Guest blogger - Kathryn Meyer Griffith
Jun. 19th, 2010 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomi_jayAs promised, my guest today is Kathryn Meyer Griffith, author of numerous books including her latest release from Damnation Books, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons. Kathryn was kind enough to answer a few questions for me, so here we are!
Tell us a bit about your new book, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons. What was the inspiration for it?
I’ve always wanted to write an end-of-days novel. I loved Stephen King’s THE STAND so much back in the day. And when (it’s been six years ago now) I had this idea about a woman, one half of a singing brother and sister lounge singing duet, who also take care of an elderly aunt and uncle, who suddenly sees demons behind her human audiences’ faces, I knew I had to write it. She sees them because it signals the coming apocalypse and she’s one of the humans who are to fight on the side of the angels before and after the Rapture comes. This is a brother and sister who love each other and love the safe life they have now; she doesn’t want things to change. When children, there was a terrible fire and the rest of their family died in it. They’re all they have.
I decided not to make it too religious…more like a layman’s view of the end days. I loved the Left Behind series, too, but it was way more preachy and I didn’t want to do it that way. Mine is more a horror story. Though the woman eventually discovers and accepts, she is one of many who will have powers to see and fight demons as the end days draw near. She must seek out others like herself and convince them to join the fight. I tried to make this a story of family and human love as well as a survival story in the face of overwhelming odds as the world spins to its end. I love these characters! There’s supposed to be a second book…soon as I find time to write it.
2. What’s your writing process? Do you like to plan everything in advance, or do you just go with the flow and see what happens?
A little of both. I get an idea, a premise, and the characters (my books and stories are heavily character driven) come to me, and the story, the plot, flows from them. Sometimes I have an ending already in my head but, often as not, it changes by the time I get to it. I start a book and as I write, the characters kind of reveal what’s going to happen to them…like a series of mysteries I have to solve along the way. I’m never out of ideas, there are always stories in my head. Been that way all my life, since I was a kid.
3. Is there a part of the writing process you really dislike - editing, world-building, etc – or does it all come easily?
It pretty much comes easily but I do find if I’ve been working too long on a book and then it sells quickly and I have to start the edit process…yikes, by the second edit and final proofreading…I HATE the darn book! Think it’s terrible. I usually do the first draft as a straight through writing (no frills and I don’t worry about much of anything except getting the basic story down). Then my second run through, I catch the repeat words and fix the grammar (as well as I can as I’m one of those storytellers who really needs an editor). Third run through I try to pretty up the thoughts, words and polish. If I find any clichés (which I hate unless a character would be the sort to say them – not often) I try to rewrite them in a fresh way. I hate clichés. Of course, once the book sells it starts all over again.
4. Do you have a character or story you’re especially proud of? What makes them/it so special to you?
This one, my new one, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons…what writer doesn’t want to write a saga? And it is “a long story of heroic achievement”…an eternal story of good versus evil. That’s one of the reasons Twilight is so popular. It’s also an eternal good versus evil epic as well as a love story.
5. Did you always want to be a writer?
No, not exactly. Though I always loved to read and loved books…at nine I started drawing everything in sight. I could exactly copy anything, all I had to do was see it. I wanted to be an artist. I was (a graphic artist in the corporate world for 23 years) and still am.
Then at 14 (the Beatles and all that) I wanted to sing. And I did, with my brother, when we were very young. Folk music, at first, and then I was in a pop rock band with him until I was 19. Those were the days. The writing started at 21 when I was stuck home with a new baby (kicked out of the band because my brother fell in love with a girl singer and she took my place) and bored out of my skin. I read a horrible historical romance one day and thought: “I can do better than that!” And so it began. That was 39 years ago. Took me 12 years to get my first and second book published as I got sidetracked with a divorce, raising a son, and having to get a real job. I consider my writing as my butterfly stage, though I still draw once and awhile and jam (for fun only) with my brother, Jim. That’s me singing with him on the book trailer I made for BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons. I’m not a great singer but I wanted it to mimic the two main characters and my brother obliged me. He wrote the song, as well. He grew up to be a singer/song writer and hold down a full-time computer job.
6. Which writers and books have influenced you and your work the most?
Ah, duh. Stephen King. Anne Rice. Dean Koontz. The usual suspects. And way too many good writers to list here.
7. You’ve been writing for 39 nine years, and been published for 26 of them. Are there any goals or ambitions in your writing career you’ve yet to achieve?
