UnBiased Book Reviews: Eva Fejos on Where She Gets Her Ideas From @fejoseva #amwriting #fiction #amreading

Q: So far, you’ve had thirteen novels published. Where do you get your ideas from?

A: As a journalist, and of course as a person, I have come across several unusual situations, but strangely enough, I don’t use these as ideas for my novels. I don’t know where my ideas come from. They just find me. I have many more ideas than I could possibly write down, so I’m not afraid of ever running out of them…

Q: What is more difficult: writing a novel or finding a publisher?

A: For me, writing is the easiest task. After all, I started writing my first book when I was fourteen. I wasn’t able to finish it yet back then, but at eighteen I wrote one that I did finish, and I placed second in a novel-writing competition with a book I wrote after that. And though these novels were never published – which I don’t mind at all, since they were just early attempts – and for years after that, I only wrote for myself, for my desk drawer, or for my friends, the feeling of writing always made me very happy. So for me, writing is easy. At the same time, for years, I never thought it important to find a publisher. I never took this too seriously either. I believe that I managed to find a publisher for the Hungarian version of Bangkok Transit when the time was right, and I was never impatient or dissatisfied. The subsequent national success of Bangkok Transit and my other novels showed that I had made the right decision: I was on the right path. I won’t say that it was hard to find a publisher; I just had to find the right time within myself. I enjoyed the journey leading up to it precisely because I had written several novels already, for myself… Now I am publishing them in my own publishing house. Obviously, finding a publisher abroad will be more difficult, but I’m not impatient now, either.

Q: Is it difficult for an author to take part in marketing?

A: Part of marketing is a question of finance, and an author clearly cannot take part in that, as they are usually lacking the funds demanded by a ‘proper’ marketing campaign. But an author is in possession of something else, a device that is very important which, unfortunately, many people do not utilize. This device is the power of a personal voice. In my opinion, a personal tone is becoming more and more important in all fields. Therefore, a novelist can only make the best of having talent with words and situations. In social media and meetings with readers this provides great power, and we have to look at aspects of media which focus on our strengths and not our weaknesses.

Q: Who are the people that support you?

A: My partner, my friends, and of course, my readers. I think I receive the most reassuring messages from my readers when I am stuck in my mid-novel crisis. They ask me to keep going, tell me they are with me and will be patient till the new novel is completed. Some of my first readers include my cousin and a good friend. They read my novels chapter by chapter, but don’t tell me their opinion, but are drawn into the story and can hardly wait for what comes next. Naturally, I have a professional editor who offers advice. His opinion is important to me with regards to content as well.

Q: What novel are you working on at present?

A: My new book will be published in Hungary in the spring of 2014 under the title I Waited a Hundred Nights (Száz éjjel vártam). The heroine is a woman who never listens to her gut feelings, though she should… In the summer, I’m coming out with a unique novel. I’ve been writing it for a year and it doesn’t have a title yet, but the tone is much different from the ones I’ve written so far. My most recent book, Vacation in Naples, is being translated into English right now and should be out sometime in the summer. The English version of my second novel, Hotel Bali, which appeared right after Bangkok Transit in Hungary, should be out by the end of the year.

Q: Do you already have an English or American literary agent?

A: It is strange how, as the head of my Hungarian publishing company, I am in contact with several American and English literary agencies, but as a writer, I am not. All in due time. Sure, I’m searching for options, and I’m positive that sooner or later an agency and I will happen upon each other, and we’ll be able to strengthen and work towards our mutual interests.

Q: Bangkok Transit reveals that you don’t believe in accidents or in chance encounters…

A: For a long time, I viewed certain important encounters in my life as accidents. But now I know they weren’t chance, but rather the workings of fate. As a Central European author, it is very exciting to watch the American book market, to get acquainted with its participants from a distance and observe how an author can be built up, what agencies are out there… When the time comes, I’m sure I’ll come across the right literary agent.

Q: Are you always so calm? Don’t you ever want to hurry things along?

