The Maiden's Court: Interview with Kerryn Reid

Good morning everyone! Hope you are having a wonderful week thus far. Today I have the wonderful opportunity to share with you an interview with author Kerryn Reid. And…this is her first interview as a new author! So help me welcome Kerryn and read on!

Learning to Waltz is your debut novel – what has the writing process been like for you? Anything that has surprised you or differed from your expectations?

I had no expectations, so it’s all been a surprise. Dialogue was surprisingly easy, structure surprisingly difficult. My biggest mistake? I completed my first draft before I ever started learning how to write a novel.

Is writing something that you always had plans to do or something that arose more recently?

When I was in high school, I helped my dad proofread the galleys for one of his books. I was fascinated by that process, and thought how much fun it would be proofread a book of my own. And it would NOT be some boring treatise on the history of the Constitution! But I didn’t think again about writing until my own kids were in high school. I won’t tell you how long ago that was!

Your novel is set in the Regency period – what about this period drew you to selecting it as your setting?

I think I could enjoy writing about nearly any period in history. But I grew up reading Regencies and felt I had a good handle on the tropes, the language, the social conventions – and maybe I did, in a general sense. But it’s amazing how much I did not know! Since Regency readers are all experts, I look forward to hearing about the mistakes I made.

When writing Learning to Waltz, did you work from an planned outline or was it more of an as you went sort of thing?

I like the word “organic”. It started with one image, and an opening sentence that doesn’t exist anymore. (In fact, the first three chapters are gone!) And I knew it would have a happy ending, even before I knew it had to if it wanted to be a romance. I learned later on how helpful an outline might be, when my timeline got all messed up. So I’m approaching my next book differently. There’s no outline per se, but several pages of notes on characters and plot points. And yes, a fairly detailed timeline. I’m also intrigued by the idea of writing a synopsis early on to serve as a road map. But I haven’t done it yet, because I hate writing synopses!

I know you just got your first novel under your belt, but do you have any other plans to write more in the future?

I do! I’ve made a good start on #2, a tale of brotherly hatred. And there are several other ideas percolating. Unfortunately I’m not a fast writer, but patience will be rewarded. I hope to give you many more opportunities to host me on your wonderful blog, Heather! ;-)

Kerryn grew up the daughter of a professor in a New England college town. But her mother was a devotee of ‘Olde’ England – its antiques, mystery novels and vacation opportunities. As a girl, Kerryn spent a year in England and another in Ireland, with several shorter trips for good measure. While on a hitchhiking tour around Ireland at seventeen, she roamed the Rock of Cashel in the dark with her first love, a local Irish lad. Totally illicit, totally romantic!

She’s lived in Florida long enough to feel like a native. That’s where she wrote the first sentence of Learning to Waltz in 1999, when her sons were in high school. Years later she joined two local writing groups and realized how much she had to learn. That first sentence? It’s not there anymore.

As her literary skills have evolved, so has Kerryn’s life. Her boys have left the nest, and come home, and flown away again. She lost her parents, and acquired an awesome daughter-in-law. Her dogs are different, but they’re still dogs. And the love of her life is still right there, trimming the hedges and thinking up tag lines. He’s not Irish, but he’s amazing!

You can find Kerryn at the following sites: