What’s your first memory of enjoying reading?
I remember being about 7 and waiting to get a book out of the school library that I had my name on the waiting list for. It was a book of child-style scary stories and there was a horrible witch on the front. I can still remember the excitement of waiting to get home and start reading it.
What are you currently reading?
I always have four or five books on the go at the same time. I’m on the second “Game of Thrones” book by George R R Martin. I’ve got “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger, “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole and I started reading V G Lee’s “The Comedienne” again, just because I love it.
Which character you’ve created/written do you wish you could spend a day as?
I was torn here. Having created a character who is psychic it would have been nice to see what her brain was like but the winner is Gemini, from a short story I wrote called “Heart’s Desire”. Gemini has the ability to see into people and read their heart’s desire. I thought that would be interesting.
Which character that someone else has written do you wish you could spend a day as?
Heathcliff. The greatest literary character of all time!!
Have you created any characters you don’t like?
No. I love them all in their own unique way, from the liars to the serial killers.
What was the first thing you ever wrote that made you think, “I want to be a writer”?
I knew when I was little that I wanted to be a writer, so I started writing my first “novel” when I was about 13. It got quickly abandoned after my best friend laughed at it, but I wasn’t to be put off, starting another one. I still have it. I probably wrote about 20,000 words as a sixteen year old. Complete drivel obviously but a best-seller in my head.
Do you edit as you go or as a full process after a first draft?
I edit as I go along because I’m so lazy that between episodes of writing, I forget what I have done so I have to go over it all again and remind myself, then I realise I’m writing rubbish so change it.
Where do you write? And what do you need around you?
I write anywhere I have an A4 pad and some music. Generally, I do it in front of my computer but that's just so that I can lean on the table and blast my songs. In the summer, I was out in the garden. I shouldn’t though, as I get carried away and sing.
Pen and paper, typewriter or computer?
I always write long hand. I’m a pretty fast typist but I am an even faster long-hand writer and I can get the ideas out better. Plus, I can do it anywhere. Writing long-hand feels like creating, writing on the computer feels like work.
Connect with Karen...
I don’t have a website but I am on Facebook and twitter. https://www.facebook.com/Ringe70 https://twitter.com/RingeAlba
How can we buy your books?
My three books “The Knowing”, “Little Whispers” and “Violet’s Story” are all on Amazon as paperbacks or e-books. “The Knowing” can also be ordered from any book shop.
