Aviva Brueckner and Karen Borg are a writing team who have recently published the first book of the Sverland Sagas online.  They have stopped by to tell us about it and invite us to read Tears of Ash.

LB    First of all could you tell the visitors to the site a little about yourselves by way of an introduction?

AB:   I am a full-time dreamer, literature lover, artist, studied  jurist and physical therapist, football fanatic, still hunter for the one big love, city girl, Potterholicer, insufferable know-it-all, shy like a fawn, hobby alchemist, … – in short, I am predestined to write books. I have way too many interests to fit in one life only so I  need to create many characters to live them for me.

KB:  I have been a literature nerd my whole life. I can get completely lost in a good book. Being quite shy, I have lived a lot of my life through books and the imagination they gave me. I now find myself at a wonderful time of life where my child is raised, my nest is empty, I don't need to work and I can turn my attention back to my first loves: literature, art, history, music and writing. I'm too full of information that is useless to the business world not to be a fiction writer!

LB  Tears of Ash is the first book of the Sverland Sagas, could you tell us a little about what the book is about for readers who have not had a chance to read it as yet?

Tears of Ash is a fantasy novel created for all ages and readable on different levels. Our heroine Odina is selected to study at the Parsifal Institute of Magi on the hidden island of Sverland in the North Atlantic Ocean. There she learns about her special abilities inherited from her Nymph ancestors who gave her a bracelet at birth. The amber stone in this bracelet allows her to enter a primeval glade dominated by a majestic Ash tree. This Ash, which connects the human world to the eight other worlds on the World Tree, is withering. Odina can feel its distress in the glade and is determined to help. She is joined by a widening circle of friends to search for a way to save the Ash tree, so that those with Magi blood will not be forced to leave earth for their ancestral worlds.

LB  Tears of Ash is a book with a strong fantasy theme in it. Which mythological stories, legends and tales inspired you the most?

AB:  I am German. Karen’s ancestors immigrated from Scandinavia to the USA. So it came natural to us to use Norse mythology in our books. Other than Celtic, Greek or Roman mythology the Norse mythology is rather unknown in the USA. We want to change this. But we didn’t stop at that. We also use tales and myths of the Baltic that are even less known to the wider audience.

KB:  We have been fascinated in our research of Norse Mythology at how so many ancient themes and belief systems echo through and grow from each other. It has been easy to trace down the stem of Yggdrasil and find Greek Nature Spirits or go along a branch and find Celtic stories intertwining. So we are drawing on and weaving in from many sources. Some will be very familiar to our readers, some will be easily figured out, and we hope our readers will be curious about the rest.

Another thing we have drawn upon is historical events and the stories that grow up around them. That angle has proved to be a lot of fun for us to research and use too.

AB: That’s not all of our sources. But we want our readers to dive into the story and discover layer after layer for themselves.

LB  How many books do you currently have planned for the series and can you tell us a bit about what is coming up, the direction you would like the series to go in, and what you are currently working on?

AB: The normal term in a higher school is seven years. Therefore, we planned seven books so far. But once in a while we get sidetracked by the story of another character we just touch briefly in the books planned so far. We then think s/he would deserve her/ his own book. We will wait and see – not patiently, as this isn’t one of our strengths.

KB: Yes, twice we have had to remind each other that we are telling Odina's story here. Certain characters just jump up and we are intrigued and wish to follow them further. So we already have an idea for a book that uses the same world, but happened centuries before Odina.

Tears of Ash is the first book in our Sverland Sagas series. It introduces our world, our magic, and our series heroine, Odina as a child. As Odina learns and grows, more of the world and its conflict with the current evil is revealed and she and her friends must deal with keeping balance among the Nine Worlds. Throughout each of the seven books, a major theme in Norse and Teutonic Mythology will be played out.

LB  How do you organise working together, what do you each feel you bring to the project?

AB: Karen and I so far never met in person as we live on two continents seven time zones apart. We haven’t even talked to each other yet. We carry out our work via email. Therefore organisation is vital.

