Author Biography
Katriena Knights wrote her first poem, "Ode to a Pancake," at the age of
three, and has since become the award-winning author of several
paranormal romances, including THE HAUNTING OF RORY CAMPBELL, a
December, 2001 release from ImaJinn Books. Other books include TIME AND
TIME AGAIN, also available from ImaJinn, the VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE novella
series, which will be appearing in paperback from ImaJinn in April of
next year, and DEALING WITH DAVID, a best-selling short contemporary
published by Hard Shell Word Factory.
Katriena grew up in a podunkish town in the middle of a cornfield in
East Central Illinois, and now lives in a podunkish town in the middle
of the Colorado mountains with her husband, two children, four Siberian
huskies and several very stupid aquarium fish. In her "spare" time she
likes to read, watch TV, catch up on movies and play sword-and-sorcery
computer games. She's a die-hard X-Files fan and knows more about
Pokémon than anyone over the age of ten should ever know.
Katriena loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted through her
web page at http://www.bewellweb.com/kkpage.html
Below is an interview I had with Katriena Knights on AOL
Instant Messenger.
Come join me and get to know a little about Katriena and her
books.
Welcome to my spotlight of Katriena Knights
Anita: Welcome Katriena. Glad you could join me. For our readers, what genres do you write?
Katriena: Paranormal and contemporary romance. Mostly paranormal right now. I have a vampire book coming out next March.
The next book, out in a couple of weeks, is ghost romance.
Anita: How did you get started writing and how old were you?
Katriena: I started writing when I was about 3. I composed poetry and my mom wrote it down for me. Then I did a rewrite of the 3 Little Pigs and the rest was history.
Anita: Did you take any writing classes?
Katriena: I took an informal romance writing class on CompuServe's romance forum about 6 or 7 years ago. Other than that, no.
Anita: So how long had you been writing when you made your first sale?
Katriena: Should we count from when I was 3? I wrote my first "real" novel in high school when I was sixteen and started trying to sell in college.
Anita: Well, how long did you have to work at it before your first sale?
Katriena: I got really serious about it when I was on maternity leave after my son was born in 1993. I made my first sale, to Dreams Unlimited, in 1998. So either 29 years, or 7.
Anita: How did you go about trying to sell your work?
Katriena: I just wrote what I wanted to write at first, and then looked for the markets. TIME AND TIME AGAIN, which was my first sale to DU and then to ImaJinn, won a contest at Harlequin Temptation. After I won the contest, Harlequin rejected it and I hung onto the manuscript until DU started up.
Anita: You sold without an agent?
Katriena: Yes, without an agent.
Anita: Did you have an author friend or someone who helped you break in?
Katriena: I had some contacts via CompuServe's RWA chapter. Among those were Bonnee
Pierson and Silke Juppenlatz, who founded DU. I also heard about ImaJinn through the romance forum. I followed their growth for several years before I submitted to them.
I actually knew about IJ before they'd published anything at all.
Anita: Do you read a lot? What genre?
Katriena: I read a LOT. I think I have 10 or 12 books in progress right
now. I read anything and everything, though I prefer fantasy, sf and romance, and any combination of the above.
Anita: Do you have a favorite time and place to write?
Katriena: I write whenever I can squeeze in an hour or so of relative peace and quiet, which isn't so easy around here.
I used to write while my son was doing his school work (we homeschool) but lately he needs more help.
Anita: I know what you mean--I homeschool my four youngest! You're a momwriter?
Katriena: Yep, I'm a stay-at-home homeschooling romance-writing mom. Plus my daughter wants to "do school," too, so that makes it hard. My son's 8 and doing 3rd grade. My daughter's almost 4 and just getting interested.
Anita: In what order do you write? Do you start at the beginning and write to the end?
Katriena: I write start to finish. I tried it randomly once and it didn't work.
Anita: So do you plot?
Katriena: I outline first, usually fairly extensively. My working order is: Do character work, plot outline, then dive in. I continue to outline every 3-4 chapters in greater detail or whenever I get confused.
Anita: Do you revise as you go along, or after?
Katriena: I do a little revision as I go along, but most of that comes after the whole story is down on paper. Every once in a while I go back and read what's already written to get re-oriented, and sometimes I do some revising then.
Anita: About how many revisions do you usually need to do?
Katriena: It depends. The book I'm working on now is on its 5th or 6th revision. Others only take 2 or 3.
It also depends on what you consider a revision. :-) Most of the re-writing I do is just fiddling with word choice and catching typos.
Anita: So what do you consider a revision?
