About Elaine Kaye:
Elaine Kaye is the author of A Gregory Green Adventure Series. She first created Gregory Green after her son, who loved her homemade pea soup, thus inspiring the story Pea Soup Disaster. He had a Cabbage Patch doll named Sammy, and that’s how Sammy the teddy bear came to be.
Kaye also writes in the romance genre, including stories set in the pioneer times. Her story All Aboard was published in Pieces of the Heart by Authors for Autism, an anthology featuring fifteen authors supporting Autism research. She also contributed to How I Found the Write Path: A Compilation of Letters, with wisdom from 60+ authors.
Kaye has worked as a library assistant and teacher’s assistant in elementary schools in the Sunshine State. She currently lives in Florida, but she has called Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Okinawa, Japan home. She is a grandmother of three boys.
What inspires you to write?
For picture books, I like to think of what kids would consider as fun and would like to do if they could go on an adventure.
For other writing I do, such as for stories for adults, I get inspired by movies and other books I read.
Once, I was inspired by a piece of fabric in a quilt shop for a fanciful, suspense flash fiction story.
Tell us about your writing process.
I'm pretty laid-back when it comes to writing. No outlines or storyboards for me. Although, I do have a white poster board tacked to my wall with story ideas and lists of characters, so I don't struggle to keep things straight.
The great things is, writing picture books, which is what I do a lot of, I don't need to do anything special or complicated. I write when I want to (the perks of being retired) and whenever the muse speaks, so I don't have a writing schedule. As far as software, I use a dated-version Microsoft Word on my Internet-free computer.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I actually have a physical Sammy teddy bear, inspired by Sammy from A Gregory Green Adventure series. I like to talk to dress him up as the character, bring him to book events, post silly pictures of him on Instagram, and even talk to him as if he was really Sammy from my stories.
What advice would you give other writers?
Never give up. You're never too old to publish your first story or have your writing dream come true.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I started writing A Gregory Green Adventure series when my now-grown kids were little. My youngest daughter was about four or five years old. I received many rejections, but the children and teachers I read my stories to in the schools I worked at loved my stories, so I didn't give up on them. Back then, though, they only had vanity presses (a no-no now) that would help you publish for large amounts of money. I didn't have that money, so I didn't go that route. Thank goodness, but that meant I kept on getting rejections. When self-publishing blew up, I still didn't have the funds to do it on my own. After years, though, when my financial situation improved and I had resources, I was finally able to self-publish my picture books and couldn't be happier.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think it looks good. There will be advances to improve the reading experience, but there will always be books and there will always be readers.
What genres do you write?: childrens, picture books, chapter books
What formats are your books in?: eBook, Print, Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Elaine Kaye Home Page Link
Link To Elaine Kaye Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on Book Bub
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