Vindication that I haven’t wasted 39 years of my life chasing rainbows. I love it when a reader e-mails me or tells me they loved my book or short story! And…don’t laugh…make more money? The income has been dismal, at times, over the years but now with seven of my old novels being reprinted and released as new paperbacks and e-books (for the first time ever!) in the next 14 months and two new novels, I hope to change that. The best money I ever made was on the four paperbacks from Zebra (between 1991-1994). The previous three from Leisure weren’t bad, either. E-books haven’t been great so far but I believe that’s really changing. Or I hope so.
8. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Keep writing, always keep writing. While you wait on the last book or two to sell, forget it, them, and start another one. Just keep writing. Oh, and don’t let the rejections kill your spirit. As a writer we all get tons of them but remember…liking or disliking a book is so subjective. I’ve had people positively love a book or short story I’ve written and then another person can just hate it to death – and tells me so! So there. People are so different.
9. And what advice would you give to newbies starting out on the path to publication?
Same as #7…and that I believe to be a writer you have to do it out of love of the pure act of writing. Not for the money or fame or whatever. A lot of writers never get any of that. Write the book for you. Write only what you love and not what other people want you to write. For me being a writer is who I am. It makes me happy to spin my tales and even happier when someone appreciates them. Great therapy, too. I’d really be a messed up person if I couldn’t get all my fears and anxieties out through writing them all down. I think that’s why I love to write horror more than anything…I’m afraid of everything in the world and in my books I can be brave. Shed or defeat my demons, so to speak.
10. Are there any upcoming works from you we can look forward to?
BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons just came out from Damnation Books and the e-book is still on a hot low price sale there for awhile longer) on May 31, 2010 and THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON, a vampire novel, is coming out from Eternal Press in September 2010…and as I mentioned SEVEN of my older Leisure and Zebra paperbacks (going back to 1984) are being re-released as new paperbacks and e-books in the next 14 months from those same two publishers. You can go to www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG or kathrynmeyergriffith.intuitwebsites.com to get the updates and see all my book trailers with music by my brother JS Meyer.
Naomi, thanks for having me here…hope I didn’t babble on too long and bore all your readers! Signing out, Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net
And you can see the book trailer for BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons right here!
Tell us a bit about your new book, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons. What was the inspiration for it?
I’ve always wanted to write an end-of-days novel. I loved Stephen King’s THE STAND so much back in the day. And when (it’s been six years ago now) I had this idea about a woman, one half of a singing brother and sister lounge singing duet, who also take care of an elderly aunt and uncle, who suddenly sees demons behind her human audiences’ faces, I knew I had to write it. She sees them because it signals the coming apocalypse and she’s one of the humans who are to fight on the side of the angels before and after the Rapture comes. This is a brother and sister who love each other and love the safe life they have now; she doesn’t want things to change. When children, there was a terrible fire and the rest of their family died in it. They’re all they have.
I decided not to make it too religious…more like a layman’s view of the end days. I loved the Left Behind series, too, but it was way more preachy and I didn’t want to do it that way. Mine is more a horror story. Though the woman eventually discovers and accepts, she is one of many who will have powers to see and fight demons as the end days draw near. She must seek out others like herself and convince them to join the fight. I tried to make this a story of family and human love as well as a survival story in the face of overwhelming odds as the world spins to its end. I love these characters! There’s supposed to be a second book…soon as I find time to write it.
2. What’s your writing process? Do you like to plan everything in advance, or do you just go with the flow and see what happens?
A little of both. I get an idea, a premise, and the characters (my books and stories are heavily character driven) come to me, and the story, the plot, flows from them. Sometimes I have an ending already in my head but, often as not, it changes by the time I get to it. I start a book and as I write, the characters kind of reveal what’s going to happen to them…like a series of mysteries I have to solve along the way. I’m never out of ideas, there are always stories in my head. Been that way all my life, since I was a kid.
3. Is there a part of the writing process you really dislike - editing, world-building, etc – or does it all come easily?
It pretty much comes easily but I do find if I’ve been working too long on a book and then it sells quickly and I have to start the edit process…yikes, by the second edit and final proofreading…I HATE the darn book! Think it’s terrible. I usually do the first draft as a straight through writing (no frills and I don’t worry about much of anything except getting the basic story down). Then my second run through, I catch the repeat words and fix the grammar (as well as I can as I’m one of those storytellers who really needs an editor). Third run through I try to pretty up the thoughts, words and polish. If I find any clichés (which I hate unless a character would be the sort to say them – not often) I try to rewrite them in a fresh way. I hate clichés. Of course, once the book sells it starts all over again.
