to 28-year-old Jewel Simmons.
Her first book, “The Maverick Princess,” was published by PublishAmerica (located in Baltimore, Maryland) in June and will soon be on bookshelves locally.
Writing under the name of D. A. Arthur, the Reserve resident began writing at an early age.
When she was 14 years old, she won an honorable mention in the Rainbow Collection for a poem she wrote.
The writing bug followed her through her studies at East St. John High School and Nicholls State University. “I always dreamed about having my name on the spine of a book,” she said. She also has had a fascination with royalty for as long as she can remember.
Now the dream and fascination have combined to make her journalistic endeavor come true.
While conducting research for a story on Queen Elizabeth I of England, she came across information discussing Christine, Queen of Sweden, and her upbringing during the 17th Century.
Christine inherited the throne at the age of six when her father died. Her childhood was unusual, in the fact that her father’s wish was that she would be raised as a male prince – learning how to ride, fence , shoot and speak multiple languages, as male heirs did in that day.
Simmons became fascinated with this lady, and the seed was sewn. “The Maverick Princess” is loosely based on Christina’s life.
Getting her product from conception to actuality hasn’t been an easy road for Simmons, who writes under the pen name of D. A. Arthur.
She received 10 rejection letters from various companies before PublishAmerica picked up her novel.
All told, It took about three years to find a publisher, fine-tune the novel and put it into production, she said.
Before the publisher received the manuscript, Simmons carefully proofread it. Then it was passed on to three separate copy editors of her choosing. Once in the publisher’s hands, it was proofread again. “Although some scenes were deleted and some were added, the general story stayed the same,” she said.
At the beginning of the project, Simmons decided to downplay her budding journalist career by keeping her project to herself. “I didn’t know if my family would be supportive,” she said. “But now, they talk more about the book than I do!”
In, “The Maverick Princess,” Christina became Kristina Valborg; and Sweden became Vidaria, a fictitious country.
“It was no longer Christina of Sweden’s tale, it was my own novel,” said Simmons. “I had 30 pages, then 50, then 100. I couldn’t stop.”
She added that part of the fascination of the story was that the princess was a female living in a man’s world.
“If you would look up the word ‘maverick’ in the dictionary, which means a person who is independent in action and thought, her picture should be next to it,” she added
St. John Parish Library will carry Simmon’s book in the near future, according to Executive Director Randy DeSoto. “We have ordered two copies, one for the Reserve Library and one for our Main Library,” he said. “We are always glad to encourage local authors and look forward to carrying more of her books.”
Marketing the book has been done by the publisher on the Internet. It can be found on Monster.com and on the Barnes and Noble Booksellers site.
The word is getting out, and Simmons herself is marketing her novel.
She has been asked to speak at the St. Charles Parish Friends of the Library Luncheon in October and is using others avenues to expose her new novel.
The writer is considering the idea of expanding her first writing project into a trilogy series. The two remaining novels would continue to chronicle the experiences of the heroine in the original story.
“The Maverick Princess” concludes with the coronation of the heroine, and the two remaining novels would possibly cover her middle and late years of life. “I am more than three-quarters finished with the second book already,” said Simmons.
She added that there a lot of things that 21st century men and women can learn from Christina’s story. “She was a woman who spent a lifetime breaking boundaries,” said the first-time novelist.
“Even though the boundaries that exist today are more broadly defined than they were in those days, they nevertheless must be broken, for in God’s eyes, we are all one.”