This Monday, I invited Bren Kyveli for an author interview. A very lovely young woman I met a few months ago. Her contemporary romantica is hot and steamy, just the way you like it. Her résumé carries some pretty impressive skills like wife, mother, chef, maid, financial manager, personal assistance, childcare provider, and naughty mistress. She’s a bargain hunter who loves to cook, good wine, bold coffee, and hates living the same day twice.
I give you, Bren Kyveli.
Your stories are thought out and well written, feeling like you take your time to get them just right. With that, what are your feelings on NaNoWriMo?
Bren: It’s good for a lot of people but it’s not for me. It puts too much pressure on myself, and I freeze up. Plus yeah, some people get a whole novel done, but then it’s written so fast and sloppily that it takes months and months of editing and rewrites with character revamps that it just doesn’t seem worth it. I’d rather take a little longer writing the novel and only have to polish it up instead of having to rewrite and change and fix. But mad props to anyone who wins NaNo, that’s a hell of a feat.
I agree! I don’t even give it a second thought. NaNo is not for me either. Congrats to those who win. How about when you’re reading for pleasure, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hardback books?
Bren: I’m such an anachronism in today’s digital, high speed, instant gratification world. I much prefer good old fashioned ink and paper, both to read and to write, over anything digital. There’s just something about holding a real book or writing with a real pen, the feel of the paper, the smell of the ink, the sound of the pen scratching across the page… that you can’t get with a keyboard or a kindle.
I’m one of those who more likes the sound of the clickity-clack on the keyboard. When you get a story into the computer, do you then hire someone else to format your work? If you did, how did you select them, and what was your experience?
Bren: I don’t. I do all my own edits, formatting, cover art, marketing, and now publishing. Hiring professionals are expensive, plus it makes me feel closer to my work. Like this story is all mine, not half of the editors, part of a publishers, a little bit of a digital artists and then sort of mine. Nope. I’ve watched the story grow from nothing but a thought to something tangible people enjoy.
Total control is what most people love about self-publishing. Onto a more personal question. What is your favorite movie and why?
Bren: I don’t know, I don’t really have a favorite. This is always a tough question for me, there’s just so many movies that I love and will watch over and over again. I like movies from most eras and genres except two; horror and high fantasy (Disney’s excluded, I have a three-year-old girl… please believe we watch some Princesses/talking animals/living inanimate objects.) But the only way I will watch a horror movie is if my husband watches it first and makes sure the storyline is worth the scariness. I wish I could jump on the Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones bandwagon but there are so many characters and so many storylines that have nothing to do with each other that I get lost and bored with them pretty quickly.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Bren: Read everything, and I mean everything. Good, bad, your genre, and every other genre. Take note of what you like and don’t like about each book, each author. Write every single day. It’s tough with jobs and kids and spouses and… and… and… but you have to make writing a priority if you want to climb the ladder from amateur writer, to writer, to author, to published author, to New York Times Bestselling author. Make friends with other writers. They are your support system, your teachers, your critics, and your fans. Don’t be afraid to take risks, and break rules in your writing, they’re more like guidelines anyway.
Awesome fun! Thanks so much for hanging out with us.
Bio
She is a Contemporary Romance/Erotica writer, a short story author, and is currently working on a second novel which she hopes to have on Amazon by the Fall of 2016. She took to writing fiction a few years ago while her husband was on yet another six-month-long deployment. But she’s had a deep love for the written word since she was a toddler; reading everything she could get her hands on and always writing something in fancy journals with lovely pens. She is a stay at home mom of a very spirited little girl and a couple of old rescue mutts, but once her house has gone to bed for the night, she sneaks off into her writing oasis and into her world of fiction… which she still prefers to write with real ink and paper instead of a keyboard.
You can find some of her work over at The Polka Dot Coffee Cup or follow her on Twitter.
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Very Sherry Terry 