The Dangers of Creativity

Since we have been recently drowning you with pleas to buy, read, and review our first published eBook, it might be hard to imagine that all of our attention hasn’t been used up with marketing and promotion. In fact, since we’re trying hard to be serious writers, most of our spare time is actually devoted to producing novels. We have detailed plans and are structured in our approach to making something worth your time to read.

The next novel we’re going to publish is a romantic comedy and we think that it is a delightful and unique story. We’ve certainly never read anything like it before.  We’ve already completed the cover design and The Valentine’s Game is undergoing its final professional proof edit. We plan to publish it in late September. This will be followed by a fantasy novel in the spring. The Dragon Princess is just about to enter its final independent read and edit cycle. The first half of the first draft for the sequel to Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain is written and we need to finish all of it before the end of the year if we expect to make our planned autumn 2012 release.  We’re hoping the next Bobbie Titan eBook will provide a boost for PHS fundraising that the first eBook has just started. We are also reworking a novel that we’ve reworked twice before. We don’t know when we are going to publish it. The subject, language, and situations are more intense than our usual work so it’s taking longer to get it right. Even when we finish it, we’re not sure when the best time would be to let you read it since parts of the story are fairly shocking and nothing we will have published prior to it will prepare our loyal readers for what we’ve done in Promise.

So, needless to say, our next eighteen months are pretty full with producing writing projects we’ve already started. We don’t have time to begin something new right now. Unfortunately, creativity has a mind of its own and an idea about a teenage earth girl and handsome if somewhat bewildered alien won’t leave us alone. Yelling, “Stop it, I’m busy!” to the walls isn’t working. Neither is the fact that Bobbie is in trouble in book two and needs us to figure out how she is going to rescue her new love interest from the other genetically engineered look-alikes. But instead of the visions the Cascade Mountains where Bobbie is currently racing her motorcycle in pursuit of the sequel baddies, our heads are filled with Southern California backcountry orchards and how guacamole might be used as an alternative fuel for a spacecraft built from dark matter.

So, as you can see, it isn’t always sunshine and butterfly marks. Sometimes being crazy can get in the way of our well laid plans. Still, for the sake of our readers we will, as stated in the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, “endeavor to persevere” so you can have something to read from Lynn Evans in the future.

The Reviews Are In!

Some of you have finished reading Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain and some of you have been kind enough to review it. We’re going to share some of the reviews in this week’s post.

A parent, Diane Urbach, wrote: Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain by Lynn Evans is an invigorating and original action packed teen adventure. The authors are able to draw from a wealth of knowledge collected by Traci (aka Lynn of Lynn Evans) as a seasoned guidance counselor with the benefit of over 30 years of insider perspective offering an unprecedented insight into the inner workings of high school teens. The novel is a quirky composition full of empathy and sass. Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain is a gift to parents struggling with taciturn teens and teens dealing with the often tumultuous transition to adulthood.

Diana Gremore wrote her review from Peru: Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain is a great fun and entertaining book for summer reading. Downloading it online was no problem and was easy to read on my summer vacation. Having the book on my computer actually made it easier for me to read, since I spend so much time on the computer anyway. Also, the book transports the reader in to the exciting world of these amazingly cool super-teens, and it wasn't long before I started thinking in terms of "Kain cells" and picturing the super-powered "Barbies" and "Kens." If you have any time for an enjoyable, easy read, I recommend this. 

Our daughter, Laura Worthen, wrote in Goodreads.com: Ok, so I am a little biased on this book, since it was written by my parents and I got to be one of the editors. Still, it's a good book on its own merit (the second favorite for me of all my dad's books). Bobbie Titan was born with a type of cancer that can be eradicated by a treatment that turns kids into modern day superheroes. Her super power is different than everyone else's at the Kane Institute, but it's a good thing because they need her ability to interpret people's past and present to save a government plot gone bad. I'm looking forward to more Bobbie Titan adventures (especially because I personally requested a love story for the next one).

Finally, a former student, Stephanie McCann told us: After reading the book Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain, I felt it had met my expectations of a book. I felt like I was a part of the book, liking the same boys Bobbie did, liking her friends. I enjoyed the action that carried on in the "challenges," also the dangerous action in her being hunted down when she was forced to take off and hide. I only wish the book had been longer, I didn't want it to be over.

Needless to say, we’re tickled by the responses to our novel thus far.

Now for a plea. We’ve sold ten Kindle versions of Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain so far. If you’re one of those who purchased the book on Amazon, we would love it if you could go back on and review our eBook. Since Amazon sells more books than anyone else, it will really help us with our efforts to raise money for Poway High Student Services. Thanks in advance.

