It's been a little while since I've done one of these, but after so long in the making I'm delighted to welcome my good friend and fellow author (and fellow Hot Boxer) Karen Perkins to the Unknown Templar blog spot.
JPD: So first of all, every
writer experiences that moment in their life when they make that decision to become a
writer. How did it come about for you?
KP: For me it happened naturally. I used to do a
lot of sailing and had a very active life, regularly travelling round the
country and even into Europe to compete. Then an injury put paid to that and I
was stuck at home. My way of coping was to read – a lot – then one day I picked
up a pen and started to write. When I filled one notebook, I bought another,
then another, and only then realised I was writing a book – Dead Reckoning. If I’d have thought
about it beforehand I’d probably have never reached the end – and it took a
number of rewrites and a great deal of editing before it was ready to be
published, but it was the start of my new life – especially when it was
long-listed in the prestigious Mslexia
novel competition – and I haven’t looked back since.
JPD: What
was the first book you ever wrote? And how young were you?
KP: I can vaguely remember writing a book about
horses when I was at primary school. I probably still have it somewhere, I
should dig it out really – or maybe not . . .
JPD: You definitely should! Speaking of which, you’ve
released several books, both in eBook and in paperback, in recent years. What can
you tell us about your books?
KP:
Dead
Reckoning was my first book,
although it’s the second book in the Valkyrie Series of Caribbean pirate
adventures, with a bit of romance, suspense and plenty of action thrown in. The
Valkyrie Series is very much character-orientated and after I wrote Dead Reckoning, one of the main
characters, Gabriella, stayed in my head and insisted that I wrote her backstory,
which became the novella Ill Wind,
and is a good introduction to the series.
Settling down to write Ready About, which will be another full-size novel continuing on
from Dead Reckoning and is narrated
by Gabriella and Henry Sharpe (who also appears in Dead Reckoning and Ill Wind),
Sharpe insisted on telling me how he became a pirate before he would let me
move Ready About forward. I think
he’s satisfied with Look Sharpe! (book
3) as Ready About is now flowing
smoothly and should be ready early in 2015.
I took a break from my pirates after Dead Reckoning and Ill Wind were published to try my hand at something else (I do like
a challenge . . .), and wrote Thores-Cross
– a Yorkshire Ghost Story. It’s set locally to me in Yorkshire, and at one of
my favourite places in the world, where I spent an extremely happy childhood
learning to sail. Why I set a horror story in a place so dear to me, I’m not
quite sure, but I loved finding out about the history of the area, and
thoroughly enjoyed writing the character of Jennet.
JPD: The
Valkyrie series, in particular, seems to have captured the imagination of readers
and has even been a bestseller in its category. How have you enjoyed the
experience of being an indie author and achieving such good results?
KP: It’s been simply amazing. Because of the injury
I sustained sailing, travelling has been a problem for me and I knew I would
find it difficult to pursue a traditional publishing deal – who would want to
take on a new, unknown author who couldn’t even get to London to meet them? So
after a lot of consideration I decided to self-publish to show that my physical
limitations did not limit me as a writer. My aim was to build a good sales
record with positive independent reviews and then approach agents. However, I’m
a bit of a control freak (as I suspect most writers are – after all, we create
our own worlds and characters, then tell them what to do) and I very much
appreciate having the final say over every aspect of my book – although I would
not manage without Cecelia, my cover designer, and Louise who bravely edits for
me. I enjoy self-publishing so much, I haven’t submitted to a single agent
since I started and have no intention of doing so.
JPD: One thing that has always fascinated me is pirates. In fact, the first book I ever wrote was about pirates - I was seven years old and a little rebellious :-). What inspired you to write about them?
KP: It was natural for me – aged 11 I was sailing
around Thruscross Reservoir in a Mirror dinghy flying a skull and crossbones at
the top of my mast! Also, the seventeenth-century Caribbean fascinates me – all
those nationalities descending on one small area in the search of freedom; and
enslaving two continents in the process. Added to that, pirate ships were the
most democratic societies on the planet in those days – as well as one of the
most brutal (slavers take that ‘crown’) – and that dichotomy intrigues me.
