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Corfu, Greece
Liana Metal lives in Greece, on the island of Corfu. She is an EFL teacher(MAEd -Applied Linguistics), book reviewer and freelance writer. Liana is also an artist. Her drawings/paintings can be found both online at www.aggelia-online.gr and at several shops in Corfu town. To contact the artist visit http://LianaMetal.tripod.com or her blog at http://LianasKerkyra.blogspot.com Η Ηλιάνα Μεταλληνού διδάσκει Αγγλικά στην Κέρκυρα, γράφει άρθρα και ιστορίες για έντυπες και ηλεκτρονικές εκδόσεις σε όλο τον κόσμο και ζωγραφίζει. Μπορείτε να την επισκεφθείτε στην ηλεκτρονική διεύθυνση http://toasprosaligari.blogspot.com και http://www.coffeetimecorfu.com

Storytime

Storytime
A book for kids/ 3 stories in English

Friday, May 7, 2010

Meet Kari Wolfe!

Today we are going to meet Kari Wolfe!
Kari Wolfe is a writer and a blogger at Imperfect Clarity (http://www.imperfectclarity.net) in whatever time is left over from being a stay-at-home-mom to a very precocious and energetic three-year old. She blogs on a number of topics including writing, book reviews, interviews, and setting and meeting goals.

Currently, she is on a mission: to combine fiction writing articles with and articles on how she’s trying to live her life to the fullest and she’s going to bring you on that journey with her through her blog.

Here's an exciting interview with Kari to know all about her and her books.
Enjoy!


Hi Kari, tell us a little bit about your background.

Well, I’m originally from Huntington, West Virginia, and currently live in Colorado Springs, CO. Before moving to Colorado, I received my bachelor’s degree in science, majoring in physics and mathematics from Marshall University in my home town.

It’s always been my dream to write. And, by dream, I mean I have written my entire life but always have been told that I should do something else.

That and I’ve had setbacks, mostly in school.

During middle school, I wrote erotica—not the most appropriate topic for a pre-teen—and my writing was confiscated by the guidance counselor who pulled me into her office for a good talking to. I don’t remember what she said but I remember the embarrassment I felt. I don’t write erotica anymore.

In high school, I co-wrote a book with my best friend, Mikie—my character would flirt with his character, his character would tell mine no and that we were just really good friends, etc. So on and so forth.

As an adult, I kept a journal that was used against me by an ex-boyfriend who threw anything negative I wrote about him in my face. Same guy who would take me to a secluded spot, make me feel guilty for whatever he was upset at me about and once I cried, he’d take me home.

When I married my husband, it took me a while to finally realize that I was safe. If I didn’t want anyone to read my writing—regardless of what it was—no one would. He wouldn’t go through what I’d written without my permission. I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2008 and, with his encouragement, I won.

For my blog, Imperfect Clarity, I’ve interviewed some awesome people: Seth Godin, Peter Straub, Conrad Williams, Christopher Moore, Les Edgerton and more.

Tell us about your current book. Give a short summary and also how you got the idea for this book.

Realizing there is more than to life than observation, a voyeur kidnaps a struggling stay-at-home mother and her children only to fight the trapped evil spirit of the house they are hiding in through his possessed partner-in-crime.

For this work, I combined several different ideas.

First, the newest Tool album has a song called “Vicarious” about how some people watch the news and the worse the news is, the better they like it. The idea is they are “living vicariously through the eyes of others,” a phrase criminologist Jack Levin used in a personal conversation with me about why people are so fascinated with the idea of serial killers. The song reminded me of our conversation which gave me Jake, the story’s protagonist.

Second, I wanted to try my hand at a novel about a haunted house. Easy as that. As to what the house actually does… I took a subject I was interested in, memory, and started asking myself questions about what I could do with that subject.

Last, the overall theme of the story is forgiveness of self. It probably took longer to come up with the overall theme than anything else. Plotting out the book’s main points and what I definitely wanted to have happen helped a lot in discovering this.

What is a typical writing day like for you?


I have a three-year-old daughter who is autistic, so in some ways, I really don’t feel like I ever have a typical day. On Monday and Wednesdays, she goes to preschool and, after my own physical therapy, I have an hour before picking her up. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have hippotherapy and speech therapy.

Fortunately she takes a nap most afternoons—or, at least, I’ve instituted a rule of quiet time where she plays in her room. This is when I do most of my writing.

After Natasha goes to bed, I have some time available then, but I use it for reading and relaxing mostly. My husband is home, so it’s more difficult for me to concentrate on writing fiction.

What do you enjoy most about writing?


