Today I'd like to welcome Vickie Johnstone to my blog! Even with this new post, don't forget about the contest I have going! Head here for more info. It ends tomorrow, so don't wait! To get to know Vickie, jump right in and check out this great interview! Keep on reading to find out about her work. Enjoy!
What is the ideal recipe
for a good novel?
Gripping
plot, interesting characters who have depth and believability, something quirky,
some element that is unusual and original (or almost), that it feels real,
layers in the story, and good writing that flows and even uses words or
sentences in a new way. I’m currently reading The Book Thief and it has all of these things. A novel should offer
something different.
You’ve been contacted by
the Association of Libraries from the Alien Planet of Zaolia. They want to know
the five most important novels in all of Earth’s history. Which five novels do
you give them?
Ooh,
that’s a tough one and I’d probably change my mind tomorrow. They won’t be the
most important historically, but these are the ones I’d give him: Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen), The Collected Works of William Shakespeare,
Fantastic Mr Fox (Roald Dahl), The
Handmaiden’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) and The
Songs of Innocence and Experience (William Blake).
What was the turning point in your life
when you decided to start writing?
There were a few. Number one was when I
was 16 or 17, my family moved to Cornwall. The English teacher was really
inspiring and supportive, and she liked my poems. So she is responsible for me
writing books and books of them!
Number two. In April 2002, I was made
redundant and I was bored basically for three months, during which I started to
imagine a world populated by cats in which my own kitty, Kiwi, would live and
be some kind of cat detective, but magical too. I started writing Kiwi in Cat City and finished it in
about four or six weeks. It was the first proper book I ever finished. I sent
it to one publisher who rejected it and no one read it until 2011, which was
the third and real turning point – when my boyfriend read about self-publishing
on Amazon and Smashwords. Cue Kiwi in Cat
City being published and read for the first time, along with a collection
of my poetry from over the years.
2011 was THE turning point for me. I met
a lot of writers on Facebook in the writing groups and I found they were more
determined, less lazy and more obsessed with writing than me. It rubbed off.
There were people who were typing away during the night when their kids were in
bed after a long day’s work, yet I always made excuses that I didn’t have time.
I so did have time! I realised that I was lazy and had an inability to finish things.
Since 2011, I have written 10 books and it’s because I met these authors and
discovered self-publishing. I also did NaNoWriMo in 2011, which taught me that
you can sit down every day and write if you really have to!
What is or are the genres of your book or books?
They are mainly for middle-grade
readers. There is the six-book Kiwi
Series, starring a magic cat who takes her human friends to
animal-inhabited worlds, and the two-book Smarts
& Dewdrop Mystery Series. The latter are titled ‘Day of…’ something, in
tribute to the Day of the Living Dead
and Dawn of the Dead, which inspired
my silly comedy Day of the Living Pizza (book
one in the S&D series). Apart
from these I have written a comedy romance with a touch of fantasy as one
character is a dog who swears a lot. That one is called 3 Heads & a Tail and I wrote it for NaNoWriMo 2011. I have also
written two books of poetry and a book of haiku. At the moment I am working on
a fantasy novel that I started in 2009. I’ve written about 25,000 words. Did I
mention that I never used to finish things?!
What made you decide to write in your particular genre?
I never set
out to write for children. It sort of happened. I’ve written stories since I
was so high (pointing to my knee – I was always small), but I never really
finished things. Then in 2002, I was made redundant and, finding myself bored
at home, somehow, kaboom, I wrote and finished a book. It was short, about 28k,
and it began with a poem about my cat called Kiwi. I didn’t know where the book
would go when I started, but gradually all of these cats made appearances and
said things. They needed to live somewhere, and a place emerged. Then other
questions followed, which demanded answers. What would they eat? Where would
they sleep? What did they look like? Would they wear clothes? How would they
walk? Would they always stay on four legs? How did they think? What adventures
would they have?