A: Well actually, I’m usually quite an impatient person. That’s why novel writing is so great for me: it’s always impatience and curiosity that spurs me on – wondering what will happen in the next chapter. I’m also impatient if I see a nice dress, a pair of sandals or riding boots. I want them immediately. But with regards to the bigger picture, I’m somehow more patient. I’ve learned that some things are worth waiting for.

Q: What’s one place in the world where you would like to live the most?

A: I like things the way they are, which includes being able to travel a lot. In recent years, I’ve spent my winters in Bangkok where it’s nice and warm. But otherwise, I love Budapest, and I love the one or two week-long trips to Italy, and can hardly wait to go off on a long weekend to Naples with my partner, to eat a yummy pizza, have an ice cream cone, and ride a boat over to the island of Procida…

Q: You’re quite slender, yet you often mention good food. Don’t you ever diet?

A: I don’t believe in dieting. Instead, I think we should keep up a healthy routine of exercise and refrain from stuffing ourselves with chocolate. I like eating good food, and I’m not really the type that gains weight, but I also don’t munch on snacks too much. A nice lunch, a tasty dinner… bring on the pizza and the pasta, but I hardly eat any chocolate, sweets, or snacks, and I run three or four times a week.

Q: What is the greatest success for you?

A: My greatest success of all is the joy I always feel while writing. The best part is the last 100 pages, approximately, when I’m so involved, so immersed and caught by the story’s momentum that I can’t even sleep. I live in the story 24/7 and people can hardly speak to me because I just can’t hear them… The second greatest success is when readers give me feedback on my books: when they tell me they’ve read one and received this or that experience or have gained the courage or strength to make choices. But it’s great if they just tell me they read it and were entertained. It often happens that they save certain novels for hard times, like stays at the hospital, and then they tell me later how the novel whisked them off into another world and helped them through the hardest days of their convalescence. This is true success in my eyes.

Bangkok: a sizzling, all-embracing, exotic city where the past and the present intertwine. It’s a place where anything can happen… and anything really does happen. The paths of seven people cross in this metropolis. Seven seekers, for whom this city might be a final destination. Or perhaps it is only the start of a new journey? A successful businessman; a celebrated supermodel; a man who is forever the outsider; a young mother who suddenly loses everything; a talented surgeon, who could not give the woman he loved all that she desired; a brothel’s madam; and a charming young woman adopted at birth. Why these seven? Why did they come to Bangkok now, at the same time? Do chance encounters truly exist?

Bangkok Transit is a Central European best-seller. The author, Eva Fejos, a Hungarian writer and journalist, is a regular contributor to women’s magazines and is often herself a featured personality. Bangkok Transit was her first best-seller, which sold more than 100,000 copies and is still selling. Following the initial publication of this novel in 2008, she went on to write twelve other best-sellers, thus becoming a publishing phenomena in Hungary According to accounts given by her readers, the author’s books are “therapeutic journeys,” full of flesh and blood characters who never give up on their dreams. Many readers have been inspired to change the course of their own lives after reading her books. “Take your life into your own hands,” is one of the important messages the author wishes to convey.

Try it for yourself, and let Eva Fejos whisk you off on one of her whirlwind journeys... that might lead deep into your own heart.

About Eva Fejos, the author of Bangkok Transit

- Eva Fejos is a Hungarian writer and journalist.

She:

- has had 13 best-selling novels published in Hungary so far.

- Bangkok Transit is her first best-seller, published in 2008.

- has won several awards as a journalist, and thanks to one of her articles, the legislation pertaining to human egg donation was modified, allowing couples in need to acquire donor eggs more easily.

- spends her winters in Bangkok.

- likes novels that have several storylines running parallel.

- visited all the places she’s written about.

- spent a few days at an elephant orphanage in Thailand; and has investigated the process of how Thai children are put up for adoption while visiting several orphanages.

- founded her own publishing company in Hungary last year, where she not only publishes her own books, but foreign books too, hand-picked by her.

- Her books published in Hungary thus far are: