Today on my blog, I would like you to welcome horror author Kizzy Lee.
Kizzy Lee is a happily married mum of four kids and two dogs; she
loves all things paranormal and has a head full of stories all trying to get
out. She lives by the sea and could not live anywhere that didn't include a
beach, finds the countryside scary because 'where is the sea shore?' no matter
how much you search them fields there is no sand!Kizzy Lee sews too, making dance costumes. She used to make pageant dresses but there wasn’t much call for it in England.
It's a time I remember very clearly, not just because it was
so recent, but because it was a rather pivotal point in my life, I have a blog
in my name and in August this year (2012) I could not think of a post so I
wrote a short story for my lovely follower friends and they loved it and made
such lovely comments all suggesting I should write a book so I did ^_^ I wrote
my first ever book - a collection of short stories mostly horror stories, and I
published it in September this year.
Did you always want to be a writer?
No in fact it never occurred to me that anyone would like my
stories enough to actually by them, I panic every time someone buys a book in
case they don't like it, but now that I have found such immense pleasure that I
get out of writing I do wish I had started to write a lot younger it almost
feels like I have wasted years of good writing time ^_^
You have four kids-Is it hard to find the time to write?
Well life is what you make it, so I look on my life as being a mum first, I have always adored being a mum, writing is what I do when the kids are all occupied doing something else, so a lot of my writing gets done either when they are all at school or really late at night when they have all gone to sleep but I like it this way I would not want anything to get in the way of my being a mum and I love the fact that writing works around my kids; it fits within those times when I would get bored ^_^
Your books are horror stories. Why that genre and is there
any other genre you’d like to try?
This question makes me smile, because I have had a
complicated life, others have said with the life I have had I should write a
book, and I did - just not about my life ^_^ I love horror, but it has to be
horror of a certain kind, it had to be not too gory and it usually had some
kind of twist, I am very fussy on endings; I really hate a rubbish ending I am
quite fussy, I adore anything paranormal, but when I write I find each story is
only say 50% me, the rest of it just kind of pours out of me, part of me
actually feels a little awkward because my first two books literally just fell
out of me, all the stories were right there in my head my fingers couldn't type
fast enough to keep up with the flow of words, they were not even edited each story was fully formed and just needed
to be put on paper, when I came to my third book; which was my first full
length book all one story, now that was the first one were the story was there
in my mind but in writing it down I actually worked hard, I researched, and I
edited and improved, my fourth book I felt I had improved even more and I felt
I was finally the horror writer I wanted to be. I love horror that makes you
scared of ordinary situations, and I guess I love horror because it is a chance
to escape from reality and to explore situations that I would never entertain
in life, and I just like a good old hiding behind the cushion kind of fright
^_^. As to your other question well I
had once thought I would be good at the erotica style writing but I feel the
market is saturated at the moment and if I was to do something in that genre it
would need to be something different something to make people think I couldn't
do straight erotica I find it hard to read too much of, I always found the best
piece of advice I was ever given was to write the book you want to read and
that is always some kind of paranormal horror ^_^
Where do you get your inspiration from for your stories?
Oh crikey it's hard to say really, a lot of them - my
stories- are already in my head and I don't really know where they come from
because I have always chose comedy as my main reading matter, I own every Terry
Pratchett book there ever was, I even have a signed one ^_^ and sometimes I
have two copies of the same one just because I love his writing that much same
with Douglas Adams I have everything he wrote too, so I am not sure why I
should be inspired to write horror ^_^ people would probably assume I have
shelves full of Stephen King or something but no I don't own a single one, I am
not keen on his endings ^_^ so no authors have inspired me but I do have a
morbid imagination ^_^ even as a child I would always see something that others
would not think twice about but I would see it and think hmm what
if..........and usually the what if turned gruesome ^_^ , I have to keep a
supply of little notepads, I even carry one in my bag because I get ideas all
the time and I have to write them down I have filled so many notepads it's mad
^_^, if the news comes on the TV for instance I will never hear half of it
because part way through one little sentence uttered by the newscaster will
bring about a little fountain of ideas and I just start scribbling them all
down in my notepad ^_^, I am very keen on art and a lot of pictures will
inspire me, or sometimes a good photo,
especially a good photo of nature outside, anything showing the autumnal season
and that's me scribbling away for half an hour, sometimes a whole paragraph
pops in my head so I scribble it down and I know one day it will fit perfectly
in some story I am writing ^_^, I am very observant I notice little thing,
details, walking down an alleyway and I will notice an old wooden door, I
always have my camera and I take a picture of it and jot down any words or
sentences that occur when I see it so I guess I should say I get inspiration
from everywhere ^_^ and at the same time a lot of it is just in my brain.
