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
Smashwords 
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

Kindle 

Nook 

Smashwords 

Audible 

Amazon audiobook 

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

Real Beauty

On Oscars night, social media went wild with often-cruel snark and criticism of some of the older women at the Oscars who had had plastic surgery, in particular Kim Novak. 

In reaction, crime fiction author Laura Lippman posted a photo of herself without makeup, special lighting, or any kind of flattering filters and challenged other authors in the field to do the same in an attempt to show what real people actually look like at all ages.

The response was overwhelming. Mystery and thriller writers and readers, male and female, posted what some people called “raw selfies.” I put up one myself.

 Erin Mitchell put together just a few of the earliest responders into a video slideshow that’s absolutely wonderful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM9kBqG5VEM

Each of us who posted our raw selfie also wrote about what prompted the photo and about the issue of society’s distorted expectations and demands on women in the realm of physical appearance. This led in many cases to intense conversations on Facebook and elsewhere about this issue. I had a thread that ran through more than 20 comments.

 I argued with some of my feminist literary writer friends who blamed the older women like Novak who had fallen into the movie industry’s trap of disvaluing their looks. One asked, “And where are the men in this?” And I was happy and proud to tell her how many of our male crime fiction colleagues had involved themselves in this little protest movement.

 What’s your take on this whole subject of society’s definition of female beauty as an underweight teenager’s body and face? Also, what did you think about the Real Beauty Project video?

 
COMMENTS (Blogger still won't let me comment conventionally):

Reine, thank you for laying out so clearly the evolution of your feelings about physical appearance. I do think these perceptions change--and often for the better--as we mature. I sympathize about the problems with holding hair dryers and combing hair since I have similar issues--and these are universally issues no one takes into consideration. Often a person may take medicines that affect the thickness and quality of their hair or skin and meds and illness can impact so much more than that of our physical appearance.

Mary, I think the people who control our media focus the images of women they promulgate according to what will make them money. Many men may well not buy into those images, but many men and women are pretty much conditioned to think that those images are the only way women should be. It's very pervasive and very powerful.

The Mind of a Writer

by Sparkle Abbey

“The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day.”

Not exactly complimentary, yet as soon as Robert DeNiro delivered those words on the Academy Awards show last Sunday, Facebook and Twitter lit up with cyber-nods of agreement from writers everywhere.

Yes, we’re an odd lot.

So what really goes on in the mind of a writer? 

For most of us we've always known we were different. Or at some point we've had an ‘ah-ha’ moment where we realize that not everyone rewrites the endings of books or movies.

Writers are curious. We’re interested in almost everything. We take movies apart, we question, we dissect. Writers study people and things and motives and places. We wake up in the middle of the night and write down story ideas. Sometimes they even make sense in the morning. 

A writer’s mind wanders off - sometimes in the middle of a conversation. We’re sorry about doing that. It’s not that we’re inattentive or uninterested in what you’re saying. It’s just that something you said clicked in our heads, and suddenly we've figured out that troublesome plot point. Or you said some random thing like “oranges” and it get us thinking about Florida and we realize our suspect couldn't have been the real killer because he was on a plane to the Sunshine State.

We shamelessly eavesdrop on strangers’ conversations. Writers are people-watchers. Observers. We wonder what makes people do what they do. And then we wonder what might make them do something different. We ask, “What if?” The writer’s mind is always working. Always questioning. Writers see story possibilities in almost every situation. An off-hand comment, a newspaper article, an overheard personal drama.

Writers spend hours searching for the perfect word. We work very hard to find the precise words to describe for you the stories in our heads. To help you see the characters who are so real to us. Then we change the words, polish them, revise them. Sometimes we dump full sections of a chapter we've spend hours on. And then we begin again. We want it to be perfect. Yet we know it can’t be.

The writer’s mind is packed with worry. When we’re stuck, the doubts come trooping in. Can we do it? Maybe this time we really did bite off a story idea too big for our skills.

The mind of a writer is also magic. It creates people and worlds from nothing more than a speck of an idea. And then it somehow gives us just enough courage (or maybe insanity) to throw our hearts, our stories, out there to share with the world.

At least on a good day.

Our publisher has recently repriced all of our backlist on Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook and we also participated in a fun short story collection. We hope you'll check it out. 

Cold War Terrors--Redux!

By Kay Kendall

The lure of historic catastrophe hit when I was eight. On the movie screen a small American town celebrated the return of victorious soldiers from World War I. How exciting it must’ve been to live during real wartime, I thought.

Even at that tender age I knew America was engaged in a dangerous cold war with a vicious enemy, the Soviet Union. This massive Euro-Asian power—encompassing the former Russian empire plus pieces of the Hapsburg monarchy—threatened my freedom. If the US-USSR stalemate heated up, there would be drama and chances for glory ahead.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said the USSR would "bury" the West. 