Although I can’t sail anymore, writing about
pirates allows me to indulge my passion for those stunning and incredibly
complicated ships, and I have a deep admiration for all the men – and women –
who took to the sea and entrusted their lives to their crewmates and wooden,
wind-driven vessels.
JPD: On top of that, you’ve
also released a book called Thores-Cross, a paranormal/historical novel. What can you
tell us about that?
KP: One result of the injury I sustained was
isolation – from having an extremely physical hobby and a promising career as a
financial advisor, regularly driving around the country, I was suddenly stuck
at home. Yet I had telephones, computers, books and the TV, and I started to
think about how isolation would affect somebody who was truly cut off. What if
somebody who lived in a small, remote village in the Yorkshire Moors became
isolated within the community she lived? How would she deal with that? How would
it change her, embitter her?
The resultant character was Jennet, a fifteen-year-old
orphaned girl, living in a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. She’s
seduced by an older, married and influential man, yet she’s the one who is
ostracised when the affair becomes known – after all, nothing happens in a
Yorkshire village without everybody knowing about it eventually, even now.
It seems to me the past is never wholly in the
past and continues to affect our present and the decisions we make. I took this
a little further with a haunting; Jennet’s hatred and desire for revenge
existing after her brutal death, and the ancestors of the man who wronged her
paying the price for centuries.
JPD: Any
plans for a series? Or at least any more books in the paranormal/history genre?
KP: Yes, I’ve also written an associated short
story, Cursed – Jennet’s still
haunting me! – and it’s quite possible there will be more if she insists.
Apart from the short stories, the further books
in the Yorkshire Ghost Series will be stand-alone novels. I’m currently
researching and plotting Knight of
Betrayal, which focuses on the four knights - Hugh de Morville, Reginald
fitz Urse, William de Tracey and Richard le Bret - who broke the sanctuary of
Canterbury Cathedral to murder the Archbishop, Thomas Becket in 1170. They fled
to Knaresborough Castle – just down the road from me – yet very little is
written about them after the murder, and what has been set down contradicts
every other account. In Knight of
Betrayal I want to examine the extreme level of their medieval sense of
guilt and dishonour, which has horrific repercussions nearly a millennium
later.
There are a number of other books planned for
the series as well, all focusing on local places, people and legends, exploring
the way Yorkshire men and women lived through the ages and the major historical
events, industries and traditions that have shaped today’s Yorkshire – with a
few nightmares thrown in . . .
JPD: The Becket one in particular sounds fantastic! You’re
clearly interested in more than one genre. How easy is it for you to switch from one to
the other?
KP: I wouldn’t say ‘easy’, writing any book is not
an easy undertaking, but it is something I very much enjoy. When I take on a
project, I completely immerse myself in it – some would say too much – and I
need to take a break from my characters, their world – and their horrors. Yet I
can’t take a break from writing – it’s part of me now, and I’m never more than an
arm’s length away from paper and pen. So
my way of taking a break from writing about pirates is by writing about ghosts.
Then I take a break from writing about Yorkshire by writing about the
Caribbean. I have some ideas for books in other genres too – a contemporary
political thriller and a mystery/crime series, as well as some children’s
books.
JPD: What authors inspire you?
KP: Wide and varied. I’ve always been a booklover –
apparently I was a very easy child, if my mother couldn’t find me, she could be
pretty sure I’d be sitting in a corner somewhere with my nose in a book. Some
of my favourite authors are Stephen King, Barbara Erskine, CJ Sansom, Ken
Follett, Robert Harris, Philippa Gregory, Conn Iggulden and Phil Rickman, but
this is by no means an exhaustive list and I am also enjoying finding many new
self-published authors, and have found some wonderful and original books, in
particular J.K. Accinni’s Species Intervention #6609 Series and M.A. McRae’s Shuki Series, which are both extremely
profound and shocking in the way they reflect some of the depths to which human
nature can plunge. My only regret is
that I’m now struggling to find enough time to read for pleasure, something I certainly
did not anticipate when I started writing!
JPD: How
about movies?
KP: Again, a wide range – mainly thriller, action
& adventure and well-done historicals, but my guilty pleasure is really bad
disaster movies – the more ridiculous and implausible the better.
