Ask the Author: Karen Rivers
Answered Questions (13)
Karen Rivers
I don't have any plans to do it right now, but now that you mention it, it seems like a good idea ...
Karen Rivers
I'm so glad you liked it! I have no plans right now to do a second one, but if you enjoyed Girl in the Well, I think you'll like my spring book, coming in March, called A POSSIBILITY OF WHALES. I hope you get a chance to read it!
Karen Rivers
I've just always done it, right from when I was really really really small. It's just a part of who I am, I think.
Karen Rivers
I'm working on a middle grade novel with Algonquin, and another project which is a hybrid graphic novel/MG novel. I'm so excited about both of them! I'm also on sub with a YA.
Karen Rivers
Read, read, read, read, read, and then read some more. Always have a book idea on the back burner that you're thinking about but not writing. Only start writing when those characters feel alive to you, when you feel like they are -- in a way -- telling their own story. And never stop reading!
Karen Rivers
It's definitely having the freedom to just get up from my desk and go for a long walk to clear my mind without having to ask permission from my boss! Also, all the amazing and wonderful people who I meet. And, of course, the books themselves.
Karen Rivers
I've never really had writer's block. If one book isn't working the way I want it to, I always have multiple projects on the go! Sometimes I blog just to get the flow of words going, even though my blog and my books are very very different.
Karen Rivers
This is a tough question! I have a lot of favourite books. My favourite middle grade novel is Rebecca Stead's WHEN YOU REACH ME. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it!
Karen Rivers
I have a friend who lives in England who always seems to be on a parallel path to my own. We'd often joked that we were twins, separated at birth. One day, I was on Facebook and it wanted to tag a photo of a stranger with my name, and the two things just connected in my mind and this idea morphed into Finding Ruby Starling.
Karen Rivers
I love everything about writing. I especially love getting to know my characters and then, when I'm writing, when they do something unexpected.
Karen Rivers
Thank you! I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book.
When I write a book, I spend a long long time before I start writing thinking about who the book is going to be about, quite a long time before I think about WHAT the book is going to be about. I don't start writing until I know exactly who my character is. It's almost like they are fully formed before I even start thinking about the story itself.
When I write a book, I spend a long long time before I start writing thinking about who the book is going to be about, quite a long time before I think about WHAT the book is going to be about. I don't start writing until I know exactly who my character is. It's almost like they are fully formed before I even start thinking about the story itself.
Karen Rivers
Thanks, Puff! I have some books coming out in 2016 and 2017 that aren't connected, so I'm working really hard on those ones right now, but after that... maybe. I'd love to write about Freddie Blue Anderson but I just haven't had a chance yet!
Karen Rivers
I think that everyone in every book that I write is based a little bit on me and a little bit on other people that I know and a lot on my imagination. I have a friend who lives in England who is a lot like me in many ways and originally, we were going to write the book together (she'd do Ruby and I'd do Ruth) but it didn't work out like that. But a little bit of her is in Ruby and a little bit of me is in Ruth, definitely.
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