E.B. Roshan's Blog: This, That and the Other, page 25

Dreaming up Sevia (Romance)

I have a confession to make–I’m not a huge fan of romance novels. Often, the story lines seem formulaic, and the characters are either idealized out of reality or so tormented it’s doubtful they’ll ever be happy, even after they’ve found the Perfect One. That, perhaps, is where my biggest problem with the romance genre lies. Because in real life, there is no Perfect One. Unless you’re already married, and then you’ve got him, (or her) for better or worse. Sometimes much worse.

When I wrote “Wrong Place, Right Time,” I tried to create a love story that felt genuine, with characters who are appealing and relatable, who choose to work towards mutual happiness despite their own flaws. I wrote the kind of love story I’d want to read. Boris is angry and Anna is anxious, but they don’t give up on themselves or each other. Though at the end of the book they are still facing difficult circumstances–separation from family, job loss, and war, (not to mention a risky ride home,) they’ve found they are stronger and better off together.

Dreaming up Sevia (Self-Publishing)

As I thought about what I wanted to do with my novels once they were done, inevitably I had to decide whether I wanted to submit them to a traditional publishing company, or try my hand at self-publishing. From the beginning, the latter option seemed much more appealing, but I wanted to do it right.

After some research, I found Draft2Digital.com, a high-quality, free service that creates beautiful ebooks and automatically publishes them to Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Kobo, and other popular online bookstores.

Aside from a hiccup or two with the formatting, which is more likely due to my lack of expertise than any problem with their file conversion system, I was delighted with the result, and I hope to continue using Draft2Digital to create all the future novels in the Shards of Sevia series. What a great tool for independent authors!

Dreaming up Sevia (Encouragement)

I never planned to write a novel, let alone a series. But a single short story grew to two, then four. Then I tried a short novel, which was a failure in itself, but provided the inspiration for two more, one just published, one coming soon.

Writing is a somewhat solitary activity, but it doesn’t have to be. If I didn’t know there were people out there waiting to read and critique the latest installment of my stories, I wouldn’t be motivated to write at all. If it wasn’t for the encouragement, support and advice from fellow faith-based writers at https://christianwriters.com/ (go check them out) I would never have gone past that initial short story. The world of Sevia and all the people you’re about to meet would never have come to be.

Dreaming up Sevia (Differences)

To create the backstory for the conflict that's one of the major themes in this series, I speculated, as creative writers love to do.
What if...a Genghis Khan-type warlord carried his conquest far out of Central Asia and into Southeastern Europe? What if he and his descendants ruled the Slavic people there for a few generations and then, after his empire was overthrown, the conquerors faded into legend?
Except they didn't disappear without a trace. They left this obscure corner of a forgotten empire with a legacy of a non-Slavic language and traditions, and descendants with hints of Central Asia rather than Europe in their physical features. These are the people now known as the Tur. They remain at odds with the Slavic "Sevian" majority to this day.

Dreaming up Sevia (Yes and No)

Is Sevia a real place? Several early readers thought so. The simple answer is, “No.” However, like most simple answers, that’s a bit too simple.
While there is no little nation of Sevia in Southeastern Europe, I was inspired to start writing about Sevia because of my own years spent in some of our real world’s most troubled places. Yes, the ethnic conflict that occurs in these stories is fictional, but similar scenarios are tragic reality for millions of people around the world.
I chose to create my own setting when writing these stories for two reasons–one, because I enjoyed the challenge of creating a whole world from scratch, but mainly because some of the recurring themes in these stories, like war and racial hatred, are problems faced by people of nearly every language, nation, and faith in the world today. I chose not to entangle my stories with real-world politics or actual conflicts because I wanted them to be able to speak to any reader.