This weeks Author Spotlight shines on Kathleen Hayes. Kathleen is the author of Broken and Christmas Traditions.
In order to know you, what is
the one thing everyone must understand?
I
am a huge dork and extremely introverted. That combo makes me hard to get to
know (at least in person…I am bit more out there online) but if you make it
past the walls, I’m keeping you forever (that’s not creepy…not at all). =)
What is your favorite book?
That
is a very hard question to answer because it pretty much depends on the day and
my mood. The book I have read the most number of times is Byzantium by Stephen
R. Lawhead but it got a head start as I read it the first time when I was 11 or
12 years old. Recently, I have been a mite obsessed with the Cut & Run
series (Ty and Zane rock!).
What was your dream job
growing up?
I
was one of those kids who changed what they wanted to be a lot. I wanted to be
a teacher for most of my childhood (3 of my 5 parents are teachers so big
surprise there). Then, in high school, I wanted to be a Navy pilot who did her
20 and then went to med school. Then I wanted to be a museum curator (I got my
degree in Medieval Studies). Don’t you wish you knew what my day job ended up
being… ;)
Siblings? Only child?
If
you didn’t get it from my 3 of 5 parents comment above, my family is a
bit…umm…complicated. I have one biological sister, 3 stepsisters, 2
stepbrothers, various step in laws, and 6 sisters of the heart. We claimed each
other when we graduated college together and are a part of the sisterhood of
the traveling apron (yes, we are dorks and modeled it off the sisterhood of the
traveling pants).
What's your favorite location
you have ever traveled?
Scotland.
I studied abroad at Glasgow Uni during my undergrad and traveled around the
country while I was there. It was absolutely gorgeous and the people were
lovely. If I weren’t tied to the US at the moment, that is the one place abroad
I think I could live.
What’s your writing schedule
like? Do you strive for a certain amount of words each day?
I
am a student with two jobs and I am bi-locational (I live in two cities right
now) so my writing is pretty much catch as catch can. I try to make sure I have
at least one good writing session per week. It works though because I tend not
to write anything until I know exactly what I want to write so I spend the week
pondering and then I can knock out a 4 or 5 pages in an hour.
What was the first story you
remember writing?
It
was for a creative writing unit in middle school. I don’t remember it very well
but it involved a cat who was also a detective. Most of the story revolved
around the cat trying to escape its human masters so that it could solve
mysteries outside the house. It was AWFUL. Reading it after it was done scared
me off writing for over a decade.
What is the most difficult
part of the whole writing process? What is the easiest part of the writing
process?
The
most difficult part for me is coming up with realistic dialogue. Describing
things, emotions, events, etc does not come all that difficultly to me but I am
forever deleting and rewriting dialogue because I think no one really talks
like that. Sometimes I also have trouble with connecting events. When I am
plotting I will get snapshots of a particular event, emotion or scene and it
will be perfect. Then I will get another snapshot and another and they form the
frame for my story. Then I have to sit down and figure how to get from one
snapshot to the next. I guess on the flip side, coming up with the framework of
the story is the easiest part. Usually I am inspired by one of my characters and
it just runs from there.
What one book, written by
someone else, do you wish you’d written yourself?
That
is a really difficult question. There pieces of various books that I would love
to have written (usually the parts that leave me with heart ripped out on the
ground and tears running down my face…). But as to whole books, even when I am
loving a book, my fingers are always itching to have a copy in Word so that I
can be adding to it or changing it along the way. This is by no means to
indicate that I think I am a better author than all those whose books I enjoy.
It is just an uncontrollable instinct to be inspired by the writers I love.
Who gave you the best writing
advice you ever received and what was it?
I
can’t think of one person who gave this advice but it has come from every side.
Just keep writing. For the longest time I was afraid to write anything because
it would be horrible. But finally a friend of mine dared me to write a story
that I had been thinking about and not worry about whether it would be good or
not (you can always edit). Who can resist a dare??? =) I have since gained a
bit of confidence but there are times when I have to remember to just keep at
it.
In
some ways the emotional bits are the easiest for me to write. Most of them come
from my own experiences or from those close to me. For Job and Charles in
particular, I grew up in a church like Job’s and while I did not know someone
who committed suicide because of it, I remember the condemnation and bigotry
and how it made me feel. For Charles’ story, it was more an amalgamation of all
the deaths I have experienced in my life. Most recently (at that time) I had
been present when my Dad died of cancer after being in hospice.
They
can be the easiest scenes to write as they come from deepest inside me. In
other ways they are the hardest as they leave me emotionally worn out. I have
Charlie and Danny’s story all laid in my head but I can’t work on it regularly
as I can’t focus on it without knowing how it ends. As I am answering this
question I have just had a realization. A little over a year a half ago I fell
in love for the first time and it was just a month or so after that that I returned
to writing and launched myself into the world of romance. Could there be a
connection?
This question is because I
need to know....Are we going to see more of Liam and Alex from Christmas
Tradition?
Sigh,
that is another hard question to answer. As you may know, Christmas Tradition
is the most sexually explicit of the stories I have written. It was also the
first story I wrote. I write under a pen name so that I am able to keep the day
job I am in school for (which I love). I think that they would eventually be
okay with the gay thing but never the sex thing. So I have moved away from
writing sexually explicit scenes in my stories because, no matter how much we
wish it, things never stay secret forever. That being said, I am not sure I could
write Liam and Alex without the sex because their first story was so enmeshed
in that aspect of their relationship. Perhaps one day I will go back and expand
on the beginning of their relationship but, alas, it is not currently in the
works.
What are you currently working
on?
I am currently writing a story for the M/M Romance Group’s Love is
Always Write event. I won’t tell you much about it since that would muck up
JenMcJ’s surveys when the time comes but I am a wee ways into it and have
managed to think out my connectors so all that is left is to find a chunk of a
few hours to sit down and write it all out. And then beta and edit and whatnot.
I am also working on my serial, True Love’s Kiss. Every week or so I post a chapter on my blog,
Romancing the Word. Bierni promised to bring his sister to the capital to see
if she could break the Prince’s curse when she came of age. But when they
arrive it is Bierni’s kiss that awakens the Prince. Too bad they don’t like
each other. At all. Magic, mayhem and betrayal ensue.
Then, on the back burner but still being thought about, are
Charlie and Danny’s story, a sequel to Job and Charles’ story, a little merman type
story, a swords and sorcery type novel and time travel novella.
1 comments:
It's always fascinating to read about other people's writing process O_O Very nice interview. Kathleen, I love your stories. Keep up the good work!
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