Book Signing Report: Kiersten White!

We were so so lucky to have Kiersten White make a stop in Utah on her tour for Supernaturally. Really we have such a HUGE YA book following here in Utah that I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't come here. Cause we love you!

Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with Kiersten, she is the fabulous author of PARANORMALCY and the sequel SUPERNATURALLY that just came out.

Here's my re-cap of what she had to say (remember I try to stick as closely to what they said as my hand can write, but this is paraphrasing not full quotes)!

• SUPERNATURALLY is the second book in the trilogy. Writing it was harder. In our lives as adults I feel like I am in the second book in my trilogy. You have gotten what you wanted in your first book and you are finding out that sometimes you get more than you bargained for.
• Fortunately for you I do NOT do cliffhanger endings, so even though this is the second book, it has an end.
• I really love mythology. A current idea I am working on deals with Ancient Egyptian mythology and the daughter of and ancient egyptian god.
  
• Mythology is what we have used as humans to interpret our world around us, and today in the modern world we study these constructs to explain what it is to be human and to connect to each other.
• ENDLESSLY is the title of the 3rd and final book in the series
• "Thank you for being readers. Writers don't make best sellers, readers make best sellers."

Then she had a short Q&A (cause it was outside and we were all melting) here are some of my faves.

Q: Critique partners are really important -- how did you find yours?
A: I found mine through online communities, reading other writer's blogs etc. then developing friendships through e-mail. The most important thing about my partners is that we have different strengths so we can help each other in different areas of writing.

Q: What's your favorite letter in the alphabet?
A: I don't like "C". It's really kind of useless. It makes the "K" sound and the "S" sound, and we already have those. But I've always like "Q" and of course "K" for Kiersten.


Q: What is your revision process like?
A: I don't let myself edit as I go because I feel that editing brain and writing brain are very different brains. I enjoy creating and enjoying that. And then later I pick apart my baby. One big thing I do is read my manuscript aloud. You miss a lot when you are reading silently. Your eyes actually skip words and phrases. But reading aloud you catch a lot.

But my process is not your process. And I don't do it the same for every book.

Q: You wrote the first draft of PARANORMALCY in two weeks! Was the process harder for SUPERNATURALLY?
A: PARANORMALCY was just fun. SUPERNATURALLY was already bought before it was even written. And that was stress. I had already been paid for it, I had bought a car. I didn't want them to take my car away. It took me 6 years to get my own car! I thought there was no way I could write this book.

Writing under contract is much harder than just writing at your own pace, for fun. Whenever I had time I worked on it. The first draft was only about 50K words long, and after edits it was around 72K, so I had to add a lot.

I am very proud of this book though, because it was a struggle.


Regardless of what authors may say, we write ourselves into our books. Evie's story in SUPERNATURALLY mirrored my own life experience. I had finally achieved something I really wanted, but now I was questioning if it's all that it's cracked up to be. It was harder and came with trials I didn't expect.

Writing books is always impossible until you finish. And then editing is impossible.

Kiersten was such a blast to see. I am currently reading SUPERNATURALLY so I will review that as soon as I'm done! I can say so far I am enjoying it very much.