A Fantastic Liberation

As our loyal readers know, Lynn Evans isn’t afraid of the fantastic. Even when we are touching on subjects of the heart, like we did in The Valentine’s Game, or are diving into teenage angst, like in the Bobbie Titan novels, we love stretching the story past the everyday into the whimsical realms of our imaginations. But in these obviously fictional stories, we tried to keep it “feeling real.” Even when we describe some event that is clearly beyond the boundaries of what is possible, we want the reader to come away feeling like it could happen that way.

In our latest novel, The Dragon Princess, we freed ourselves from even this last modest constraint and have allowed our imaginations to run wild. This time we want the reader to go somewhere they’ve never been, to experience wonders that are only real inside our dreams, and meet characters they can’t meet anywhere else. When you finish reading The Dragon Princess, we want you to feel like you’ve escaped mundane reality and have soared, at least briefly, beyond what you could have imagined.

Inventing a world wholly within our minds was an immensely liberating experience. It is amazing where a story can take you when the only limitation is what you can think up. We wanted a place where even earthly prejudices could take flight, literally. We wanted a place where nobility was earned, beauty was unquestionably in the eye of the beholder, and where the unexpected was common place. If our advanced readers are to be believed, we just might have accomplished it.

We have finished updating the story based on the comments we received, and the novel is in the hands of our editor. With a little luck and a little more effort, this spring you should be able to find out how well we can imagine somewhere you’ve never been before.

Happy New Year

Like everyone else, this is the time of year when we like to look back on what has happened in hopes that it might guide us in the new year.

A year ago we were planning on attending two writers’ conferences; the first in San Diego and the second in San Francisco three weeks later. We learned a lot at both but the biggest takeaway was that the traditional publishing world is nearly paralyzed due to the digital revolution. Agents and editors who can barely use email were lost on where eBooks were going to take them and most of them were in denial on how much of their lunch Amazon was going to eat. We dutifully followed up with letters introducing ourselves and our work but were convinced by spring that, since we hadn’t slept with anyone famous or were related to a failed vice presidential candidate, it was going to take years to get noticed by the trade press and years more to get anything out of their cumbersome and outdated process. By Saint Patrick’s Day we had decided to be independent.

Our collaboration blog launched shortly after that. We introduced Lynn Evans on the last weekend in March and tried, mostly successfully, to put out a post every week. While initially designed to help us 

connect to people who would want to read our eBooks, the blog soon had a life of its own that encompassed more than our shared struggles to develop, produce, publish, sell, and distribute our stories. We decided early that it was better to write about what was on our minds than trying to limit the virtual discussion to just stuff about collaborating. So, even though we posted about the trials of writing and editing, we also tried to show how living our daily lives influenced what did and did not make it into our work. Along the way we learned that if we included pictures of people kissing or bikini clad rear ends, our anonymous Google hits increased. We ended the year by acting as journalists and covering another independent author who found our blog while looking for places to announce her own recently completed eBook.

Our favorite part of the year was doing the thing that got us started in the first place – writing stories. At the start of the year we had four draft novels. When we decided that we wanted to help support Poway High Student Services, we poured all of our creative energies into finishing our young adult paranormal adventure, Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain, the proceeds from which we are donating to the school. We worked hard and dutifully adhered to everything we learned to make our eBook a professional product as well as a great read. We were delighted and full of nervous anticipation when we announced in late June that it was available for download. It’s hard to describe how anxious we were while we waited for people to read it or how giddy we felt when the reviews were good. This was followed in the first week of October with our second eBook, The Valentine’s Game. The first reactions to our hybrid chic-lit novel have been very encouraging and we are looking forward to reading full reviews as the folks who bought the eBook over the holidays have the chance to finish it and write down what they thought. In between these two momentous achievements came the sad realization that one of our novels just didn’t meet the high standards we hold ourselves to. We decided not to pursue Promise any further after we failed to get our advanced readers to fall in love with the story. It was a hard decision, but, even though there wasn’t anyone telling us we had to stop, we are absolutely committed to only publishing eBooks we’re sure are worth the readers’ time and effort.

Looking forward, we are planning on using everything we learned last year while we finish our fantasy novel, The Dragon Princess. We’ve just started incorporating the readers’ comments and completing our final edit before handing it over to our professional editor. We’re still on track for a spring release. We were pleasantly surprised when we finished the first draft of the Bobbie Titan sequel a couple of days before New Year’s. We know that there is a lot of work to do before we get it out in the fall, but we’re anxious to learn if our advanced readers think Bobbie’s next adventures are as wild as we do. And, yes, Bobbie is going to fall in love, but like everything else in her life, it’s not going to be a typical teenage romance.

2011 was a good year for us and 2012 looks to be even better. We hope you’ll join us and find out if that’s true.

