We're Baaaack

By Evelyn David

I don't usually count on inspiration in my work. I count on the belief that if I show up, keep my butt in the chair, hold a potato gun to my head, and make myself sit there, something writerish will happen.

I'll get some words down on paper, or the on screen.

They will suck.

I love Anne Lamott. Her book on writing, Bird by Bird, captures perfectly the reality of being an author: the good, the bad, and the very ugly. First drafts, Lamott aptly points out, are by definition crappy. Out of the first 100 words written, you might like 10 – but that's 10 more than you had before. Maybe you'll like 15 of the next 100 words.Maybe not. But you make progress only if you actually write. And that my friends, is a point I had sadly forgotten.

What I should have remembered is what Thomas Edison once said: Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. And to quote one more truth from Mr. Edison: I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

All of which may help explain what the two halves of Evelyn David have been doing since last Fall. Besides struggling with one miserable snowstorm after another; juggling work and family responsibilities; and celebrating some happy events in our lives – we've also been circling around a story that we couldn't quite nail down for months. And sometimes, the circling meant just plain ignoring it. Instead we chatted on Facebook; wrote blogs; played Scramble with Friends; ate chocolate.

Now the snowstorms, the work responsibilities, the family demands, even the chocolate, are all reasonable excuses for why we haven't written much more than grocery lists for the past three months. I can even rationalize that taking time off has given us a perspective on this story that was much needed. No doubt you often have to step back to see the big picture, what can be fixed, and what needs to be dumped pronto.

But 10 days ago, after a weekend of celebrating my son's engagement to a lovely young woman, and then bidding a tearful farewell as another of my sons and his family moved to Paris (Yipes), I finally sat down, reread the story, and chatted with the Southern half. What had in November seemed impossible to finish, suddenly didn't seem too hard at all. The kernel of the story was, pardon my pride, fantastic. And I discovered, dare I say it, it was fun to write again. I laughed out loud at some of our scenes. I fell in love, once more, with the world of Brianna Sullivan. I had missed her future mother-in-law Sassy Jackson, her best friend Beverly Heyman, her hunky fiance Cooper, and perhaps most of all, her bulldog Leon, despite his wonky digestive tract.

We had to rewrite, tweak, edit, revise, delete, and then write some more. But the end result, LEAVING LOTTAWATAH, is the story we always wanted to tell. For us, the essence of storytelling is compelling, believable characters. We think you'll find a new depth to Brianna Sullivan, psychic extraordinaire. We delve deeper into the life she has created for herself in the small town of Lottawatah, Oklahoma. There a murder mystery to die for (pun intended) and humor to make you laugh out loud.

Leaving Lottawatah

Leaving Lottawatah by Evelyn David is the eleventh book in the Brianna Sullivan Mysteries series. A novella-length story, Leaving Lottawatah continues the spooky, yet funny saga of reluctant psychic Brianna Sullivan who planned to travel the country in her motor home looking for adventure, but unexpectedly ended up in a small town in Oklahoma.

Things are messy in Paradise. The happily engaged couple of Brianna Sullivan and Cooper Jackson are anything but. Angry words set Brianna and Leon, her bulldog companion, off on a road trip, but it's hard to run away from home if everyone wants to come with you. Before she can leave town, Brianna is unexpectedly joined on her travels by Sassy Jackson, her maybe ex-future mother-in-law, plus Beverly Heyman and daughter Sophia, both still grieving over a death in the family. Destination: A Psychic convention in America's most haunted hotel. But they haven't reached their destination before Brianna is confronted by two ghosts demanding help in capturing the serial killer who murdered them decades earlier. Even more worrisome, another young woman has gone missing. It's up to Brianna and her road crew to stop the serial killer from striking again. Brianna has hard questions for the spirits surrounding her, and for herself. Does she want to marry Cooper? Is it time to hit the open road again and leave Lottawatah behind? Or will the ghosts of her past continue to haunt her wherever she goes?

Kindle
Nook
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Trade Paperback

So please Enjoy, Enjoy! It's good to be back! And we're not planning on taking any more hiatuses. Snowstorms or not, we're writing!

Marian and Rhonda, the collective Evelyn David

P.S. We're also delighted to announce that A HAUNTING IN LOTTAWATAH, the fifth book in the Brianna Sullivan series, is now available as an audiobook. Once again narrated by the fantastic Wendy Tremont King, A HAUNTING IN LOTTAWATAH proves that ghost hunting can be deadly.

  

A HAUNTING IN LOTTAWATAH

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Nook 

Smashwords 

Audible 

Amazon audiobook 

P.S. Special shoutout to our friend Meg Mims. Check out her blog: www.megmims.com/musings

Getting Back on Track

By Evelyn David

It's easy….way too easy…to get de-railed.

Over the last two months, heavy day-job responsibilities, family illnesses and celebrations, the holidays, you name it, and the two halves of Evelyn David have had trouble composing coherent grocery lists, let alone creating murder and mayhem.

It's not that I think 2013 is going to be any easier or less complicated. Life is often like a roller coaster, slow, sometimes an excruciatingly measured climb upward; perhaps a whiplash turn or two; then a calm, level track with no dips or slips and the temptation to relax and just coast along; and then a dizzying, stomach-dropping, but possibly exhilarating ride down. And then it starts again.

So no, I don't suppose or even want our lives to get less complex. But the last couple of months of creative indolence have taught me what every successful writer has said countless times. You've just got to park your bottom in a chair and DO IT.

Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers, in her brilliant book on writing, Bird By Bird, talks about the creative process. I find it reassuring – a lifeline when I don't think there are any words I could possibly put down on paper that would tempt a reader to enter my make-believe worlds. But Lamott reassures me – and then makes me laugh:

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”

So we're back in the saddle again (a worn cliché, but heck the Southern half is from Oklahoma, home of The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum). We have already had multiple conversations about upping the danger quotient in this novel. The stakes have to be high in order for the reader to care what happens. So far, we've got one heart-stopping car accident, one fatal robbery, and a drive-by-shooting – so I think we're definitely back in murder and mayhem central.

 I know writers who have daily word goals – and I sorta, kinda do, but you know, life sometimes has a way of moving those goalposts. Instead my resolution for 2013 is to buckle my seatbelt, it's apt to be a bumpy ride – and write, revise, edit, delete, but most of all, to reengage my creative self in the wonderful world of make-believe.

Happy, Healthy, Have-Fun-Writing New Year.

 

Marian, the Northern half of Evelyn David

 

A Reason to Give Thanks includes: Giving Thanks in Lottawatah, Bah, Humbug in Lottawatah, Moonlighting at the Mall, The Fortune Teller's Face, A Reason to Give Thanks, Sneak Peek – Murder Off the Books, Sneak Peek – I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries
A Reason to Give Thanks
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Sullivan Investigations Mystery
Murder Off the Books Kindle - Nook - Smashwords - Trade Paperback
Murder Takes the Cake Kindle - Nook - Smashwords - Trade Paperback 
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Moonlighting at the Mall (short story) - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

 

 

Zoned for Murder
Kindle Trade Paperback

Brianna Sullivan Mysteries - e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Lottawatah Twister - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Missing in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Good Grief in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Summer Lightning in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

The Ghosts of Lottawatah - trade paperback collection of the Brianna e-books
Book 1 - I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries (includes the first four Brianna e-books)
Book 2 - A Haunting in Lottawatah (includes the 5th, 6th, and 7th Brianna e-books)

Romances
Love Lessons - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords