About Kishan Paul:
From daring escapes by tough women to chivalrous men swooping in to save the day, the creativity switch to Kishan Paul’s brain is always in the ‘on’ position. If daydreaming stories were a college course, Kish would graduate with honors.
Mother of two beautiful children, she has been married to her best friend for over 17 years. With the help of supportive family and friends, she balances her family, a thriving counseling practice, and writing without sinking into insanity.
What inspires you to write?
So many random things inspire my writing. The first story I ever wrote was The Second Wife and it actually popped into my head one night when I was leaving work. It was late and the lights in the parking lot weren’t working, the lot was pitch black. I kept thinking what would happen if I got abducted and the rest is history.
Blind Love, was inspired by a writing prompt for a social media group I was part of. In an hour, writers had to create a short story about a blind neighbor. Once that hour was done, Lauren was still speaking to me, actually she was screaming. Telling her story was the only way I could get her to shut up.
Tell us about your writing process.
My writing process is an organized chaos. I’m a panster. I write by the seat of my pants. I kinda get obsessed with the story and the scenes. It’s all I think about. I play and replay the scenes, feel and then re-feel the incidents. Each chapter is like a week long process for me. The first day it’s kind of the bones of the chapter, really rough but what’s going to happen is written out. Every day, I go back and work on the layers: the dialogue, the way each person in the scene felt about the situation and how they showed that, the environment. Halfway through the week, I’ve scrapped most of what I first wrote and have something entirely different.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I’m grinning. My characters talk to me. I don’t talk back, well not out loud at least. I wouldn’t want people to think I’m crazy. Blind Love was the product of a challenge I took on in one of the social media groups I used to be a part of. I never had any intention of doing anything with it. Afterwards, I let someone read it who said, “Yeah, blind people don’t go jogging.”
It bugged me because I knew that wasn’t true but not near as much as it bugged Lauren, my female MC. Her character had developed through that one-hour story I wrote, and she was screaming at me. Telling me I needed to tell her story and show people that being blind wasn’t the end all. She kept me up at night and kept running red lights and stop signs. In the end, writing her story was the only way I could get her to shut up.
What advice would you give other writers?
The advice I would give to other authors is the same I’ve gotten: It’s a hard and long process, and during each stage of it, you’ll question yourself and your story. Thicken your skin, don’t give up, and one day you can look back and say “Wow did I really do that?” Make friends with other writers, they understand where you are and how you feel. And don’t forget to pay attention to your readers. They are so important in this journey.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Blind Love is my debut novel. In 2014, I attended my first Romantic Times convention and pitched the manuscript to a beautiful woman, Tera Cuskaden, who just so happened to be the editor of Samhain Publishing. For me, the thought of self publishing my first novel was overwhelming. There were so many components to the process (editing, cover, formatting, publishing). I really wanted my hand held and to be with a team of people who I could trust and would listen to what I had to say. Samahin gave me everything I needed.
To new authors out there, I’d say do your research. Figure out the positives and negatives of self publishing versus traditional and talk to individuals who have done both. There are two sides to every story, and no one method is perfect.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
As we all know, the publishing world is changing dramatically. But it’s not just the world of books, the same can be said about most of the other markets out there as well. People are purchasing more and more on-line, often times without a middle man. As a result, we’re seeing brick and mortar stores closing their doors, even local malls are disapearing. The positive to this is that authors are getting their books out faster and without the hurdles many writers faced five to ten years ago. With that comes the fact that consumers will have a larger variety of stories to choose from and at lower costs. This is such an exciting time for writers and readers alike and I can’t wait to see what great authors will be discovered as a result.
What do you use?: Professional Editor, Professional Cover Designer, Beta Readers
What genres do you write?: Contemporary Romance
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Kishan Paul Home Page Link
Link To Kishan Paul Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
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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.
