Ellesea Loves Reading: Book Spotlight and Author Guest Post: Through Dust and Dreams by Roxana Valea

Sunday, 26 April 2020

Book Spotlight and Author Guest Post: Through Dust and Dreams by Roxana Valea

Through Dust and Dreams. The Story of an African Adventure by Roxana Valea

Genre - Travel Memoir

Standalone Book

Talk to your book

We, writers, often make the mistake to think we write books. It is not true. Books write themselves through us.

It’s quite a blow to accept that, to accept that all you are is a pair of hands on a keyboard. That you were never asked for input nor expected to create anything. It’s uncomfortable to admit this so we usually don’t. We call ourselves authors and go on and on about our creative process, about finding inspiration and so on.

The truth is that inspiration find us, we do not find it. Inspiration comes to us like a visitor that knocks at the door. We either open the door or we don’t. If we do, we agree to land our pair of hands. If we don’t, it will go away and find someone else.

The book choses us when the book is ready to come into form. I believe all books exist as energy before they come into their material form. It’s like a whirlpool of energy coming together and it wants to express itself as a book. And it starts looking for an author, a person who’s willing to land a pair of hands.

When we let the book write itself through us the way it wants to, it turns into a good book. When we force it to go the way our mind or ego wants, it loses energy and becomes a pale version of what it could have been. Why? Because, again, it’s not us who write, it’s the book who writes itself. It’s got its own energy and it wants to be respected.

But why then does a book come only to some of us? Well, we’re all born with gifts in this world, some know how to cook, some know how to build a brick wall, some sing and some write. The book will look for those who are open to listen to this type of energy, who recognise it and call it inspiration. Those who have this gift and are willing to use it.

I talk to my books while I write. I open a journal and call it the journal of the book. I ask the book where it wants to go and if it’s happy about how it’s being written. It will tell me when it doesn’t. Actually it will become quite clear because when inspiration goes and writing starts becoming difficult it’s because the ego or the mind of the writer is trying to interfere too much with the book. How many writers stop then and start procrastinating or push themselves harder and harder. More mind. More ego. Even less inspiration. Even deeper blockage.

The solution? Withdraw. Get out of the way. Let the book write itself. Let it take you where it wants to go. Accept that you’re just a pair of hands and nothing more. Accept that we do not create but simply allow creation to come through us.

And enjoy the process. Because this encounter of a writer with a book that wants to write itself though their hands, is one of the most satisfying encounters of this life.

At a crossroads in her life, Roxana decides to take a ten-day safari trip to Africa. In Namibia, she meets a local guide who talks about “the courage to become who you are” and tells her that “the world belongs to those who dream”.

Her holiday over, Roxana still carries the spell of his words within her soul. Six months later she quits her job and searches for a way to fulfil an old dream: crossing Africa from north to south. Teaming up with Richard and Peter, two total strangers she meets over the Internet, Roxana starts a journey that will take her and her companions from Morocco to Namibia, crossing deserts and war-torn countries and surviving threats from corrupt officials and tensions within their own group.

Through Dust and Dreams is the story of their journey: a story of courage and friendship, of daring to ask questions and search for answers, and of self-discovery on a long, dusty road south.

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Roxana Valea was born in Romania and lived in Italy, Switzerland, England and Argentina before settling in Spain. She has a BA in journalism and an MBA degree. She spent more than twenty years in the business world as an entrepreneur, manager and management consultant working for top companies like Apple, eBay, and Sony. She is also a Reiki Master and shamanic energy medicine practitioner.

As an author, Roxana writes books inspired by real events. Her memoir Through Dust and Dreams is a faithful account of a trip she took at the age of twenty-eight across Africa by car in the company of two strangers she met over the internet. Her following book, Personal Power: Mindfulness Techniques for the Corporate World is a nonfiction book filled with personal anecdotes from her consulting years. The Polo Diaries series is inspired by her experiences as a female polo player--traveling to Argentina, falling in love, and surviving the highs and lows of this dangerous sport.

Roxana lives with her husband in Mallorca, Spain, where she writes, coaches, and does energy therapies, but her first passion remains writing.