Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Hi, I’m Kristy K. James. It seems that as long as I can remember, I’ve been writing. As a child of eight or ten, I wrote plays for my siblings and cousins to perform for our families – and an aunt made sure everyone participated (whether they wanted to or not). Then I got into Barbies and and paper dolls and that fed my need for making up stories – until I got to old to play with them. At least openly. Yes, I was a closet Barbie and Ken lover for a couple of years.
And then… Lo and behold – there was a ninth grade creative writing class. I wrote my first book – and I’ve been writing them ever since.
How many books have I written? That’s a great question. Published, I think I’m around twenty-four now, with the last installment of the Casteloria series due in December (2015). However, if you count the mountains of handwritten stories in a box of spiral notebooks, I would have to guess that number to be closer to forty. I’ve already revamped one from a teen romance to a grownup one (A Hero For Holly), and hope to do the same with many of the other ones.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book, A Cold Day in Paradise, will be released in time for Christmas 2015. What inspired it? My readers. Around 2010, I came up with an idea for a standalone romance – Laying Low in Paradise (2013). One book. That was all. Except fans of the story loved a couple of the other characters and kept asking me to write stories for them. Sixteen months later, A Cool Summer in Paradise was released. And now I’ve finished the third and final installment.
Laying Low in Paradise was inspired by a car accident. In 2008, a gentleman ran a red light and totaled my van. I wound up in physical, occupational, and vision therapy for about nine months with injuries to my back, hip, and right shoulder, along with a mild head injury, and damage to a nerve in my right eye. The situation looked bad enough that one doctor advised me to stop trying so hard and just start using a wheelchair and live my life the best I could.
At one point, I was terrified that I’d lost the ability to write. I couldn’t concentrate, I had a hard time putting sentences together because I’d think I wrote one thing and re-read it to find it wasn’t quite right. Like Jane walked Spot around the park could become something as silly as Jane walked Spot on the pumpkin.
And so I sat down one day, partway through my therapies, determined to see if I could still tell a story. There was no outline, no plan in mind, no goal to work toward. I just wanted to write a chapter. And I did. About a year and a half later, the outline and rest of the story followed.
And just so you know, except for the loss of the peripheral vision in the top of my right eye, I’m pretty much back to normal – and walking just fine – without the aid of a wheelchair. Ever.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I used to do all of my writing during the day but one residual issue from the accident, in addition to the peripheral vision thing, is that I’m still fairly easily distracted. I get around that by doing most of my writing in the middle of the night now. I also tend to listen to a Spotify playlist that is filled with nothing but Canon in D (Celtic harp) and Bella’s Lullaby (piano). The volume has to be low, but those two songs play for hours. For whatever reason, I can’t write to music with words.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
That’s a great question too – and one that would be hard for me to answer. From reading through grade school report cards, as early as first grade teachers were noting that I did very well in reading, understood what I’d read, and checked out a lot of library books. So maybe just books in general influenced me.
As I got older, I loved stories by authors like Debbie Macomber and Nicholas Sparks.
What are you working on now?
I’m editing one manuscript while trying to write the second book, Steven, in my Men From the Double M series.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m awful about promoting my books. Trying to do better, but still learning. I love the AwesomeGang because it’s easy and doesn’t give me a headache. 😉
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read. Read as much as you can. Read good books so you know what kind of talent it takes to succeed. And then read badly written books so you know what NOT to do.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Wow. The best advice? I’m assuming you mean as far as reading? Ignore the rules and write the story that’s in your head.
What are you reading now?
I’m bopping back and forth between Cowboy Dad (Cathy McDavid) and A Christmas Carol (Dickens).
What’s next for you as a writer?
I will be starting a Christmas romance series in 2016 with a sexy, kind of vagabond pastor, continuing with the Double M series, and hopefully finishing the prequel for Enza.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. It’s a story set in the late 1950s about the aftermath of a worldwide nuclear war. Mrs. Mike, set in the early 1900s. It’s based on the true story of a girl who married a Canadian mountie and spends much of her life in the Canadian wilderness. And probably a couple of Harlequin Christmas editions with four stories in each. Yes, that’s probably cheating because it would be eight stories in two – but they’re all contained between the covers of two books. 😀
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