Interview with Author – Devashish

Author Bio:
I was born in New York in 1956 but grew up in Mass­a­chu­setts in a Puerto Rican fam­ily, a nice lit­tle cross-blending of cul­tures, and enjoyed the rare gift of a happy childhood—short on drama but long on enter­tain­ment. Things really got inter­est­ing, how­ever, at the begin­ning of my sec­ond year of col­lege when I was ini­ti­ated into yogic med­i­ta­tion. I was an eighteen-year-old psych major in a pres­ti­gious uni­ver­sity, but from the moment I learned med­i­ta­tion all I really wanted to be was a yogi. When the school year fin­ished, I freaked out my par­ents by sell­ing every­thing I owned except my gui­tar and boarded a cross-country bus for a three-month inten­sive train­ing in yogic prac­tice (all things con­sid­ered, they we’re pretty cool about it). When I was twenty I went to India to meet my guru, Shrii Shrii Anan­damurti, and that sealed the deal. Since then I’ve spent my life hang­ing out with saints and yogis and doing my best to nav­i­gate the spir­i­tual path. Exactly how much of their lus­ter has rubbed off is debat­able, but it’s been a fas­ci­nat­ing jour­ney that has brought me into con­tact with some of the great­est spir­i­tual teach­ers of our time and an end­less parade of col­or­ful char­ac­ters in search of enlight­en­ment, enough to peo­ple my nov­els for the next sev­eral lifetimes.

Along the way I’ve taught yoga and med­i­ta­tion in at least six dif­fer­ent lan­guages on four dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents, worked as a street musi­cian in Europe and Asia, and even posed as an Eng­lish teacher for a year when I was fin­ish­ing up my MFA in the early nineties, but even­tu­ally I set­tled into my ver­sion of the writer’s life: half the year on my farm in Puerto Rico and the other half on my farm in Brazil, giv­ing the occa­sional sem­i­nar and host­ing spir­i­tual retreats but mostly min­ing my imag­i­na­tion for the sto­ries that have taken up res­i­dence there over the years, dra­matic reen­act­ments of our col­lec­tive jour­ney toward the awak­en­ing of con­scious­ness. I’ve had sev­eral char­ac­ters in my sto­ries tell me that lit­er­a­ture can be a real ser­vice to human­ity. I hope they’re right. The only way I can jus­tify spend­ing all this time in front of a com­puter, wan­der­ing through the shift­ing land­scapes of my imag­i­na­tion, is by tak­ing it on faith that my books can make a dif­fer­ence in people’s lives, that in some small way they can help to spark the flow­er­ing of con­scious­ness that is the real story of our race. If they can do that then noth­ing could make me hap­pier. That’s what I’m here for.
– See more at: http://www.devashishdonaldacosta.com/bio/#sthash.MywW6afe.dpuf

What inspires you to write?
Writing for me is both a journey into myself and a means of communication with the world of other human beings, and both the connection with my inner self and the connection with other people are endless sources of inspiration.

Tell us about your writing process.
I’ve tried both ways, storyboarding a novel scene and starting out with a character and a setting but no real idea of what the story will be until I am knee deep in it. Of the two, it is definitely easier to thoroughly outline the story first, and in general more productive, but there are some books that don’t lend themselves to storyboarding. It is good to be flexible and listen to what the story tells you.

For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Listen, listen, listen. Eavesdropping might be a better word.

What advice would you give other writers?
Read widely and deeply, write constantly, and bring the same passion to your writing that your favorite literature inspires.

How did you decide how to publish your books?
Self-published and for most writers that is the way to go. The market has changed.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Less print, more electronic and audio media, an industry dominated by self-published authors and self-publishing coops.

What do you use?
Beta Readers

What genres do you write?
Visionary & Metaphysical, Historical fiction, body, mind & spirit.

What formats are your books in?
Both eBook and Print

Website(s)
Devashish Home Page Link
Link To Devashish Page On Amazon

Your Social Media Links
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/266074.Devashish?from_search=true
https://www.facebook.com/devashishdonaldacosta