Being Interviewed

We had our first joint interview this week. A reporter from the Pomerado News organization (www.pomeradonews.com) talked to us together over the phone. We think it went well. Hopefully next week or the week after you’ll see a story headline like “Charming local couple writes eBook to support high school students” and not something like “Popular high school teacher has been married to troll for thirty-three years.” Lynn, who has some experience at these things, is fairly confident it will be along the lines of the first headline. Evans, who thought the reporter seemed a little too unbelieving when we said that we didn’t argue when we jointly create our novels, fears it might be closer to the second headline.

Lynn is probably right. Unlike Evans, who can’t remember when someone was interested in his opinion when the terms “database,”  “computer,” or “software program” weren’t included in the question, Lynn has lots of experience talking to reporters. Most of the time the subject matter is about an exceptional student she knows or the work she does at Poway High. Occasionally it’s much more sad and serious.  It has been a little over a year since Lynn had to endure a most difficult experience, one she hopes she’ll never have to repeat. These, of course, were the interviews about Chelsea King.

Still, it was different answering questions about writing and our eBook while we could hear each other’s answers. Talking out loud is a little scary. There’s no chance to go back and edit your answers like there is when you write them down and there’s always the fear that the reporter writes down something completely different than what you think you said. Looking back, Evans thinks that his responses might have been overly long and technical. Lynn thinks Evan’s replies showed that he was enthusiastic about the subject matter. Evan hopes she’s right, but has a nagging suspicion that Lynn has to think that way. Otherwise, how could she have stayed married to a troll for so long?

Family Time

This week’s post is being written in a downstairs playroom surrounded by our children and grandchildren. It’s early. Real early! We are in the first full day of a family reunion at Shaver Lake, northeast of Fresno. Our grandsons are ready to have fun and their mom, aunt, and grandparents are trying to keep them entertained so the rest of the folks have a chance to sleep a little more. We don’t like their chances.

We’re on the road again. We started this adventure at Disneyland where we were treated to a wedding of a former pretty little blond neighbor who spent a lot of time growing up in our backyard. She married her longtime girlfriend in a fairytale wedding of two princesses. This is not the time or place to discuss the politics of same-sex unions or debate what words like “wedding” and “marriage” should mean in California. Instead we would like to wish our beautiful Harmony a world full of joy as she and Heather begin their lives together as a couple bonded in love.

The next day we ended up at the Sequoia National Park and saw a lot of very big and old trees. There was a lot of walking and our necks are sore from looking up at the majestic canopies that look like they could tickle the bottom of the clouds. It’s places like this that remind us of our humanity simply because so much of it isn’t manmade.

Then it was down a mountain, make a u-turn, and back up another mountain. The quiet serenity of the sequoias was replaced with a large house near a mountain lake and the joyful noise made by some of the more exuberant members of our family. There is something magical about twenty people traveling from all over the state to sit down at a loud talkative dinner together. We just hope we can remember some of the stories we heard so we can fit them into one of our novels.

So that’s it for now. Nothing earth shattering but living in a world that, for the moment, feels wonderful and heartening. Hopefully some of this will rub off on your world this week and lift your spirits until they float high enough to tickle the clouds.

Web Travels

Writing and publishing a book is like taking a journey with a faulty GPS navigation system. You’ll never sure where you are going to end up.

As all of our faithful 2B Lynn Evans blogites (blogans? blogvilleians?) know, we’ve been working on getting the word out about our eBook, Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain. While we are patiently waiting for you to buy it and/or finish reading it (okay not so patiently in Evans’ case) and to let us know what you think (Especially Gabby, what’s taking so long? You’re killing me! – Steve), we’ve been looking to see where our book has begun travelling across the web. We’re pleased to learn that our protagonist’s unique name and all of your help in buying the eBook gives our “Bobbie Titan” the first four spots in a Google search. Yea! But what is really neat is finding Bobbie in some places we never would have expected.

If you search “Bobbie Titan” and “Poway High School” (use the quotes) you’ll get four Google results. The fourth link is to a page in www.worldhistory.com entitled “Poway High School Research Center.” Under this is a list of books and magazines that relate somehow to Poway High. One of these is Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain because we dedicated the book to kids at PHS. What we really find funny is the caption off to the side that reads, “Historians that have added Poway High School to their favorites list.” Wow! Now we’re historians! Here’s the link if you want to see it for yourself:  http://www.worldhistory.com/research?id=4087

So now we’re going to reread Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything (a great book) in case someone needs a historical reference and think of other weird searches to do on Google. Then we’re going to enjoy the start of our holiday weekend a little early. Happy Fourth of July, everyone!