Do you plan your stories out?
No, I never plan anything really, not in my life or in my
books, plans are strange things they get broken, they restrict, for me I just
literally surround myself with my notepads full of bits and pieces and type, I
only require one thing when writing and that is sweeties ^_^ I like seeing my
story unfold before my eyes, I like just seeing where a story takes me, and a
lot of the time it wouldn't matter if there was a plan or not because the story
just writes itself, I thought with my third one was it long enough? there was
certain word amounts that denoted whether a story was a novella or a novel in
the end I thought it doesn't matter the story was done I still don't know if it
had enough words to be called a novel ^_^ but I knew it had reached its full
potential so it was done ^_^, plans well they require some kind of organised
thinking process and I am not very good at organised, it never feels natural to
me, to me how could my story flow along its own course if it had plans that
said otherwise? No I don't like plans ^_^
You say that you couldn’t live away from the sea. Have you
always lived in the same place?
Gosh no ^_^ I have lived in many places, from very young my
parents took me and my brother travelling, my father was a petrochemical
engineer, he worked for an American company and his work took us to different
countries, I have touched on my early life a little in my blog, I have
mentioned one or two of the countries we lived in, of all the places we lived
during my childhood my favourite was Czechoslovakia, that shows how long it
was, it's not called that now, I loved the place and did not want to come back
to England at all, I was 15 and they said 'oh we are going back' I swear I
cried for a fortnight ^_^, the people
were so lovely and the place was gorgeous, but I was only young then ^_^. I
carried on travelling even when I had met and married my first husband, we
mainly covered Europe though, it was during those travels when I realised how
much I missed the sea, I began to realise I was only happy when I heard it as I
fell asleep or if I could take a walk and it was there I felt more grounded,
more at peace. Then at one point we were travelling through Spain and I knew I
just got this gut feeling, I wanted to come back home and have children and
raise them in the little town by the sea where I had grown up. It was living in
other countries, and living away from the sea, that made me appreciate what a
nice little town this was and I had been lucky to grow up here and so I came
home. Of course life has its own ideas and it wasn't quite that straight
forward but I feel very lucky that right now I live a stone’s throw from a
gorgeous beach in a tiny house with my kids and dogs and very happy with it
all.
You are a talented sewer too, making dance costumes. Is that
something you do to relax?
I like your questions they make me smile ^_^ sewing ahh
well, I wouldn't say it was relaxing, ^_^ it is far too much hard work to be
relaxing, the style of sewing I do is very detailed and all sewn by hand in
very intricate designs. Sewing is something I had always done, right from the
age of six I was taught to embroider, not really shown as much as given some
thread, a needle and material and told to get on with it ^_^ through the years
it became something although largely self taught it was a great talent to have,
I loved being a child of the late seventies/early eighties were my formative
teenage years and if you remember fashion was such that I could explore my
sewing to the fullest extent and indeed I made all my own clothes and loved
dying materials and making outfits from my experiments with dyes or weaving I
can also knit crochet and make lace, so very often everything on an outfit is
made by me, if anything going out for the night was more an excuse to make a
super outfit than socialising ^_^, I was born a highly creative person though
and I refuse to make what I call boring sewing you will never find me making
curtains ^_^, the dance costumes came about because having three girls
necessitated it, my oldest wanted to dance as soon as she could walk, she was
kind of obsessed, not only were costume prices horrendous but they were never
really had what we wanted, it soon descended into me making everyone in the
dance school' costumes, now that was horrific ^_^ luckily she gave up dancing
after a while and years later my second daughter tries dancing, she too did not
like the costumes available and begged me to make hers, now by this time eBay
had been invented so I took to selling those that they grew out of, then we saw
pageant shows like toddlers and tiaras and I took to making pageant dresses,
which was great I loved it, it seemed like the one area where I could really
satisfy my burning creative edge I have and make some pennies as well, now none
of the girls are at dancing any more but I still love the creating so I still
make the costumes, it keeps my creative side satisfied.
Of all the books you have written, do you have a favourite?
Oh crikey no that would be like saying do you have a
favourite child, no I love all my books equally ^_^
What books do you like to read and do you have a favourite?
I always read Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams and I suppose
of everything Hitchhikers guide to the Universe has to be my favourite ^_^
Kizzy - Thanks for joing me today. I wish you luck with your books.
You can find out more about Kizzy by clicking on the
following links
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009VXGOIE
Awesome! Really lovely interview, thank you so much for sharing! Wow and you've moved all over the place, Kizzy! How cool is that! I'll bet that's given you lots of inspiration and moving about as a child builds creativity too I think. Sometimes imagination makes things easier to deal with doesn't it? Beautiful interview, well done ladies :-)Jess :-)x
ReplyDelete