Author Interview with Lily Kathleen

I am so excited to share my first Author Interview for this weekend! This is the first interview I have ever done and even though it was through email and not face to face I was still so nervous! What if I ask a stupid question? What if they think I didn’t take this seriously? What if my readers don’t enjoy the questions? Of course I am going to worry about these things because this is my first ever interview and I want to continue to have opportunities like this arise. But what this really comes down to is making connections with these authors and showing my audience how incredible they are as people and how amazing their books are.

This will be the first interview of three that will be posted this weekend. I asked each author a series of the same questions to see how different or alike each individual author is, especially because they all live in different parts of the country! I also asked more specific questions geared to each individual author as well. I hope you all enjoy these just as much as I have!

Something to keep in mind is that each of the authors I interview this week will be offering a signed copy of their books for my giveaway coming up on October 8th for my bookstaversary! I will post links to follow each author and also a link to be able to buy a copy of their books.

About the Author

“The Intellect”

Jessica is a fifteen year old girl who has overbearing parents who make her and her siblings move at least once a year for some unknown reason. When Jessica’s parents make her move from Ney York all the way to a small town in South Dakota they make sure Jessica has no contact with her previous friends, including her boyfriend Jake. This doesn’t make any sense to her and feels as if it isn’t fair, why would her parents not let her keep in contact with old friends, isn’t moving hard enough?

Fast forward to the first day of school. While waiting for the bus stop she meets Aaron, a complete loner who no one seems to care of his existence. The more they talk the faster they become friends and the faster they both learn that they have a lot more in common than they originally thought with some pretty dark secrets following them around.

All Jessica wanted in life is to go to school, make some normal friendships and to stay in one place for longer than a year for once in her life! Will her parents finally start to loosen the reins? Will she find out what secrets her parents are withholding from her?

Interview

Q: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your book.

A:  Hello! My name is Lily Kathleen. I am 17 years old. I have written and self-published my own book, The Intellect. The Intellect is a YA Romance Mystery, targeted for teens and young adults.

Q: How old were you when you first started writing?

A: When I first started writing I was about 13 years old.

Q: When did you start writing “The Intellect”?

A: I started writing The Intellect when I was 16 years old. It was at the end of May, 2020

Thoughts: The one thing that I appreciated about the pandemic is that it gave many people the time to be creative and even start their own businesses. In this case it gave you the time to sit down and write your first book!

Q: How did you come up with the title of your book?

A: The title of my book came kind of randomly to me. I was looking for a word that would describe what Jessica was, and I found “Intellect”, which fit perfectly.

Thoughts: I always find the origin to things like this very interesting. A title to a book is to me the most important part, even before a cover! Yes, I do judge my books by the covers but if the title doesn’t sound interesting then why should I pick up a book? I feel as if “The Intellect” was the perfect title for this book because it fully described the whole book!

Q: Are you currently working on any new projects?

A: Yes. I’m actually working on three books right now. I keep going back and forth between them all.

Thoughts: That is so amazing! I can read three books at a time but I don’t think I could manage keeping all three books and their ideas all separate. I applaud your dedication!

Q: Did you always want to be an Author? What was your dream job as a child?

A: I didn’t always want to be an author. It was definitely an idea, but not something I expected to ever do. 

Q: What is your writing process like? How do you get in the zone?

A:  I started by just writing. I didn’t expect it to go anywhere, like the rest of my writing, but as I continued writing, I realized how much I really liked my idea. So, I stopped and wrote out every idea I had to write my book. I ran through it with my mom, who helped me more than anyone with this book. I wrote for many weeks, barely doing anything else, and I ended up with the book I had. I edited it a couple times, then took a month break and edited two more times, and did this process about 5 times, for a total of about 10-12 edits. Then I had some friends and family read it afterwards, before publishing it.

Thoughts: It is so cool to see what kind of work goes into creating a book. Sometimes as a reader I forget to think about how much time and effort goes into the process.

Q: Who is your favorite character that you have written so far?

A: Ally. I love Ally so much, even though she’s not the main character. I love how much she cares about Jessica. I also love her sense of humor and motivation for her baking business.

Thoughts: I highly recommend you go pick up “The Intellect” so you can find out more about ally’s character. Ally was also my favorite character because I could relate to her love for baking and putting all your effort into something you love to do.

Q: Do you read book reviews? How do you handle the bad vs good reviews?

A: Yes. I read every review I get, so I can figure out what I need to improve. Bad reviews can be really difficult for me. As I wrote this when I was 16, I understand things aren’t going to be the same as writers who are 30+ years old. I try not to read into negative reviews too much because I understand that everyone has different preferences and it doesn’t mean my book is bad. It just wasn’t for them.

Thoughts: As a reviewer I always strive to give the most honest review I can without being harsh. So lets say the book had a lot of issues, I word it more as constructive criticism than pure hatred. I don’t ever want to hurt someone’s feelings over something they worked so hard on.

Q: Do you believe in writers block? If so how do you overcome it?

A: Yes. I experienced this a lot. I always set my writing down and go for a walk, play piano or guitar, or find some other creative outlet that can allow me to not think about my writing and think about something else creative that can potentially help me write and come up with new, fun ideas.

Thoughts: I don’t know if it is fair to compare writers block to a reading slump but those are difficult to get past as well. I am glad you are able to get away from your work for a bit to refresh your mind.

Q:  What advice would you give to your younger self now that you have written and published a book?

A: I would probably tell myself to not focus on bad reviews. I had a really difficult time at first and I still do. It made me believe I was a bad writer and that I should give up. I still struggle with bad reviews at times, but I try to focus on the good ones now. I haven’t written any of my book ideas for some time and I wish I could tell myself not to worry about reviews. I would also tell myself to not worry about how popular my book is compared to other writers. Every author sells a different amount of books, based on the genre, age range, and type of book. Just like people, everyone is unique and different in their own way.

Thoughts: I loved your book! I really don’t want bad reviews to get you down either. This is your first book and you are only 17! That is a crazy accomplishment and I personally am so proud of you and I know your family and friends are as well. Keep your head up, great things are coming your way!

Q: What is your favorite book of all time?

A: My favorite book is Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover.

Q: What was the first book that you can remember reading? One that made an impact on you?

A: The Fault In Our Stars. It wasn’t my first book, but it was the book that got me into reading more as a teen.

Thoughts: I remember reading this book in middle school and it tore my heart apart! I loved the story and writing but this book made me cry!

Q: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

A:  I would honestly just hang out with them. I would love to just spend time with people my age that have similar interests as I do. I think that my characters would be super fun to hang out with and I know they’d be open to anyone.

Thoughts: I think this is the beauty of creating your own characters because they really can become your best friends or just exact copies of the people you wish you could be friends with. Your characters were all very relatable as well which really helped create connections with your readers.

Thoughts: You and your mom are both absolutely gorgeous! I love that she is your hero and biggest supporter in your life. Moms are so very special! Also can we talk about how gorgeous that dress is? I wish I looked this good for my prom!

Conclusion

I met Lily on bookstagram a few months ago and I truly believe she is my best friend on bookstagram. She has such a kind soul and a very creative mind! I was so excited to get a free copy of her book when we met and I immediately dove in.

Here is a bit of my review of her book and the link to my full review.

This book was the perfect mixture of Romance and mystery tied together. When you think of a YA romance book you want this cute high school relationship that doesn’t feel like an adult love story. This book gave me the nostalgia of high school romance, the way you feel when you have a crush and when you try to hide the way you feel to protect your heart from being hurt. This book had all the feels of high school love rushing back to me.