Kiwi in Cat City turned into one big adventure for
me... into the world of children’s books. As a kid, I loved books. Give me one
starring a talking animal and I was in Heaven. Make it a fluffy, cute animal
with a sense of humour on a big adventure, and I wouldn’t have noticed if my
bedroom ceiling caved in. I would be lost in a world that was unlike my own,
dreaming, imagining, and almost being who I was reading about. So sometimes I
was a rabbit. All the while, I would have this big sense of wide-eyed wonder.
Then I grew
up. I stopped reading children’s stories, except for my favourite book of all
time, Fantastic Mr Fox. Now and then
I’d dip back into that one, but that was it. So, how come at the age of 30-ish
(not giving that away), I wrote a book about magical cats for an audience aged
nine to twelve? I’ve no idea. A huge gap of years followed this until I finally
self-published the book via kindle and wrote a second at the big old age of
40-(la la). The second one only came about because some readers liked the first
one – to my utter shock. I think fear, self-doubt and self-criticism – those
big slimy monsters that prevent us doing many things – had got in the way. But,
hey, that’s a different story.
Who is your favorite
character from your book and why?
That
would have to be Kiwi because she is the heroine of Kiwi in Cat City and the Kiwi
Series. There are six books and she’s the star of them all. Kiwi is
inspired by a real cat that I had for six years. She was cute, cuddly, cheeky
and very curious. In the books Kiwi can do magic and talk to the two children.
As a kid I talked to my pets all the time. I actually thought they understood
me and that I could communicate with my dad’s budgies by winking!
Who is your favorite author, and how did they inspire you to
write?
I have a couple: Hans Christian Anderson
and Roald Dahl. I don’t know if they inspired me to write, but I loved both and
still do. My favourites are The Little
Mermaid and Fantastic Mr Fox. I
always loved books starring animals and fantasy, along with characters who had
layers and seemed real. I also loved Enid Blyton, especially The Folk of the Faraway Tree. I always
had my nose in a book as a kid and I started writing stories really young, so
it’s children’s authors who inspired me. I remember in junior school the
teacher reading us The Adventures of Miss
Pepperpot. I can’t remember anything about the book now, but our homework
was to write our own version. I included many of my classmates in my story,
which was read aloud, and I remember going bright red because my friends
enjoyed it and the teacher liked it. I was pretty shy and writing was my
outlet, along with drawing. So, thank you Miss
Pepperpot and co.
When you write do you take notes, organize your characters and
plot, or you write freely as you go?
I’m a pantser and write as I go. I keep
a notebook now because another writer said he did and I thought good idea! It’s
great for scribbling down ideas on the move and my memory isn’t great! I get
ideas for poems in the shower, for example, and then they’re gone with the wind
or the soap. I don’t plan or organise characters or plot out each chapter of a
book. I usually start with the title and an idea of the main character in my
head. Then I think about it a lot until I can start to ‘see’ stuff happening in
my imagination and get an idea of what the character will do and what the story
will be about. Usually I don’t know where the book will go. I usually start
writing the first chapter. Then I’ll write whatever comes next. Sometimes it’s
the last chapter or the middle – it will be whatever comes to me first.
Kiwi
in Cat City was written from start to finish in 2002. With 3 Heads & a Tail, I wrote the first
chapter and then the last, and then headed back to chapter two. Towards the end
I inserted new chapters towards the front. I make stuff up as I go along. My
poems are like flash fiction and normally take five to ten minutes. With the
fantasy I’m working on at the moment, I wrote the beginning in 2009. In 2011 (I
think), I wrote some more that followed on from that point. This year I wrote
the back of the book and the ending. Now I have to work on the middle. I keep
getting stuck because I’m not sure what is going to happen, although I know how
it will end.
Where does your inspiration come from?