Katriena: I consider a revision something where there's actually stuff to add or cut or re-write in some way. The rest is just tweaking. So I usually revise 2-3 times, then tweak until someone pries the manuscript out of my hands...
Anita: What comes first for you--a plot or the character?
Katriena: Sometimes plot, sometimes character. Usually some element of plot, though.
Anita: Your book THE HAUNTING OF RORY CAMPBELL from ImaJinn Books. Where did the idea for this story come from?
Katriena: I was chatting one time with some writer friends about ghost romances and we got to talking about ways to get the ghost physical.
I said something about using a spell, but what if the heroine can't pronounce the spell or something, so the ghost keeps materializing without certain body parts.
Anita: How do you develop your characters? Do you pattern them after real people?
Katriena: I've had the most luck with "casting"--I pick an actor, or a picture of some kind, and pattern the characters after them. With Rory Campbell, I found a lady in a Dove soap ad who looked exactly like I pictured her. Then for Lachlan, there was one particular picture of Dylan McDermott that sort of sparked off the characterization.
Not Dylan McDermott in general, but just this one particular picture.
Anita: How do you research your story? What tools do you use?
Katriena: It depends on the story. For HRC I read several books on parapsychology and ghosts in general, and researched on the Internet.
I had to get info on North Carolina because I've never been there.
I set the book in North Carolina because the history of the state lent itself to a Scottish ghost. Otherwise I would have set it in Colorado, because that way I could've just looked out the window to do research. :-)
Anita: Did you use the internet? Any favorite sites?
Katriena: I use the Internet whenever it seems to have the info I need.
No real favorite sites for research--I just use search engines to find what I need.
Anita: What do you consider to be your strongest writing skill? Weakest?
Katriena: Strongest skill is probably dialogue. I think I'm pretty good at writing that. Weakest writing skills--probably finding plot holes.
Seems like I'm always patching them up at the last minute.
Anita: What do you think is the most important thing for you to do to continue to improve as a writer?
Katriena: I think the most important thing for me to do is to keep writing. Seriously. I learn something every time I write a new book.
Reading is good, too, and I think reading outside my usual writing preferences is a good way to stretch my writing skills.
Anita: What books do you have planned for the near future?
Katriena: The vampire book is coming out in March. That's the VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series that I started at Dreams Unlimited.
The first book, REVELATIONS, will have the two DU novellas plus two more.
Then I've got the first volume of a 4-book fantasy series scheduled for the end of next year.
And there'll be at least one more VAMPIRE APOCOLYPSE book, too, with four more novellas
Anita: Good grief-you'll be pretty busy with all that! Besides writing (and homeschooling) what are you passionate about? Do you try to write this passion into your books?
Katriena: I'm very interested in ancient history, the development of religions, and spirituality in general. I think some of that comes through in all my books in one way or another.
I try to have some kind of little "message" in every book, but not to get preachy. I think TIME AND TIME AGAIN had something to say about redemption.
And, yes, I'm keeping myself pretty busy these days... :-)
Anita: Do you have any advice for the aspiring writers out there--would you do anything differently if you were just starting out?
Katriena: I think I would try to listen better--to pay more attention to what people told me about how to improve my writing. That's a really hard thing to do and it took me a while to learn it.
I also think I would have gotten serious sooner. Things really started to take off for me when I started acting like a professional--making deadlines for myself, setting goals, etc.
Anita: Do you work to make sure there is a theme in your books, or does it just happen?
Katriena: Mostly it just happens and I have to figure it out after the book's written.
The only one that really had a theme to begin with was the Ring book. (RING OF DARKNESS is the title of the first book.)
I came up with the basic theme as a kind of protest against the desacralization of sexuality in Western religion.
Actually, the demonization of sexuality in Western religion.
Then it morphed a little as I did research, and I think it has a little bit wider scope now.
Anita: Personal beliefs of yours?
Katriena: Yeah, always a little spin off my personal belief system, which is pretty eclectic.
Anita: So it changed as you learned more?
Katriena: It changed as I learned more and it also changed to serve the story.
So the theme served the story rather than the story serving the theme.
I find stories written to serve a theme to be really boring, so I rarely start out with the theme. :-)
Usually I figure the theme out three years after I write the book.
Anita: Well, that's encouraging. "They" always say to start with a theme.
Katriena: Well. "they" don't always know everything, or "they" write boring books. :-)
Seriously, though, I guess it might work for some people.
I let my subconscious do the theme stuff while I handle the plot and characters.
Anita: Well, we're at the end of my questions already. Thank you, Katriena, for joining me here. I enjoyed it--I love finding out how writers write.
Katriena: You're quite welcome. Thanks!
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