About Katherine Hayton:
Katherine Hayton is a 41 year old woman who works in insurance, doesn’t have children or pets, can’t drive, has lived in Christchurch her entire life, and currently resides two minutes walk from where she was born.
For some reason she’s developed a rich fantasy life.
Enjoy.
What inspires you to write?
I don’t really know what inspires me to write, I just know that the desire to do it has been there since I could first read.
Being a writer has always seemed the most magical thing in the world you could be, and something that even when I gave up in despair swearing never to try again I kept circling back to.
Unfortunately, being a writer entails the need to write some stuff first, so I do.
Tell us about your writing process.
I have an idea of where the story begins, where the story ends, and the pivotal moment of the protanist’s life (usually correlating with the current struggle they’re experiencing rather than being it) and then I just go.
I’ve tried to outline, but I can’t concentrate enough, and I don’t mind writing extra if it means that the story goes where the protagonist needs it to go.
Even if I end up entirely rewriting every single word (or even rewriting it entirely twice) it’s easier because by then the character has come shining through so the events reveal themselves rather than having to be thought out.
Having said that, I envy the people who can sit down and plan out their entire story. It certainly seems like it would make it easier.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I do occasionally mutter ‘What are you doing?’ when I’m typing away and finding that my characters are heading off or doing things, or saying things that I had no idea they were going to. For the most part though I interact with them by thinking about them all hours of the day, and watch them play out scenes over and over, each time in a slightly different way, until they reach the perfect scene and then I write that down. Whether that comes the first time I write it, or the last, is entirely up to them.
What advice would you give other writers?
Find a profitable day job so that you don’t need to worry too much about how you can’t immediately earn a living from this writing gig. I’ve planned out the next ten years, and I’m currently on track to be able to enter early retirement aided by my writing at that point. That’s a lot of things continuing to go to plan, of course, which is extremely unlikely.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Impatience and control issues were at the heart of my desire to publish. The thought of sending out a completed manuscript, possibly for years, tried my very-short patience.
The thought of my book being accepted after years on submission, and then having to make a contractual arrangement with someone who would have their own opinions on my cover, my blurb, my pricing, my advertising, and even my social media accounts made me shudder.
It’s hard work to find your own editors, designers, advertisers, and then grow your own platform, expand your own branding, and devise effective marketing plans for your book, but the alternative wasn’t appealing to me to begin with, and is now unthinkable.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think that the playing field between traditional and indie publishing will continue to level out. This will result in a publishing industry that has less bias, and greater variety.
The reader will rightly have more power in the market, rather than publishing houses, and there will be greater reading options for previously overlooked niche markets.
What do you use?: Professional Editor, Beta Readers
What genres do you write?: Mystery/Crime
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Katherine Hayton Home Page Link
Link To Katherine Hayton Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
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