Viva Independence

A couple of summers back we went to the Midwest to watch baseball and to drive around a part of the country we’d never seen. While there, we unexpectedly fell in love with Chicago. We still find it amazing that a couple of California suburbanites could harbor such affection for America’s Second City, but we found Chicago’s sassy self-reliance and stubborn Midwestern charm irresistible. Last month we virtually met a Chicago independent author whose personality reflects the city where she lives. Elizabeth Marx’s undeniable charm and her robust wit won us over completely. Straightforward while also self-effacing, Elizabeth has an ability to enliven her novels with unforgettable characters, no doubt due to the fact that she is one herself.

Elizabeth discovered our blog when she was looking to promote her novel, Binding Arbitration, which is a story about a major league pitcher and a powerhouse lawyer who have a past they must come to terms with for the sake of a child. Swapping emails, we found more in common than just baseball and the law, so we agreed to read and review each other’s “chick lit” novels. Elizabeth also proposed that we conduct a virtual interview of her for our blog. We were more than happy to oblige since we’d never done anything like that before.

The interview and the emails before and after left us with the impression that Elizabeth is as funny as she is hard charging. We’re sure her two daughters must complain regularly about the embarrassment their mother puts them through but we would also bet that the Marx house is where all the school kids stop by because there is always something entertaining going on. We also wouldn’t be surprised if Elizabeth’s husband has a difficult time getting party guests to leave once she gets on a roll. This take-no-prisoners approach to life, love, and humor is the essence of Binding Arbitration and we figure with her novel, the apple that didn’t fall from her personality tree.

We’ve posted the interview with Elizabeth at http://www.2blynnevans.com/Interviews.html.  At the bottom, you’ll also find our full review of Binding Arbitration. It can be read on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, which is where Elizabeth was kind enough to post her opinions of The Valentine’s Game. Elizabeth has also offered to provide a free copy of the prequel to Binding Arbitration called Cutters vs. Jocks and you can collect your e-copy at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/103123. The novella is about a small town girl versus a big man on campus. Love at first sight versus lust you can’t fight. Can anyone win when you don’t play your heart out? 

When we became Lynn Evans, it was with the idea of creating the kind of books we liked to read. We never guessed that such an endeavor would lead us into crossing virtual paths with a lively independent soul from Chicago whose thirst for life is only exceeded by her desire to write it all down. Now that we’ve met Elizabeth Marx, we are really glad that we did.

Words

Lynn sent around an email she received about funny auto correct mishaps. (They are all over on the web, just Google “auto correct mishaps.”) When we quit laughing it got us thinking about words.

 

Our second grandson is a couple of months past his first birthday and is just now starting to make sounds his grandparents can recognize (Mama, Dada, and uh-oh). Not that he needs many words. He knows where we keep the cookies in the cupboard and, now that he’s fully mobile, there no need to ask if he can have some. Just grab and go (he takes after his granddad.) And when he smiles and raises his arms there isn’t a human alive who wouldn’t pick him up for a cuddle. With Aaron, sometimes words just get in the way.

His brother is three years and a month older but the vocabulary difference is astounding. Ethan already has a dictionary worth of words at his disposal and he seems to add more every minute. There is always something new to describe in Ethan’s world. While we struggle to declare an original thought, everyday there is a new four-year-old wonder and new words to describe it. We yearn for a mind that flexible and expansive.

After the holidays, we will sit down for the final edit of our third novel, The Dragon Princess. As it stands now, we’ve used close to 80,000 words to build a fantasy world full of people and places that can only be found in our imaginations. And even with all the words we have at our disposal, we will spend hours and days adding, removing, or rearranging no more than a thousand just to make sure our story is as readable as it can be. Like all the authors before us, we’ve found it isn’t just the number of words you have but how you meld them together that makes the difference. But we love the challenge. That’s why we write, rewrite and edit. And it’s why we really think it wise to have two sets of eyes to make sure what’s written is what we meant. We really do not want to end up on the “I can’t believe that’s in a book” Google search.

This and That

In keeping with the season, we’re providing a cornucopia of ideas.

We’ve received another review for the first BobbieTitan book and it might be our favorite. Sharon Struck wrote:

The e-book, "Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain" was a fun adventure and a great mystery.  The characters in BT were believable and interesting.  As an adult, I was concerned it might be juvenile, but on the contrary, it was very entertaining with the perfect blend of adult and teen themes.  I think of myself as having somewhat of a short attention span so I only read books that grab me quick and this story did exactly that.  I highly recommend "Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain" to readers of all ages. 

It has been another tough couple of weeks at Poway High. Another student has “shuffle[d] off this mortal coil.” That’s the fifth in two years and it’s really taking its toll on the students, faculty, and staff at PHS. We find it’s also snaking its way into our writing. We’re working on another Bobbie Titan novel and some parts are darker than we anticipated. It’s not gothic or anything but Bobbie is older in this book and teenagers today have to deal with issues unimagined in our generation. So even though Bobbie-2 is fiction in the extreme, it feels right to include some burdens faced by the real life teenagers we know.