What did I know about war? (In my own way, I must have been as naïve as those deluded British soldiers in August 1914 who marched off to fight the Hun in what became World War I, feeling sure they’d be home by Christmas.)   

Flash forward nine years. The Cuban missile crisis pushed the entire world to the brink of Armageddon. Only six hours before Khrushchev blinked—promising to withdraw his missiles from Cuba—I took my SAT exams. What the heck, I thought. If everyone faced nuclear annihilation, then I had little at stake and wouldn’t take my college entrance exams so seriously.

Now, decades later, those memories flicker in my head while I watch events in Ukraine on my television screen. As I write this, Russia has troops in the Crimean region of Ukraine and even more troops and a thousand tanks ready to cross the border. Pro-Western riots in Kiev have resulted in deaths and have been answered by pro-Russian protests, perhaps Kremlin-instigated. Centuries of ethnic bloodshed in this region lie behind these events.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says “extraordinary” circumstances allow him to send troops into Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians there. Meantime Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk says Russia has “invaded” his country and places his troops on high alert.

Media pundits debate what the West can do. One points to a meaningful statement that presages these events, made by Putin a year ago. The Russian leader said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst geopolitical event of the entire twentieth century. Yes, really! The foreign affairs analyst confidently predicts a resurgent Russia under the crafty hands of Putin, whose first name is the same as Lenin’s, who built the communist menace in the first place. Oh, the portents are bad indeed.

This new threat to the world’s balance of power is a long way from playing out. Who knows where events will lead next? What will China do? North Korea? This may be high drama, but it is not entertainment. This is not fun. All these nations have nuclear weaponry. Are we in fact entering a new version of the old Cold War, or will things suddenly turn hot? Red hot?

Many people clamor for fiction that features massive annihilation as a backdrop.

How do we explain being drawn to spy stories, horror movies, serial killers’ tales and the like? As a writer who kills fictive people for a living, I ponder this quite a lot.

I believe fiction like this works because it shows how people can act valiantly in ruinous times, overcome their fears, and emerge on top. When we read novels set during past wars, we can get scared but we'll know how things turn out. The Nazis always lose, even if a few survive to plot another day.

As indicated, I grew up when the Cold War was in fact pretty hot. An intercontinental ballistic missile was placed a few miles from my hometown in Kansas when I was in grade school. That excited me, rather than terrifying me. Serious tomes were written about “thinking the unthinkable.” Yet, to me, the unthinkable was preposterous. I assumed that mutually assured nuclear destruction would work as a deterrent. Surely rationality would prevail. Anything else would be unreal. In a word, fiction.

I moved rapidly from a severe case of Nancy Drew-itis to being mesmerized by John le Carré’s twisted spy stories. Smiley, his British master spy, was always at pains not to let the ends justify any means. His adversary on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Soviet master spy Karla, seemed to lack all scruples and toyed with him, playing a vicious cat-and-mouse game. Smiley’s bed-hopping wife Anne even got ensnared.  

When I finally felt compelled to devise my own mysteries, it was natural to turn to my favorites as models. For two years I drowned myself in mysteries set during World Wars One and Two and the Cold War. There were so many excellent ones—too many, actually. Of all the major wars of last century, only the wars in Korea and Vietnam weren’t “taken,” weren’t overrun with thrillers. Vietnam offered a dangerous yet fairly empty gap that needed filling…and I concluded I’d do the filling.

What I studied in college and graduate school was Russian history. Obviously the Cold War fascinated me. These days, in our a-historic times, it’s important to recall why the United States got mired down in fighting a land war in Asia in the first place. The domino theory supplied the reason. If South Vietnam fell to the communists pushing down from North Vietnam, then that domino would fall and knock down another Asian country and another until they all fell into communist hands.

My penchant for historical wars helps explain why my debut mystery is set among the draft resister community in Toronto, Canada, ca. 1968. I enjoy writing about historical turmoil that lends itself to personal drama, intrigue, and murder; I can control the world that I build on the page. That is comforting.

But now I must return to my television screen, to wait for the newscasters to tell me that the crisis in Ukraine is escalating, waning, or mutating in some as yet unforeseen fashion. I watch, mesmerized, waiting for comfort to come, even if it is only temporary. Only until the next geopolitical horror fills my screen, or screeches from the headlines of the New York Times. Sadder and wiser than in my youth, I no longer trust the nuclear deterrent to work.

*******

Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas

Kay & house bunny Dusty

with her husband, five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s during Hitler's rise to power--write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age.

Discover more about DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com