I hope you will help me welcome Karen Wiesner, author of the Wounded Warrior Series and many other books, for a “series” interview!
Karen has had difficulty accessing my blog so she may not be able to answer questions on the blog. However if you have questions I will pass them along and post her answers.
The interview will be in Three parts:
Wednesday May 5, 2010 Part One – Questions about the writing process.
Thursday May 6 Part Two – Questions about the Wounded Warriors series.
Friday May 7 Part Three – A few personal questions!
PART ONE - QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS:
M: Karen, you have many successful books published! When, how, why did you start writing?
Karen: Thanks. I wrote my first book when I was ten years old. That was the summer my family was in Oklahoma (for my father’s job), and we discovered this abandoned old trailer with photographs all over the trashed floor. Both my sister (author Linda Derkez) and I got a ton of ideas from looking at these pictures, speculating about who had lived there, what happened that they left all these photos behind. That was the summer I knew I was destined to be a writer. All those daydreams were about to pay off. I started brainstorming romances, thrillers, and mysteries in my head. By the time I was sixteen, I’d written almost a dozen books, short stories, and countless poems. Unofficially, I had my own fan club in high school and had a dozen publishing credits to my name (all poems).
Getting my fiction published was the hard part, and, ironically, I got so tired of the whole rejection thing, I’d just made the decision to quit writing for anyone but myself. I don’t remember whether it was a day or week after I made this decision that I received my first contract. Talk about turning a corner and coming face-to-face with a dream! In any case, my first novel was finished published in June 1998 (I was 32).
M: I am very glad that you got a contract before you actually quit because you have written many good books for readers to enjoy!
How many books do you have published? What genres do you write?
Karen: In the past 12 years, I’ve had 72 titles published, which have been nominated for and/or won 99 awards, and 11 more releases contracted for spanning many categories and formats. I write women’s fiction, romance, mystery/police procedural/cozy, suspense, paranormal, futuristic, gothic, inspirational, thriller, horror and action/adventure. I also write children’s books, poetry, and writing reference titles such as my bestsellers, First Draft in 30 Days and From First Draft to Finished Novel {A Writer’s Guide to Cohesive Story Building}, available from Writer’s Digest Books. My previous writing reference titles focused on non-subsidy, royalty-paying electronic publishing, author promotion, and setting up a promotional group like her own, the award-winning Jewels of the Quill, which I founded in 2003. The group publishes two award-winning anthologies together, edited by myself and others, per year.
M: That is a lot of books in many genres! The anthologies are a great idea - I know I enjoyed 
Shadows in the Heart
last October for Halloween!Would you say you write from experiences or imagination?
Karen: My ideas come from my imagination. I get them all the time. Sometimes I feel bombarded with them—not that I’m complaining, since they’re my bread and butter. But I do use my experiences and observations to make my characters come to life. In Breathing Life Into Your Characters, Rachel Ballon, Ph.D. says that a writer isn’t limited to writing only what she knows. But she does need to write what she feels. What she’s experienced. Every author is a unique individual and therefore writes the story only she can tell. Every author also puts fragments of herself and others she knows into her writing. All of this breathes life and authenticity into characters. Between my imagination and “fragments” of my own life, I’ve been able to write quite a few moving tales of fiction.M: That makes sense and writing from your own life and imagination make the stories extra rich!
Do you enjoy promoting your books and do you do anything special to promote?
Karen: Enjoy? Lol. For a writer who loves solitude and anonymity, to enjoy putting myself out there is a bit laughable. But I do realize marketing is crucial to my success. I spent the first five years of my career promoting every new release and myself to the hilt. It was insane and exhausting. I felt like I was beating my head against a wall for a handful of sales. Then I had an idea about promoting in numbers, sort of like strength and safety in numbers. I’m incredibly proud of my promotional group Jewels of the Quill.
In every way possible—getting together with eleven amazing authors, our multi-award-winning group anthologies, the strategy involved in this kind of continuous promotion for group and individual—is the most successful kind of promotion an author can get. Jewels of the Quill is a reward to me I can’t even describe. I love every part of it. For more information on how to set up a promo group like Jewels of the Quill, see my book The Power of Promotional Groups.
Waiting for an Eclipse Wounded Warriors, Book 2)
M: It sounds like you founded a wonderful group of author friends who share your love of writing. What a good idea too to share and spread the load of promotion! Thanks for that good advise.
Please join us again tomorrow for Part Two: Questions about the Wounded Warriors series.
