2000 Year Old Voices?

Hi Everyone,

I'm off to the beach next week to take a break from writing - and my characters who seem to want to chat and hang out everywhere I go!
You see, I've just finished writing a novel whose main theme is reincarnation. It's been an amazing trip through my imagination, carrying me from the shores of the Shenandoah River in this century, to the shores of Ancient Greece in the Golden Age of Pericles. 420 BC.

My constant companions have been my brightly colored, over-the-top imaginary characters. From both centuries. Who I might add, I've become great friends with.

The trouble is, they've taken this story and run with it. And I'm wondering what's going on. There have been times when I sat down to write  a chapter and my pre-conceived ideas of how it would go were tossed out in about five minutes when, all of these guys began jabbering a mile a minute, changing my sentences, voice pattern and incidents. One of them actually said, "That's not the way it happened!"

So just as I'm thinking I need a  mint julep or a sip of ouzo (clearly, I'm working too hard and am in danger of retreating into my undiluted imagination) I came across an ancient map of Athens or Attica as it was known then.

I had already imagined and created the setting for the Greek part of the novel, but I thought I better check my bearings and find out what ancient Attica really looked liked. There's nothing worse than an author who hunts Tigers and Polar bears in Africa, and I didn't want that to happen.

So, I'm staring at my own creation of the ancient city, and looking at the old map - I know exactly where my imaginary Greek lady protagonist lives in a villa at the foot of the mountain, and I know exactly how to get there from the harbor. And as I superimpose the old map on the map of my imagination, I see that everything is exactly where it should be. There is a mountain in the city - just one - as I had imagined.  I had placed the villa and its surrounds perfectly! And  the road from the harbor to the villa  was exactly where it should be, winding among hundreds of other streets that have come and gone over the centuries since Astraia lived there.

That's her name, Astraia.  Daughter of the Stars. Or Shenandoah, as the Indians named the river.

Were these Ancient Greeks talking to me from over 2000 years ago? How else do I know my way around Athens, through the markets, the Turkish quarter, the Arab quarter and on and on? I've never been to Athens. Not yet!

I'll tell you more as we go. Enjoy the sunshine of home!