LQ: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
KH: I’m 56 years old, and I’ve been writing since I was in grade school. The day that I realized someone had to write the books I enjoyed was a great day. I decided I would be that someone. It just took a lot longer than I expected it to. My favorite genre is historical fiction, and that’s also what I write. At the moment, I seem to be stuck in Tudor England (one of my favorite places, so it could be worse), but there’s a Great Depression book on the back burner, as well.
LQ: What does your writing process look like?
KH: There’s a fair amount of coffee, staring at the wall, and muttering. I think we all have variations on that. A more recent part of my process, since moving out of the city two years ago, is learning to dictate my first drafts. Walking has always been a big part of my process, because it gets the ideas flowing, but no matter how many embarrassing conversations I have with myself, I still can’t remember it all when I get home. So now I walk and dictate, and unless they hear me say, “new paragraph,” or add punctuation, people just think I’m another person spending too much time on the phone.
Another part of my process – also within the last 1-2 years – is that I try to complete a draft before making any substantial edits. It’s too easy for me to fall into an editing hole and never get around to completing the project. I get an idea for a project, and I try to do enough basic research that I won’t make any huge mistakes in the first draft.
If I run across something I don’t know, I’ll leave myself notes in the text “DID THIS HAPPEN YET?” or “They sat down to a dinner of wine and WHATEVER THESE PEOPLE ATE.” And I keep going. Later on, once the draft is finished, I search all my notes and start to fill in the gaps. If I make a major plot or character change, I leave notes on that as well and keep writing as though the change had already taken place.
LQ: What was your favorite book to write so far?
KH: Well, I’ve only published one book so far – Songbird – and I love it dearly, but because I was writing for myself, and not specifically for publication, it took forever. I’m working on a follow-up now, about a secondary character from Songbird, and I’m really enjoying writing this one because I know what I want to write, and I know that it will be published (either by my previous publisher or by me) and I’m actively working on it, not just writing when it “strikes me.” It’s going well, and better than that, I’m having fun writing it.
LQ: Who is your favorite character to write about?
KH: Of my own characters, Robin Lewis, the main character in my current WIP. Historically, Henry VIII, though not him personally. Henry really doesn’t age well – the more you learn about him, the less you like him. But he attracted an amazing circle of interesting people, and there’s always a thread to be teased out there.
LQ: Who are your favorite authors? Have any of them influenced your work?
KH: Oh, there are so many. My favorite historical author is Dorothy Dunnett, because of her wonderful characters, amazing plots, and complete inability to write down to her readers. She’s sent me to the dictionary more times than I care to admit, but I respect a writer who makes me work for my reading experience. I’m also a fan of Edith Pargeter, Margaret George, Libbie Hawker, and Barbara Kingsolver. Indie writers I’ve met through Twitter and whose books I’ve enjoyed are Marian Thorpe, Eva Seyler, and Annie Whitehead.
I think most writers, good or bad, influence my work, because there’s always something new to learn, even from a “bad” book. And if I’m stuck on my own work, reading always helps me out. I’ll find a sentence in a book that really sings, and I’ll use it to start a scene in my project, and then I go back and rewrite and rewrite, and eventually, the other author’s sentence has completely vanished and I’ve remembered how to write.
LQ: How are you doing during the current pandemic?
KH: Better than expected, thanks. Other than the low-level existential dread which I think we’re all feeling, my life hasn’t changed that much. I work from home on a regular basis, so I’m not feeling housebound, though my husband is getting a little stir crazy in his office upstairs. Thankfully we live in a place with plenty of space to walk around and not run into people, so we’re still getting out of the house regularly. I’ve also got my garden to get started, and I’ve been doing a lot of sewing, both of which take my mind off things. I’ve been sewing masks for hospitals and workers in my town, which helps – I feel like I’m doing something, which is better than feeling powerless.
LQ: What are you currently working on?
KH: I’m in the saggy midsection of the second draft of a book tentatively titled A Wider World. It’s about a character from Songbird named Robin Lewis, and when the book opens, he’s just been arrested for heresy. The story goes back and forth between his present captivity and his earlier life. He was a foundling, then a chorister for Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII. When he grew out of that, he went to Oxford, went off to see the world, and came back to court to work for Thomas Cromwell. This is around the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, which is a very difficult period for Robin because while he’s a Protestant himself, he was raised in the monastery system and his loyalties lie with the people who were his family.
LQ: Anything else you would like to share?
KH: Just my best wishes to everyone during these strange times, and a suggestion to take it easy on yourself. If you’re one of those people who only feels right if you’re being productive and you can be, then go for it, but there’s been so much online about how to be productive during a pandemic, how to use this as family bonding time, how to home school your kids while still maintaining your career. It’s exhausting. We’ve never been through this before. It’s all new. Do what you can, and don’t give yourself too much grief if everything doesn’t get done.