All sorts. With poetry, it can be anything – a flower, a
person in the street, a word, a phrase or a cloud. The Kiwi Series was inspired by my cat, Kiwi, as I’ve mentioned. I
wrote Day of the Living Pizza for a
charity book called The Gage Project,
published by Inknbeans Press. It was for a boy called Gage who was about to
have a scary operation. I asked his mother what his favourite things were and
she said The Walking Dead, chicken,
rock music and pizza. So I wrote a comedy horror, which is a send-up of scary
zombie films and people turn into walking pizzas. I won’t tell you how chicken
comes in – you’d have to read it. My other book, a comedy and starring a dog, 3 Heads & a Tail, was written for
NaNoWriMo 2011, so that was my inspiration – writing 50k in the month of
November. It was great for me as I’m naturally lazy and put things off. It kept
my butt in front of my laptop for longer than it wanted.
Do you write about your personal life experiences in your stories?
Not really – the Kiwi books are inspired by a cat I used to have called Kiwi and I
put in things that I know cats do, and how they move or act, but that’s about
it. Walking pizza dudes… that’s never happened to me! My poetry is not really
about me, although it was as a teenager, but more about people I think up,
nature, abstracts, philosophy and ideas. With 3 Heads & a Tail, Josie is a bit like me. Her best friend is
based on a couple of women I’ve met in my life. David is based on some dudes
who wanted to be rock stars and I took some of my dating experiences into the
book. I guess with Ben I kind of created an ideal boyfriend! And I haven’t met
a dog like Glen – I made him up. I tried to imagine how a dog would think. I’m
a cat person so it was a big stretch of the imagination! He’s an odd dog,
eccentric but likeable. My first pet was a dog called Glen. He wasn’t a
Labrador and I only remember him vaguely as I was little, but he loved to shake
dirty water over everyone!
What is your favorite scene in your story?
My favourite scene in Kiwi in Cat City is when Amy and James
follow their cat one night to see where she goes, and they’re going as quietly
as can be, thinking that she has no idea. But she knows. She can hear them loud
and clear, and then, bam, she turns around and asks them why they are following
her! The children sit down in shock, gobsmacked, while the cat is as cool as a
cucumber.
When I was a kid this would have been
the most wonderful thing in the world. My second favourite scene is when Kiwi
turns the children into kittens so that they can go with her to her world and
discover what it’s like to be a cat. I always wanted to be able to turn into an
animal as a kid and find out what it was like.
When I was little, we had a lot of pets. Our house was like a zoo, and
my dad bred birds. It was great. I used to talk to the animals and birds – even
my pet fish – thinking they understood and somehow were communicating by
telepathy! Then I got a bit older and realised, hey, that’s not how it is! But
wouldn’t it be cool? Talking animals... Doctor Doolittle, eat your heart out!
Are the characters in your story based on people you know?
The character
of Kiwi (Kiwi Series) is based on a
black cat I used to have. She was cute, cuddly, cheeky and very, very curious.
She died in 2000, and I wrote Kiwi in Cat
City in 2002. I made Kiwi the main character, and then the other animals
and plot emerged from that. I love the fact that she’s alive in my books
because I was gutted when I lost her. She was only six. The real Kiwi was cool,
loved jumping for moths (oops) and chasing shadows, ate a lot, would swat the
food off your plate if you weren’t looking, liked to play with anything that
moved and was really, really fluffy. She also slept on my bed. She would follow
me everywhere – down the street in the morning and even to work if she could
have hopped on the train. I’d have to pick her up and carry her back home. As a
kitten she was just a black ball of fluff with two yellow eyes peering out. The
cat I have now is called Moggie and I made her Kiwi’s mum in the books,
although they never met. She appears in book two, Kiwi and the Missing Magic.
Is there any part in writing you don’t like?
Not really. I love it. The only thing I
hate is when I can’t think of anything and the characters aren’t talking – that
blank head moment! Oh, and bad reviews. I haven’t got my head around those. I
still sulk for a bit. I’d love to be able to just write and not have to do
something else to pay the bills. That’s my dream. I also wish that bookstores
would want to stock my books.
Thank you, Vickie, for being such a wonderful guest! Please share
the links where readers can connect with you and find your books!
Want to stalk Vickie? Find her here:
Amazon US author page:
Amazon UK author page:
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