JPD: Great taste! One
thing that fascinates me about you, Karen, is that you’re also an editor and
run a very respectable company, LionheART Publishing House. How long have you
been an editor?
KP: I started LionheART Publishing House two years
ago with my then partner, Peter Mutanda, a poet and theatre director, and it
has grown tremendously in that time. It’s now a full publishing services
company, offering editing, formatting, book covers and trailers, and promotion
services, and is still expanding. I’ve been joined by Cecelia Morgan, who is a
very talented graphic designer and creates amazing book covers as well as
videos and promotional images; Louise Burke, who is a close friend and helps me
with the editing; and Elisabeth Storrs, a bestselling author and Amazon expert
who can greatly increase a book’s visibility on Amazon, which is key to us as
Indie authors. All three have helped me enormously in my own writing career and
I’m very grateful that they’re able to help my clients too. Helping a new book
into the world is a great privilege and I’m very lucky to have found others who
feel the same, and very grateful to my clients who trust me with their books.
JPD: Personally, I’m far better at making
editorial comments on the work of other people than I am my own. How difficult
is it trying to write creatively when you’re so used to concentrating on
grammar et cetera?
KP: Extremely difficult. I have to completely remove
my ‘editing hat’ to write – if I get too caught up in the grammar and
punctuation, the story just would not get written. It helps me that I write in
longhand, and I pen the complete first draft first before typing it up so that
I’m not tempted to start editing before it’s finished.
JPD: Similarly,
how do you go about editing a book you’ve written? Or do you prefer to take
more of a back step and let others concentrate on that?
KP: When I type up my manuscript, I get a sense of
the flow of the book – if I’m engrossed, that chapter’s good, if I’m not it
needs rewriting. Then I edit it as I would anybody else’s book – with plenty of
detailed notes and checklists.
The biggest problem with self-editing, though,
is that however hard I try, I just can’t be 100 per cent objective about my
own books – they’re far too dear to me, as are the characters. It’s also very
easy to edit the intent – I know what I meant when I wrote it, and that’s often
what I read rather than the actual words. As the author, I’ve done a great deal
of research that isn’t included within the final manuscript, and also know a
lot more about the characters than is pertinent to the story, and I need
somebody to edit for me to make sure everything is clear and nothing is omitted
– as well as pick up on my little quirks as a writer (as an editor I hate too
many exclamation marks, but as a writer I love them!). Louise Burke has very
bravely stepped up – it isn’t easy to edit another editor’s work – and she keeps
me honest as well as saving me embarrassment.
JPD: How
does the writing process work for you? Do you like to plan things out before
you begin or do you like to let things evolve?
KP: A bit of both. I start out by researching the
time, place and way of life of my characters, then set out a plan. It’s very
general at this stage, and covers the main points of the plot as well as notes
on motivation and progression of the characters’ journeys. I also sketch out my
main characters – both in notes and an image. When I start writing, I expand on
each section of the plan as I go, then make detailed chapter notes (usually
only two or three chapters in advance). It’s a compromise really, I do need to
have the plan in place to make sure I keep the plot and subplots tight, but if
I plan in too much detail too far ahead, my characters can rebel and do things
I wasn’t expecting. Frustratingly, they’re usually right.
JPD: You’ve
recently become a participant in a brand new project called the Hot Box, a box
set of eight thriller novels by eight best-selling authors that also includes
yours truly. How excited are you to be part of such a project?
KP: Very much so. It’s a great honour for Dead Reckoning to be included in a set
with such great books and authors (and I’m not just saying that as it’s you J) and I’m over the moon to have been asked to
join you. It’s done my confidence a power of good and I’ve learned a great deal
from you all. It’s also extremely exciting to see it do so well and to be at
that #1 spot in Historical Thrillers for so long. It’s definitely whetted my
appetite for more . . .
JPD: Thanks! Given
the evolving success of the Valkyrie Series and your own experiences as an
indie author, what can we expect from you in the future?
KP: More, of everything – I’m only just getting
started . . .
JPD: Karen, it's been great getting to know you over the past few months and a real pleasure talking to you.
