About Kaylen Soriano:
Kaylen Soriano was born and raised in the desert of the Southwestern USA. Growing up, her love for spelling developed into a passion for reading and writing. She successfully achieved her dream by sharing her writing with the world, and her most recent work being the fantasy novel, Curse Entwined. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with family, entertaining her cat, gardening, getting fresh air outdoors, reading books/manga, watching anime, and playing video games.
What inspires you to write?
My life has inspired me to write. Growing up, spelling and writing came easily to me, and as I navigated through rough times, I would fall back on journal writing to help myself process my thoughts. I was no stranger to battling illness, losing friends, combating loneliness, and struggling to keep my sanity together. Before long, I was creating my own characters, my own worlds; tragedies, comedies, suspense, and fantasy. Story writing became a way to cope, a way to keep my mind occupied, and a way of life.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
I enjoy writings by C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Frank Peretti, and Alex & Stephen Kendrick to name a few.
Tell us about your writing process.
Generally, I'm a rather spontaneous writer. Once I have an idea and get to sit down and start writing it out, I fly with it. That's how I've usually been. I also have a habit of making a million and one notes of key details as I go along to keep myself from creating major plot holes. I like to imagine out my characters before hand to get an idea of their likes, dislikes, background, and general physical features. While I've thought about sketching them out and I have a little bit of art skill, I'm not great at drawing people so I haven't tried this yet.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Yes, if given a moment, I do like to sit somewhere alone and talk to my characters. When I have a moment where I'm at a fork in the road with my story and have a few different paths I could take, it helps to go through it all as if I were talking to that character. There are times where I've asked my characters, "What is most important to you in the end?" or, "Is this a path you would like to take or do you feel it would be too risky?" and perhaps, "What are you doing?! This wasn't where I was thinking to go with this, but what do you think?" It does sound a bit crazy, but it works the thoughts out best if I can speak aloud as if I were talking to a character.
What advice would you give other writers?
My advice is, "If you want to publish a book – don't give up!" I remember first getting psyched by the idea of publishing a book while I was in high school. This was something I knew I wanted to do one day. I remember a friend telling me that I wasn't experienced enough. It put a storm cloud over my head for a bit and with everything else going on with school, I lost inspiration to write for a while. When I had graduated, more ideas kept coming to me and I started writing a lot more again. It took me many years to publish Curse Entwined, but it's not something that I regret. If you have a story worth writing, don't be afraid to share it with the world.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Firstly, I will say that I'm probably a bit biased on this as I've never used a traditional publisher. I decided to self-publish my own book because it would be easier to get it out there and I wouldn't have to wait for an accept or reject response. I enjoyed being able to feel as if I had more control over my book and where it was being distributed. I would advise new authors to research both sides of the coin as I have heard a lot of good and bad out there about publishers and a lot of good and bad about self-publishing. It all depends on what you're looking for and remember, marketing is a huge aspect of getting your book out there so plan accordingly.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
So far, it seems that there's authors that prefer a traditional publisher and those that would prefer to self-publish. It does seem that there are many that are opting for self-publishing over traditional publishers. The community out there for indie authors is huge right now and I can expect that there will continue to be more. This also means that anyone that wants to write a book can publish a book, which can be great for getting a story out there. I also wonder if that will present more marketing challenges for authors if the online book market out there continues to become more saturated.
What genres do you write?: Fantasy
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Kaylen Soriano Home Page Link
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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.
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