Interview with:Kathryn Sullivan [ksullivan08]
WRITING
 | What did you first read? How did you begin to write? Who were the first to read what you wrote? I'm the fourth child in a family of five, so I started reading my brother's and sisters' books first - The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belton, Judy Bolton (mystery series) - before finding my mother's collection of the Oz books and my father's *huge* collection of science fiction and fantasy books. I read a lot of horse (Black Stallion, etc.) and dog (Big Red) books, but once I started reading my father's collection, I was definitely hooked on science fiction and fantasy. I remember starting with the Tarzan books and then going through all the Edgar Rice Burroughs books before finding Asimov, Heinlein and Norton.
I first started writing when I was 14. I had read all the books in the summer cottage, it was a rainy day, and I was bored. So I decided that I could write my own stories. And I did.
The first to read what I wrote were my friends. Then my mother. I was afraid to show my father at first, because he was the science fiction fan and I didn't think the stories were good enough at that point, so my poor mother got stuck with them. But eventually I got confident enough to ask his opinion, and then my high school English teachers (who saw symbolism and themes that I didn't deliberately put in the stories). |
| What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it? My favorite genre is science fiction and fantasy. I tend to write more young adult fantasy.
There are links to some short stories and sample chapters at my webpage
http://kathrynsullivan.com/kathy.htm |
| What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write? It depends on whether the story I'm working on is inspired by a character or plot. I might have dreamed a scene or a snatch of dialog, and in that case I'm in a rush to open up a file and enter all the details. If I know the storyline first, then I'll probably research details I'm not sure about first before sitting down to write. If it's a character, I might be leafing through all the baby name books to find the right name, although most of the time the right name won't hit me until chapter three or so.
If I'm already well along in the story, it's just a matter of choosing what music CD to have playing in the background while I write, then open the file and write. |
| What type of reading inspires you to write? Science fiction and fantasy. But there have been times when a newspaper article or an article in a science journal or anthropology/archeology magazine has inspired an idea. |
| What do you think are the basic ingredients of a story? Character and plot. A good setting (either a place or a society). A story should also have a beginning, a middle and an end. |
| What voice do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? For writing, third person. For reading, third person or first person. |
| What well known writers do you admire most? I have a long list. For science fiction, James Schmitz for starters, because when I first started reading science fiction he was one of the few with strong female characters. Andre Norton's books got me interested in writing about outsiders as the main character. James White and C.J. Cherryh, for fantastic aliens. Janet Kagan for great characters and cultures. Eric Frank Russell, for the humor. Lois McMaster Bujold, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, for combining great characters, cultures and adding in a dash of humor. Michelle Levigne for a great series of YA science fiction.
For fantasy, Tolkien was a major influence on me. I seek out anything Tamora Pierce, Diana Wynne Jones, Sherwood Smith and Diane Duane write because I love the way they create characters and worlds. And I'm thankful for J. K. Rowlings for getting people interested in young adult fantasy again. |
| What is required for a character to be believable? How do you create yours? I can't believe in a character that is perfect. He or she has to have a flaw. Maybe that flaw is the reason for the story, something that will be learned or resolved by the end of the story.
Sometimes I can sit down and create a character, but often they will just walk onstage and I'll discover things about them during the course of the story. There are times when I can sit down with a stack of baby name books, choose a name, choose the parents' names, choose strengths and weaknesses of the character, what are the likes and dislikes, does the character think she/he is boring and if so, why, (more often they think they are weird, so, again, why) and then launch into a story. But that doesn't always happen. |
| Are you equally good at telling stories orally? No, I'm awful at it. My thoughts come faster than I can speak.
I do readings of my stories at science fiction conventions, but I have to practice beforehand so that I don't talk too fast. |
| Deep down inside, who do you write for? My thirteen year old self who wanted to hear good stories and especially wanted to hear stories where girls were the heroes. There wasn't enough of those stories when I was growing up. |
| Is writing a form of personal therapy? Are internal conflicts a creative force? I wrote a couple of short stories when I was very angry about a situation at my day job. It did help to take my mind off the day problems. |
| Does reader feed-back help you? It is nice to hear that people are reading my books. |
| Do you participate in competitions? Have you received any awards? Yes, I participate in competitions. THE CRYSTAL THRONE won an EPPIE for Best Fantasy (tied with another good fantasy). AGENTS & ADEPTS was a finalist for an EPPIE for Best Anthology and won the Dream Realm Award for Best Anthology. TALKING TO TREES was a finalist for the Dream Realm Award for Best Young Adult and a finalist for a Reader's Choice Award. |
| Do you share rough drafts of your writings with someone whose opinion you trust? Yes, I have several beta readers. |
| Do you believe you have already found "your voice" or is that something one is always searching for? I don't think I've found my "voice" yet, since I tend to have a different one for science fiction versus fantasy. |
| What discipline do you impose on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc.? I really need a deadline to keep me focused at times. When I'm setting up the world and the characters, I have no schedule. I'm gathering as much research as I can. I usually end up with stacks of articles and a growing file on my laptop and PDA. After that, though, when I'm in the writing mode, I try to write every day. No set limit, but at least something every day. |
| What do you surround yourself with in your work area in order to help your concentrate? I try to have items related to my story around me. For TALKING TO TREES, I had pictures of gryphons and horses where I could see them, a few sculptures of trees and tree faces and a small action figure that vaguely resembled one of my main characters. And a stack of articles that I could refer to for information. Also a stack of music CDs to have playing in the background for inspiration for particular scenes. |
| Do you write on a computer? Do you print frequently? Do you correct on paper? What is your process? Yes, I write on a computer nowadays. I have a pad of paper in my car and near my bed since I never know when an idea might hit, but those scribbles get transferred to a file as soon as possible. I proofread mainly on the computer, but to doublecheck the final drafts I will print out a copy because sometimes there will be a typo that is more apparent on the printed page. |
| What sites do you frequent on-line to share experiences or information? |
| What has been your experience with publishers? I submitted to the traditional publishers for over thirty years. I got increasingly good rejection letters, but I just didn't seem to be submitting my young adult fantasy at the right time. My short stories were published in zines and anthologies and that's what brought me to the attention of an e-book publisher. E-publishers accept a bigger range of genres and more and more people are becoming accustomed to reading books on their PDAs and other devices. I recommend to writers just starting out to try the traditional publishers, but also be willing to give small press and e-publishers a chance as well. |
| What are you working on now? I'm working on two books at the moment. One is a YA science fiction story set on a space colony. The other is a sequel to a series of short stories with the twins from AGENTS & ADEPTS. |
| What do you recommend I do with all those things I wrote years ago but have never been able to bring myself to show anyone? There might be a reason why you've never been able to show them to anyone. I've got a few stories that are going to remain in my filing cabinet. I did pull some ideas and character elements out of them that I might reuse in another story, but that's all. You might want to look over those things you wrote and see if time has made them more acceptable to you. If now they don't seem too bad, run them past a beta reader. |
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Kathryn Sullivan
Winona, MN - USA
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