About Elizabeth Lavender:
I’m the author of the Sunspear series. The first book in the sci-fi series is called The Spinning of Deception, the second book is Deception's Hold, and the third book is Shadowed Bonds. I'm currently working on the next book in the series. Originally from the Alabama coast, I currently live in the Dallas area with my husband and my two children. I have a Master’s degree in counseling, a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and a minor in English. I enjoy science fiction and fantasy and hope to bring that same enjoyment to others. I also enjoy suspense novels. However, as long as the storyline is intriguing, I’ll give other genres a try. My reading spans from Les Miserables to Shakespeare to the Percy Jackson series to anything written by Ted Dekker or Frank Peretti. I work full-time and have been at the same company for over twenty years happily. I’m a huge football fan and have a decent throwing arm, despite what my oldest son says when he practices throwing the football with me. Although I enjoy Texas, I love going home to Alabama to visit. Besides visiting family and friends, it’s nice to be back near the water again and enjoy the amazing seafood.
What inspires you to write?
Ultimately, the story itself inspires the writing. Certainly, other fantasy and sci-fi works and characters have inspired the series. Others around me encourage me to keep writing. But when everything else is stripped away, the only answer remaining is the story itself. There's a point where this world formed inside my head, these characters became living and breathing in it, and they begged for their story to be told. So I have and I continue to tell their story. When you have the story in you, you can't not tell it. I love sharing the story and there's no greater joy than when a reader falls in love with the story as much as I have. In that sense, the reader inspires me to continue to write as well.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
I have several and the list keeps growing. I’ve always been a fan of Tolkien's work including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Series. The earliest fantasy series that I fell in love with was The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, and I still enjoy going back to that series. I’m also a big fan of the works of Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, with the concept of this whole other unseen battlefield that comes into play in their stories. Then I adore Victor Hugo's work, Les Misérables and his character Jean Valjean. Another favorite has always been Alexandre Dumas' story The Count of Monte Cristo and his character Edmond Dantes. Honestly, when I read most of the time, I tend more towards indie authors. Favorites among those are Helen Garraway, Christopher Russell, Jacque Stevens, Cami Murdock Jensen, and Cully Mack.
Tell us about your writing process.
I just write the story first. I don’t stop to edit or revise until I have the complete story for that part of the journey. I let the story flow, stay inside my world and my characters’ heads and hearts, and allow them to direct the writing. Once the story is down, then the editing/revising begins. I definitely lean more on the side of the seat of the pants writer. I've been in my characters heads for so long, I know what they would say and do. The storyline itself is already written in my head and in some cases whole scenes already. However, that’s not because I have this formal outline. I don’t think I could write like that. It would be too confining. I know how the story will end and what the final showdown looks like. I also know what events that need to take place and conversations/information that needs to be revealed in order to reach that decisive battleground. I have events from the first book, second book, etc that will only make sense once the reader gets the whole "picture" in the final book of the series. So that’s as close as I get in the neighborhood of plotting a course.
As far as my characters, the Sunspear Series is my first work. The overall story started forming in my head and the two main characters took shape. The two main characters came easily just as with the storyline. The other characters I naturally built around them and the plot. In a sense, it felt like they created themselves. If I was doing it again with another series, I don’t know if that’s how it would work itself out. For this one though, the characters seem to find their own way.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I listen to my characters. I let them direct the writing. I stay inside their world, their minds, their hearts, and spirits. I struggle with them and feel their brokenness, but also their victories. I watch them shattered, but then find the strength to rise up again to meet the next battlefield placed before them. And yes, I've shed tears with them when the toil of it threatened to overwhelm them, when victory wasn't how they envisioned at the end of the day. I always listen to them though, because it's their story I'm telling.
What advice would you give other writers?
Just write the story that’s in you. The passion for your world and your characters will come through on its own. Have readers fall in love with your world and your characters as much as you have. Don’t let anyone discourage you. Surround yourself with people that will keep encouraging you to keep the journey going. You never know if your story is what someone needed to hear.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I researched both avenues extensively enough to be satisfied I was making the right decision for me. It's a personal decision for sure. There were several reasons I came on the side of self-publishing for me. First, I already had the story written (the first book), and then I started checking into publishing. With traditional publishing, I would probably be looking at going through a pile of rejections for some length of time before I got a taker. Also, the pattern I picked up on is they wanted the author to already have a following before they published which didn't make sense to me. Or at least it would increase my chance of being picked up by a publisher/agent. This was my first book, so I had no following. It also came down to I wasn't willing to wait for two years to pass before I finally got that agent willing to take my book on and then another year before it was published. Of course, maybe it wouldn't have been that long. The reality was I had the first trek of the story done, and I wanted to share it. In my mind I had waited long enough to do so. The other part was as I listened to the publishers/agents it sounded like I was still expected to do a fair amount of marketing, so if had to anyway, why not just self-publish? So that was another factor. The other was a logistics thing with my situation. I work fulltime as a counselor during the day. All the book stuff (writing/editing/marketing, etc) would have to be done on my schedule. I had to be able to make my own deadlines, not one imposed by an outside source. I couldn't guarantee I could write every night or have a chapter done in a couple of days or revisions finished by this date. So ultimately, that's what really sealed it. I wanted that control, and I had to have it in order to write my series. Like I said, for someone else publishing with a publisher would be the better option. For me, I felt like self-publishing was the best option for me. I publish through Amazon and Ingram. Amazon has a huge chuck of the market, so that was an easy decision for me. Ingram is the supplier for a majority of the brick and mortar bookstores, like Barnes and Noble, so I also make sure my books are published through Ingram as well. I have researched going wide rather than exclusively Amazon, but I just haven't gotten there yet.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think it will continue to expand. I have no reason to believe otherwise. People see enough of reality each day. They long to escape for a little while out of the normal. That could be time with their family, catching a movie, or curling up with a book in this case. Everyone likes being told a story in some form. The attraction of it will never cease, and there's no end to the creative flames of all the various storytellers out there. There will be stories to tell, to be written, and those willing to listen to them, read them. The ways we find to do it may change over time, but we'll adapt because we need our stories. They inspire us, and in many ways, they are a reflection of our reality.
What genres do you write?: Sci-fi/Fantasy, YA
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Elizabeth Lavender Home Page Link
Link To Elizabeth Lavender Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
