On Sunday, September 1st from 3 to 5PM, a select group of invitees will have the chance to talk with Eva Fox Mate, eat some snacks, and bring/purchase their copy of Eva’s new book, One Man’s Treasure, for Eva to sign. She’s a fellow Scribbler and a passionate cheerleader of her fellow Scribbler’s writing goals.

When we started the interview for this entry, I asked about her writing process. “There’s something to the write what you know,” she replied, “but there’s also something to write what you like. It just comes much more easily that way.” For example, Eva herself enjoys reading romantic suspense novels, so she started writing one.

Process and craft library

In the case of this novel, Fox Mate wanted to play with a “marriage of convenience” trope. She first put pen to paper years ago and it wasn’t until committing to her writing career fully during COVID lockdown that she was able to return to this story. Although, she admitted, the story had “been back there in the depths of my brain for a long time,” meaning she had been mentally working on the story that whole while.

But there had been no character sheets, because that’s not part of Eva’s process. “I’m not a plotter,” she told me, although she does swear by two books on the craft of writing:

1. Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Deborah Dixon 
   “It’s become a legend.”

2. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
   “Tells you not necessarily what to remove, but what to avoid.”

And besides these two books in her craft library, Eva strongly endorses finding a community of folks “walking down the writing journey as well,” because “that community is vital to success in writing.” At which point, The Scribbling Club came up in our conversation, since Eva attends club meetings in Denver.

The Scribbling Club-sponsored event

Our members are so incredibly thankful to have Eva in the Club, and are beyond excited to celebrate her at her book launch open house event on September 1st. This is the first Scribbling Club-sponsored event of 2024, where invitees can buy/bring their copy of the novel for Eva to sign while enjoying some snacks, the historic home of Titanic survivor Margaret Tobin Brown, and the chance to talk with Eva about writing. There’s more information about that event right here.

Eva’s advice

I mentioned earlier that One Man’s Treasure is a romantic suspense novel, which is true. But. There’s also office romance and friends-to-lovers tropes to revel in, and it’s the beginning of an epic treasure hunt that will carry readers through the trilogy of books.

Given how prolific she has been in such a short amount of time, I was personally pretty eager for her response to my final question in our interview: do you have any advice for writers? Her advice deserves its own paragraph.

“I think the biggest barrier to being a successful writer is your own damn self. I think most of it is that we get in our own way—you can “what if” yourself to death, but just write the damn thing and then you can fix it. That’s really what this whole journey has taught me more than anything else—you have to just write.”

So there you have it—go pre-order your copy of One Man’s Treasure and then,

go write!