Interview Jayme Evans

by

Patricia Scott

1) Who has inspired you most of all in your life to write?

I guess other authors, because there are not any authors in my family. I’ve written stories and made attempts at poetry since I was very young--pre-teen. I started my serious writing when my oldest son flew the nest back in 1992.

2) How did you feel when your first book was accepted?

Oh, there’s no grander feeling. It’s like having your first child and looking down on the little sweet face. When you hold a book in your hand or see it in print on the computer, it’s elating. When you have a fan and they say when is the next one coming, it is a thrill that can’t be described, even with the best author’s words.

3) Who has given you most support amongst your family and friends?

My on-line friends have been the most encouragement. I think my family think I’m weird because I write the weird stuff anyway. Vampire and futuristic romance is practically unheard of in the small town I came from, though starting to grow in popularity by baby steps. I found my niche on the Internet and that just prompted me to keep going.

4) Are you an owl working into the small hours or a lark with an early start?

Owl! I get started and can’t get stopped. Turning off my brain at night is a major task, and getting it going in the morning is just as hard.

5) What sparks you off on a new project? Is it something you read in the news?

I love reading, and many times when I reading, something in the story will kick off my own images in my head. My what-if factor goes up to the top like mercury when I’m deep in anyone’s book.

6) Have you ever written in another romantic genre? Or felt tempted to do so?

I’m published in four romance genre’s now. Romantic suspense with Sinister Knight, historical time-travel with To Sail Through Time and Vampire romance with my Eternity series, Eternity’s Many Loves, Eternity’s Lonely Heart and Eternity’s Sweet Endeavor. To Wish Upon A Star is my first novel length futuristic, that I’ve had published. My first futuristic was a short story, published in Short Stories Magazine and is now available for free to read on my website at www.jaymeevans.com. If you like it, email me at jayme@jaymeevans.com.

7) Do you plot first or take off with a wing and a prayer.

Oh, a wing and a prayer. I have no idea where the story is going until I start writing. I did outlines once or twice and that’s where the stories still are, in outlines. I managed to write thirty or forty pages of one of them, but that’s as far as I got.

8) Who are your favorite authors? And whom do you admire most of all?

I am most amazed by J. K. Rowling and her Harry Potter series. The depth and imagination of her books is phenomenal. I have other authors that I read, of course, but J. K. Rowling has to be my all time favorite, now.

9) How do you manage to juggle your writing with chores as most of us do?

It’s not very easy for sure. I have multiple hats that I wear and fitting in quiet time for writing is really difficult nowadays. I’m a graphic artist, web admin and grandma. Since I now live with my son, grandma takes a front row, because I’m babysitting with his two children a lot. My grandson loves sitting over my shoulder and watching me do my artwork, though.

10) If needed do you research a great deal? And enjoy it?

Research is always fun, especially when I went to New Orleans to research my historical time-travel, To Sail Through Time and the Barataria pirates with Jean Lafitte. There was some research involved in my Eternity series, especially when I did the vampire hero’s back life story. Now, I hardly do research, because my worlds are all in my head and in computer files.

11) How do you combat the feeling that the writing muse has left you?

I went through a time when I couldn’t write at all. I’m not sure what it was, except maybe editing burnout. I’d been an editor and senior editor once and sitting for hours in someone else’s story, doing fine-tooth examination just somehow messed up my own creativity. It’s not something I can really explain, but I’m back, writing when I can grab snippets of free time.

12) If asked what helpful advice would you give a new writer?

Well, this sounds so cliché, but write, write, write. If you don’t write, you’ll lose the edge and you’ll have to pick up and start over with each writing session, just to get back in the swing of your story. I have four more books to finish in my To Wish futuristic series and I have four more vampire romance stories on the back burner, in addition to eighteen or so short works in progress that can be developed into books, if I can ever find the time. Time is the hardest thing for me right now. There aren’t enough hours in a day to do everything I want to do.

In other words, with all this, get the stories in your head down on paper or into your computer files. You might have to renew your mind to any of them and get the juices flowing, but they won’t go away forever, if you can bring them up in your computer or flip through papers. Most of all, never give up. You can learn the trade and become an author. I did!