Interview of Jayme Evans

by

Bonnie Napoli

Jayme, first tell us a little about your present book.

My present book, that is coming out in November, is a romantic suspense. It is the story of a small town girl, Kara Angel, with an ordinary lifestyle who has her life turned completely up-side-down when she meets rich, handsome Mario de Marco. She would have liked to meet him under normal circumstances, but he kidnaps her. Her biggest dilemma is if he a criminal or not. We don't find out this until the end of the story.

What inspired you to write this particular story, such as specific events that may have sparked your telling of it?

At the particular time in my life that I started Sinister Knight, I loved to read Harlequin Intrigues and I thought I could write one. I started this story many years ago and decided to pick it up and finish it when my oldest son left for college and I had time on my hands for a change. After a writer friend of mine read the first chapter and I knew then that it needed major work, I decided to take the Writer's Digest Novel Writing Workshops. It took me several years to polish the story and make it right, even though I finished it back in 1992.

Whom would you choose to play the lead roles if your book were to be made into a movie?

Antonio Banderas with his wonderful Spanish accent would make a great Mario de Marco. I think maybe a red-haired Helen Hunt would make a good Kara Angel.

Do you have a special photo, music, or saying that will inspire you when you find you need something to get those creative juices flowing?

Not really a photo, music or saying, but when I read from my favorite authors and have my imagination challenged then I want to put my own stories in the computer. I don't have time to put all my ideas down. There isn't enough time in the day to finished all the books that I have started.

Is there something in your life that will absolutely stop those creative juices?

Well, some of the unpleasant aspects of 'real life' can stop me. I used to write to get away from 'real life', but somehow that just doesn't work as well as it used to.

Are you a "plotter" or a "pantser?" Do you have the whole book outlined, plotted step by step start to finish before you begin. Or do you just write by the seat of your pants?

Definitely, I'm a pantser. I don't know where my story is going when I start. The scenes just flow as they will. I don't have any idea what to put down as beginning, middle or end until I'm involved with my characters and figure out the 'what if?' that might twist the story or take the character into a different pattern. I'm not organized enough to plan a story from beginning to end.

Now, as an author, I am interested in you as a writer. But as a reader, I am more interested in you as a real person. So, I would like to ask you some non-writing questions.

If you could be anything other than a writer, what would you most desire to be? Now this doesn't have to be your present occupation, though you may love it. More like a secret wish, an opera singer, a spelunker.

Actually, I've worked in the 'outside' world just about all my life. I have an obsolete BS degree in data processing technology and I'm a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer with no good experience. If I could have kept up with the ever changing computer world, I would have liked to have excelled in it, but I'm much too old to keep up now. Actually, I'm doing what I love best now. Writing, editing and art.

Whom, alive today, would you love most to meet and why? Which historical figure would you love to meet. And when I say meet, I don't mean a simple how-do. You have a few hours here.

The clincher on that is 'alive today'. Hum...that is difficult. I have met my favorite actor, and I would like to meet him again on a one-on-one basis. He's Geraint Wynn Davis, who is a Canadian actor and few Americans know him. Nevertheless, I would like to sit down, talk with him, meet his wife, kids. I think he is a wonderful example, in spite of his career as an actor, who shows how much he cares for his fans and how much he cares for his family, too.

If you could suddenly turn yourself into a non-human living creature, which would it be and why?

Non human living? What about un-dead? Like Angel? Does that count? If a vampire had a good God-fearing soul and a good heart (contrary to most vampire fiction), then I would like to be one. The idea of living a very long life is appealing, if you can live it the way you want to and be beneficial to the people around you. The thought of experiencing History and then reading about it is even more appealing. Even at my age, when putting man's first step on the moon, JFK's death, the Beatles and Elvis as history, there is a tug that says...I remember that. I was here on that day or there when that happened.

As a reader, do you have any pet peeves?

Well, I didn't used to have as many until I became an editor. Many times when I read someone else's stories, the bad grammar just jumps out at me. Or even more, if the story is a romance and the characters have no morals. I write romance, but I'm of the old school (that's called old-fashioned) and I like a woman who doesn't hop into bed until she has a wedding ring on her finger and a man who respects that attitude. I don't think abstinence is a bad word. Does that make me too goody-goody? Maybe, but I liked when women could be virtuous and men could be chivalrous. That's doesn't mean that sparks can't fly when they are together, but that means they are in control of themselves. In Sinister Knight, my hero doesn't come across as a chivalrous knight at first, but my heroine will eventually find out better. But that's telling, isn't it? I hope everyone likes the story.