We’re feeling kind of important in the world of independent authors this week. A writer trolling through the web came across our blog and requested that we review her latest work and offered herself up for an author interview. It went straight to our heads! So now we are reading Binding Arbitration by Elizabeth Marks. We’ll let you know what we think, both of the writer and her work. If you can’t wait that long, here’s the link to her Smashwords page and this is the Amazon  Binding Arbitration link. And in case you were wondering: it wasn’t the kissing pictures that lured Elizabeth into our lair, it was baseball! She thought it was cool that Lynn is on a quest to see all the major league stadiums. Guess it takes all kinds!

We’re still waiting for our first review for The Valentine’s Game. Some of our loyal followers must have had the chance to finish it by now. Come on, tell us what you think! Good or bad, we can take it.

Lynn's Worth

We guess it’s a good thing to step back once in awhile to take stock and to think about where you’ve been, but it can make you uncomfortable.

Before we were Lynn Evans, Steve wrote a couple of novels for Traci as Christmas presents. Like Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain, they involved young people with super human capabilities. While thinking about what adventures Bobbie might have in book two and who she might encounter, Evans reread some of these early efforts in order to mine them for ideas. It was a humbling experience.

There are flashes of brilliance in Steve’s first novels, but much of the work is undisciplined and careless; at times even clumsy. Evans was so amazed at the low-quality of the work that he reread The Mark of Kain just to reassure himself that none of Steve’s written awkwardness had been transferred to their collaboration. When Evans was through and had reassured himself that their story was as tight, faced-paced, and professional as he remembered, his immediate thought was thank goodness for Lynn.

For every flight of fancy Evans imagines, Lynn is there to enforce the discipline of necessity. Lynn is the one who ensures the story stays on the straight-and-narrow. She’s the one who ensures we absorb the comments from our advanced readers, works with the professional editor to polish the work, and makes Evans wait at least four months before the final editing to ensure perspective is maintained. All of these and her true love of a good story well told make the difference between stumbling over uneven prose and racing through a well told narrative.

Traci still loves her Christmas novels but she doesn’t let Lynn read them. The poor construction would ruin the magic. Instead Lynn makes Evans toe the line in between his wild imaginary escapades on their current efforts. Evans likes to complain that Lynnn is a tyrant, but he really doesn’t mind. He knows that when she’s through the results will be something worth reading over and over again.

Pucker Up For Poway High

This week it’s time for a reminder. We are still trying to raise money for the Poway High School Student Services Office. The way we are attempting to do this is through the sale of our eBooks. We’re hoping that providing you with a few hours of enjoyment through reading will make you feel happy to have donated to a worthy cause that does so much to help teenagers navigate the sometime rough waters of growing up in this ever-changing world.

We’re donating all the proceeds from our young adult adventure story, Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain. At either lynnevansbooks.com or le-kain.com, you can read a detailed description about the book and reviews by teenagers and adults. If you like fast paced young adult fiction, we’re sure you’ll like Bobbie’s adventures along the Columbia River in Oregon.

If you just can’t bring yourself to read YA, then how about a quirky romance?  Our other eBook is The Valentine’s Game and it’s all about how a group of 20-somethings compete for true love in games created by Cupid. If you like Sandra Bullock movies, you’ll love reading The Valentine’s Game. And, to show we are serious in our efforts to raise money for PHS, all sales from now until Valentine’s Day, 2012, will also be donated to the Student Services Office. So if you haven’t downloaded Bobbie Titan in the Mark of Kain, or even if you have, now is a great time to go to lynnevansbooks.com and choose one of the conveniently supplied links to purchase The Valentine’s Game.

If you have already purchased one or both of the eBooks, you can still help us. We are always in need of book reviews, especially at public e-locations like Amazon. So, if you have Bobbie or V-Game, we would love for you to read it and let us and the world know what you think. If you purchased the eBook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iTunes, please go back and submit a review. If you got the eBook from our sales site, send us an email about what you think and we’ll be sure to post it on our websites. Your opinions might just help someone else decide to get a copy and every sale goes a little further toward keeping a vital program funded during these tough economic times.

By now we’re sure you’re wondering why the pictures in this week’s post don’t really match our words. Well, the fact is that we get a lot more anonymous hits from Google when we include pictures of kissing . We’d love it if just our wit and wisdom drew visitors to our site, but the world just doesn’t work that way. So, with the hope that a few wandering internet eyes might learn about our efforts and help us to raise funds through storytelling, we’ve sprinkled a few salacious images in with this week’s plea. Just doing our part for old Poway High.