I love to talk. You can ask my husband ;)

Seriously, I love to create. I love to come up with an idea and to work it out on the page. Recently, I’ve been inundated with new ideas and I keep jotting them down. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to get to them all! J

What is the most difficult part of writing?


Sometimes it’s just DOING it. I freewrite, to get my hands flowing across the keyboard and to kickstart my brain.

Sometimes it’s just time—there are days I have no energy to focus on fiction and I only focus on nonfiction, blog entries, that type of thing.

And sometimes it’s focusing on the here and now. Daydreaming about having your books in bookstores and name on the publishing lists is great—but you have to do the work first.

Do you have a website?

Yes, Imperfect Clarity at http://www.imperfectclarity.net/

From the About Me page: (http://www.imperfectclarity.net/?page_id=4)
Imperfect Clarity is a detailed look at the thought processes of a fiction writer trying to improve her life and become successful by living her life to the fullest.
The idea here is to combine fiction writing articles with my own fiction and articles on how I’m trying to live my life to the fullest that I can. I am learning how to do this not only from different websites I have found talking about motivation but also by actually DOING these things I talk about.
I’m in the process of branding it and hopefully will be able to institute those changes within the next month. I’m really excited about it.

You can sign up to receive Imperfect Clarity both through email (http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ImperfectClarity&loc=en_US) as well as through your favorite RSS reader (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ImperfectClarity).

What are you working on right now?


Including The House (my fictional work-in-progress), I am currently working on a four or five-post series for my blog about resistance and procrastination. I have several nonfiction ebooks in the works as well as a guest posting position.

Thank you, Kari, for sharing all this interesting information with us!
And Good luck to your life journey!

15 comments:

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

Enjoyed the interview. Glad you didn’t let your previous experiences totally turn you off writing. Your WIP sounds like an interesting concept.

Karen Cioffi said...

What a wonderfully candid interview. Thanks for sharing your idea process for creating the winning Nano story. Three simple separate elements combined to make a winning story!

I have a friend in Colorado Springs.

Unknown said...

Great interview! Kari, I love that a Tool song partly inspired your writing!

Nancy Famolari said...

Great interview. I enjoyed hearing about making the winning Nano story.

elysabeth said...

I wrote my young adult novel during NaNo - and it's about a house - not necessarily haunted but a house nonetheless. The house is key to finding out about Kelly's past and her future more or less. I had a vision of a house one day while I was sitting here working - literally I had to open another document to write the vision - I tried different ways to write the story and finally settled on a young adult story. I've titled mine - Finally Home - but not sure it really is the best title.

You have your hands full and hopefully you will get through everything and get the story published - E :)

Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series
STATE OF WILDERNESS, now available
STATE OF QUARRIES, now available
STATE OF RESERVATIONS, coming May 2010
STATE OF ALTITUDE, coming May/June 2010

Where will the adventure take you next?

http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://www.junior-geography-detective-squad.weebly.com

Kari Wolfe said...

Thanks, guys! :)

I would always recommend NaNoWriMo to everyone--just try and get a skeleton of what you're going to write first :)

@Jane: It's been a long road and I've struggled at times. It's hard to have people read what you write in a journal when you meant what you wrote for yourself only. I think my husband and I have enough respect for each other that we're not going to go through each other's personal stuff. And it's nice.

@Karen: Colorado Springs is fabulous and you should definitely visit when you get a chance.

@Darcia: I LOVE the newest Tool album, 10,000 Days! :)

@Nancy: Thanks! :)

Liana said...

Kari,
Thank you for your exciting interview!

Hi everybody, thanks a lot for visiting!

Liana

Katie Hines said...

Great article. Nice to meet you, Kari. Wow, I don't know how you do all that you do, especially keeping track of your little one. Hope you have great success in your writing.

Debra Eckerling said...

hanks, Liana and Kari.

So nice to ?meet" you Kari. Keep up the good work. And best of luck with everything,
Deb

Martha said...

Nice to meet you Kari and good luck
Martha Swirzinski

Heidiwriter said...

Cute family picture! I enjoyed getting to "know you," Kari, and your books sound great!

Dallas said...

It was great getting to know you through this post, Kari! I love your theme of "self forgiveness" and giving yourself permission to write. Sometimes that's the hardest part!

Keep up the great work!

dana e donovan said...

Nice to meet you, Kari. Your book sounds interesting. I wish you the best of luck with it.

Unknown said...

Very open interview. Thanks Kari! A degree in Physics? WOW! I am impressed.

Good luck with your book. Great getting to know more about you :)

Liana said...

Thank you all for visiting!
Liana