4. Do you have a character or story you’re especially proud of? What makes them/it so special to you?
This one, my new one, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons…what writer doesn’t want to write a saga? And it is “a long story of heroic achievement”…an eternal story of good versus evil. That’s one of the reasons Twilight is so popular. It’s also an eternal good versus evil epic as well as a love story.
5. Did you always want to be a writer?
No, not exactly. Though I always loved to read and loved books…at nine I started drawing everything in sight. I could exactly copy anything, all I had to do was see it. I wanted to be an artist. I was (a graphic artist in the corporate world for 23 years) and still am.
Then at 14 (the Beatles and all that) I wanted to sing. And I did, with my brother, when we were very young. Folk music, at first, and then I was in a pop rock band with him until I was 19. Those were the days. The writing started at 21 when I was stuck home with a new baby (kicked out of the band because my brother fell in love with a girl singer and she took my place) and bored out of my skin. I read a horrible historical romance one day and thought: “I can do better than that!” And so it began. That was 39 years ago. Took me 12 years to get my first and second book published as I got sidetracked with a divorce, raising a son, and having to get a real job. I consider my writing as my butterfly stage, though I still draw once and awhile and jam (for fun only) with my brother, Jim. That’s me singing with him on the book trailer I made for BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons. I’m not a great singer but I wanted it to mimic the two main characters and my brother obliged me. He wrote the song, as well. He grew up to be a singer/song writer and hold down a full-time computer job.
6. Which writers and books have influenced you and your work the most?
Ah, duh. Stephen King. Anne Rice. Dean Koontz. The usual suspects. And way too many good writers to list here.
7. You’ve been writing for 39 nine years, and been published for 26 of them. Are there any goals or ambitions in your writing career you’ve yet to achieve?
Vindication that I haven’t wasted 39 years of my life chasing rainbows. I love it when a reader e-mails me or tells me they loved my book or short story! And…don’t laugh…make more money? The income has been dismal, at times, over the years but now with seven of my old novels being reprinted and released as new paperbacks and e-books (for the first time ever!) in the next 14 months and two new novels, I hope to change that. The best money I ever made was on the four paperbacks from Zebra (between 1991-1994). The previous three from Leisure weren’t bad, either. E-books haven’t been great so far but I believe that’s really changing. Or I hope so.
8. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Keep writing, always keep writing. While you wait on the last book or two to sell, forget it, them, and start another one. Just keep writing. Oh, and don’t let the rejections kill your spirit. As a writer we all get tons of them but remember…liking or disliking a book is so subjective. I’ve had people positively love a book or short story I’ve written and then another person can just hate it to death – and tells me so! So there. People are so different.
9. And what advice would you give to newbies starting out on the path to publication?
Same as #7…and that I believe to be a writer you have to do it out of love of the pure act of writing. Not for the money or fame or whatever. A lot of writers never get any of that. Write the book for you. Write only what you love and not what other people want you to write. For me being a writer is who I am. It makes me happy to spin my tales and even happier when someone appreciates them. Great therapy, too. I’d really be a messed up person if I couldn’t get all my fears and anxieties out through writing them all down. I think that’s why I love to write horror more than anything…I’m afraid of everything in the world and in my books I can be brave. Shed or defeat my demons, so to speak.
10. Are there any upcoming works from you we can look forward to?
BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons just came out from Damnation Books and the e-book is still on a hot low price sale there for awhile longer) on May 31, 2010 and THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON, a vampire novel, is coming out from Eternal Press in September 2010…and as I mentioned SEVEN of my older Leisure and Zebra paperbacks (going back to 1984) are being re-released as new paperbacks and e-books in the next 14 months from those same two publishers. You can go to www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG or kathrynmeyergriffith.intuitwebsites.com to get the updates and see all my book trailers with music by my brother JS Meyer.
Naomi, thanks for having me here…hope I didn’t babble on too long and bore all your readers! Signing out, Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net
And you can see the book trailer for BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons right here!
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Stephen King
on 2010-06-19 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-20 12:18 pm (UTC)Great interview for what sounds like a great story. I like some end of days, tales. Like you, I loved Stephen King's THE STAND. I loved the line in that movie when Rob Lowe's character says, "I don't believe in God." And Gary Sinese's character replies with, "But God believes in you."
That says so much without being "preachy."
no subject
on 2010-06-20 04:36 pm (UTC)