14th Dec, 2010
Kendall is going to tell us all about her writing process and style, lets give her a warm welcome! Remember if you comment on this post you could win an Amazon Gift Voucher!
The writing process for me is somewhat chaotic. I work at a day job where no one knows my alternate identity, and if all goes to plan, will never find out. I also have a husband and two school-aged children. So all of this combined makes my writer’s life a challenge. Before I went back to work full-time I tried the “business hours” approach to writing. As soon as my children left for school I would sit down to work. An hour later the cursor would still be taunting me and I’d have a couple pairs of shoes on the way I’d just ordered from Zappos. The stories came, but very slowly. Much more slowly than I anticipated when I had hours stretching before me in which to write.
When I made the decision to go back to work last year, it did wonders for my creativity. It’s almost as if my muse sensed I’d gotten so fed up with her lazy attitude that I’d abandoned our relationship all together. So she started talking. A lot. “You can handle a full-time job and me at the same time… Your family will adjust… Buy an iPad…” Okay that last one I threw in there just to justify the purchase. Although I do make notes on it. I’m not playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja, honest…
What I’ve discovered about myself is that I work well under pressure and time constraints. When I had all that time yawning before me my creativity came to a near standstill at least a couple of times a week. Now that I must juggle writing with everything else I have found that even though I am not spending as much time at the keyboard as I used to, the time I do spend has become more productive. This time crunch has even helped me to rein in my pantser ways. I just don’t have time to go skipping down a plot line that could blow up in my face forty pages in.
So it may appear from the outside that I’m all over the place, and sometimes it feels that way, but at the end of the day the books are getting finished, I’m working at a day job I love, and my family still remembers my name. I must be doing something right :)
Kendall Grace has been writing all her life, starting with a wildly successful Teddy Bear series in second grade which received stellar reviews (and her mother is always right). Her teenage years brought about some truly dreadful, teenage-angst poetry that she still pulls out from time to time and sends little prayers heavenward that her daughter doesn’t torture her as much as Kendall tortured her own mother.
Her adult years were peppered with oddly chosen professions. She worked in the accounting field (snooze fest), as a safe sex counselor with Planned Parenthood for incoming college freshman (don’t ask) and as a personal trainer and lifestyle and weight management consultant.
After becoming a stay-at-home mother her true passion came to the surface and she began to write. She’s delighted every day when she can yell to her husband that she’s working, close the office door on the chaos that is a family of four and become lost in her stories.
Kendall’s promoting her book Come Undone which you can pick up from Ellora’s Cave now.
Come UndoneMy sister became dependent on painkillers after a skiing accident left her leg broken in three places. I didn’t understand and, yes, I judged her. After all, we were talking about her will. No one was forcing those pills down her throat. It seemed very cut-and-dried to me back then. But I know differently now.
The first time Chase touched her, Jane finally understood addiction…understood the aching need, the keen want for more…more of his hands…his mouth…his tongue. His complete mastery over her body. She knew the suffocation of crushing anxiety as she waited for her next hit, the flash of terrific pain when it didn’t come.
Chase seems unwilling to give Jane what she needs; what she ultimately craves above all else. But addicts can’t think beyond the fix. They’ll resort to desperate measures to feed their need…even if they lose themselves in the process. Even if they come undone…
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