We planned out the series. We discovered the history of our heroes and the Knightly Order. Then we made a chapter by chapter outline for the first book. That was a process of emails sent back and forth. Some characters tend to talk more to Karen, some like to chatter more with me.

When it comes to the writing I usually start and Karen adds her ideas. But that is not an iron-clad rule. She also revises the language as I am no native speaker. The illustrations are my task again. And right now we are in our marketing crash curse. This book series is our lives’ big adventure.

KB: We are continually amazed at how well this arrangement has worked out. We seem to be just enough the same, and just enough different to work well together, but still add a lot to the mix.

The first gem of the idea was Aviva's. So after we agreed on our source material we started researching to see how to apply it to the world we were building. We kept emailing our discoveries and suggestions back and forth. Aviva had the inspiration and came up with a chapter by chapter outline of what needed to happen to our character to follow our myth arc. Then I had the inspiration of how to start us off and surprised her with the Prologue. This got her writing the first chapters, and as she sent them to me, I would get all kinds of ideas to build into them. My ideas would give her ideas, or she might have a better refinement of my original thoughts. And so we just keep tossing sections of text back and forth until we are both happy with them.

LB  How do you deal with any disputes or disagreements that arise between you over the project, does one of you have the final say, or do you try to work out a compromise?

AB: We both turn out our computer and take a time out. When we get back online again we have usually cooled down. That makes it a lot easier to work out a compromise. You can’t really argue via the net as you always see black on white what you are about to say to the other.

Things we are discussing quite regularly however are differences between German and American culture. Karen reminds me regularly that certain topics are a no go if you want to sell books to children and adults.

KB: Working by email has several advantages, really. I have hard copy of all our brainstorming sessions that have been valuable for referencing when I start to wonder, how did we get here What was that idea I have gone back and found great ideas that got left in the dust while we were chasing how to solve a current problem. Emailing also helps when you just had a great idea that you are in love with, but your partner had a different idea of how it should go. I have come back the next day and realized what Aviva was pitching is actually pretty good, I just could not see it because I was pitching my idea so hard.

I'd say we work out a compromise. The one who can persuade the other by solving the most plot points with the liveliest text wins! But most of our work is a blend of ideas we agree on before the actual writing begins.

LB  Why did you choose to go with online publication as opposed to POD or regular publication (ebook or paper) and do you intend to continue the series in the same way or look at other methods of publication as the series gains followers?

AB: We met on a Harry Potter Internet Forum. The series was planned via emails. The book was written using the opportunities of modern technologies. We had virtual test readers. When Nicc and Li of www.thehpn.com, the Harry Potter Network, asked us to publish Tears of Ash on the Forum we decided it would be fitting for our work.

However, we are certainly not bound to this medium forever. We are looking for regular methods of publication.

KB: The strengths we have of delighting in research, imagination and writing are not the skills you need to find and convince a publisher to buy your work. Since the internet is our medium, and the Harry Potter crowd our target audience, we newbies decided to test our book there. Internet self-publishing is the wave of the future, since traditional publishing is so expensive and risky. So beginning on the internet makes sense for us.

LB  When you are not buried in writing the Sverland Sagas what do you each like to do in your spare time in order to kick back and relax?

AB: I love my work as physical therapist. My mostly elderly patients are a never ending source of information about regional myths and tales. And they encourage me to go on with writing. And of course I have my art. I have a seasonal ticket for Hertha BSC, Berlin’s first league football club. I engage in internet forums. And I read and read and read.

KB: I love to cook and bake. I like to sew and play piano. I love to read and travel. But writing this Saga is the most fun I have had, and I can't wait each day for Aviva to get online so we can create some more of it.

AB: Well, usually I wait for you to wake up and come online.

LB  Do you have any message for your readers out there?

Please, come and read Tears of Ash. We had fun writing it. And we hope you will enjoy it and discover a whole new world.

Thanks to both of you for your time and for introducing us to the Sverland Sagas.

Tears of Ash is available to read online here.