David Anthony Durham, l'auteur de la trilogie Acacia, est en interview pour le blog Underwords. Il revient sur l'écriture du dernier tome de la trilogie, L'Alliance Sacrée, mais également sur ce qui l'a amené à écrire de la fantasy après ses romans historiques mais également sur des choses plus personnelles, comme son déménagement récent en Ecosse. 

Extrait : 

Citation:

The Acacia series tackles a story of epic proportions with multiple main characters, plots, and locations. When writing The Sacred Band, what was your biggest challenge in bringing this story together in only three books?  The hard part was not giving in to the impulse toward gigantism. Near the end of The Sacred Band I had a crisis. I couldn’t bear the thought of ending the book in only a few more scenes. Instead of the ending I’d been writing toward, I was suddenly sure that I needed to expand, not wrap up. I wanted one more book, and I hastily sketched out exactly what that would entail. I wrote my editor an impassioned email explaining my reasoning and asking for his okay for a fourth book. When I wrote it, I couldn’t imagine any other option.  How did he respond? He said the editorial equivalent of “No Freaking way, dude”. He felt strongly that I needed to finish it as a trilogy, and that my impulse to go longer meant that the story was getting away from me. He suggested I take a deep breath, come to grips with a trilogy again, and that he and I work together to grab the beast before it devoured me. He even suggested we push back the pub date by a year.  I took about a half an hour to process this, and then responded with the authorial equivalent of “No freaking way, dude”. I wasn’t saying no to the trilogy, though. As soon as he called me on it, I knew I really could and should finish it as promised. That urge toward gigantism in epic fantasy is completely understandable. I mean, what gets an author more invested than creating an entire world and all the people in it? Of course we want to stay in those worlds for as long as we can! But that’s clearly not a good impulse in lots of ways, including that we drag stories out in ways that can be pretty self-indulgent–not to mention callous to our readers.  My editor said no, and I had to admit that he was right. I wasn’t going to push the publication back by a year. Instead, I proposed a new deadline–more like a couple of months away–and I said I’d write like a madman, day and night, awake and sleeping, until I was done. He agreed. I did that, and I’m very happy to say that he loved the novel I delivered.  It was a close call, though. If I’d held my ground I don’t know what would have happened. And if I’d taken that extra year… Either way, I was at the edge of a career crisis. I’m rather proud–and relieved–that I came through it in a manner that I’m pleased with. And that Doubleday is pleased with, too. They signed me for another book, and in this publishing climate that’s not something to take for granted.

Pour lire l'interview dans son intégralité.