EVELYN MARSH
In June I wrote a blog entry regarding Evelyn Marsh.Let me tell you a little about Evelyn. The concept arose a couple of years ago when my wife and I were vacationing in Santa Barbara. I was getting toward the end of writing Time Management: a novel. I said I’d kind of like to write a mystery, but I’ve neither been a policeman nor a private detective. I’d have to take a different tack. Furthermore, I wanted to show how thin the veneer of civilization is when your loved ones are threatened. What would turn a mild-mannered woman of privileged means into a cold-blooded murderer? I suspect we all have the capacity to commit murder, given the right circumstances.
I put the idea of Evelyn on the back burner as I finished and worked on marketing Time Management. With Artistic License, and Time Management, each took more than three years to write (many more, if you count false starts), and were both around 130,000 words (370 – 400 pages, depending on the font, etc.). That’s a long time to live with the same characters and story. I thought it would be a fun exercise to attempt a novella instead, to see if I was capable of writing at a faster pace. I planned to write 51,000 words, which, at 300 words per page, works out to 170 pages. I began planning on February 1st, 2016, started writing on April 1st, and was finished on September 1st. It came in at 51,161 words, right on target. So as an exercise it was entirely successful.
It’s probably not a good business model to write in different genres, because your readers may not follow where you choose to lead. With Artistic License is my take on a Romantic Comedy, which may or may not appeal to fans of Time Management, a time travel fantasy. Evelyn Marsh is, I suppose, a psychological thriller. A blurb for Evelyn Marsh might read something like this: “Everyone agreed Evelyn wouldn’t hurt a fly, but they didn’t count on a mother’s ferocity, nor the fury of a woman scorned.”
Written in the spirit of Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train; The Talented Mr. Ripley), Evelyn Marsh begins with the provocative statement that “Evelyn’s first murder was an accident.” It’s only a mystery in the sense that the rest of the book exists to explain the implication embedded in the first line. It’s a why-done-it and how-done-it, instead of a who-done-it. I don’t know if it will appeal to fans of With Artistic License, or Time Management, but Evelyn demanded I write her story, and I couldn’t very well refuse.
I really enjoyed my time with her. I had an outline to point me in the general direction, but most days Evelyn presented a nice surprise I hadn’t counted on. I feel privileged to be allowed to tell her story. I hope you enjoy your time with her as well.
I decided to submit Evelyn Marsh to the Kindle Scout program (www.kindlescout.com), where authors have ONE MONTH to present excerpts of unpublished works, and readers vote on which books they’d like to see published. The advantage of the program for authors is that books that are selected receive promotion on Amazon.com, which means thousands of readers. My campaign runs through October 17th. I hope you’ll pay it a visit and register your vote. In any case, whether selected by Kindle Scout or not, the ebook version of Evelyn Marsh should be published around December 1st.
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