An Interview with the magnificent Vi Keeland .
Dear
Vi, I am so happy to have you here with us, I am also honored
and humbled to have this opportunity to start with.
First,
although there are many to know you, but perhaps you can reveal a little about
yourself? "The Real Vi Keeland"?
Sure! These are some things people might not know
about me:
A boy with platinum blond
hair and light green eyes pushed me off my bicycle when I was eight; I have a
small scar on my left knee to prove it. I married him anyway.
I have a
horrible fear of ledges—not heights—but standing near the ledge of anything.
I'm short, slightly over
five feet tall.
I've had the same best
friend for thirty years. She comes over on release day at 11 a.m. and we drink
Bloody Marys.
I love to travel. This
year I’m visiting Ireland, England, Belgium and Amsterdam.
What lead
you to start writing? Did you have that passion at young age?
If so, did
you articulate yourself by novels?
I’ve always been
an avid reader and wanted to write my own book.
I’m an attorney by day, so writing is a big part of my life, but it
definitely is not the subject matter I truly enjoy writing about. After
college, I filled a spiral notebook with my first story, but never completed
it. Then life rolled on—I got married,
had three children and fell into a job that I was good at and enjoyed, but
wasn’t all that personally fulfilling.
But even after so
many years, I was still itching to write that book. So In 2012, I decided to try to write my
first novel again. I had no idea how
self-publishing worked, and truly was just proud of myself for having
finished. At the time, I thought I had
just crossed something off my mental bucket list. Then, a few months after I finished the book,
Hurricane Sandy hit. Four feet of water
throughout our house took almost everything we owned. Even though the rebuilding process was awful,
a lot of good actually came out of losing so much. It made my family realize what was really
important. And that, in turn, inspired me to really give writing a shot. We were still living in a hotel when I
started to research self publishing.
Beside
writing (and plz do not stop haha) do you do anything else?
I still work full time as an attorney, but I’m working toward changing that
in very soon!
If you
could be anything - what would you be?
I’d be
exactly who I am now—a happily married mom of three that loves writing books. I’m a very lucky girl!
From where
do you get your ideas?
Everywhere! I find
inspiration in very random places—sitting on the beach people watching, reading
the newspaper…it can really be anywhere.
I have to
ask, are your characters based on real people? Can you find yourself in one or
more of them?
Although all of my characters are fictional and mostly
come from my head, I can sometimes find pieces of myself in them—often it’s
their fears or silly habits. And I can always
find pieces of my husband in any hero.
Ok this I
have to ask that too, do you fall in love with them? (I surely did)
In an odd
way, yes! It’s often hard to move on
after becoming so attached to characters.
Penelope
Ward and you have written some books together, now how did you celebrate? do
you know each other off Facebook before you start writing together?
Plz tell
us a little about the whole process?
Penelope and I met when we were part of the same box set promotion. The set had six authors and we all became
friends and started to chat together about the book world. Eventually, Penelope and I found we had
similar taste and started to talk outside of the group and run things by each
other—cover photos, blurbs, plots etc.
Over time, we became good friends and now we probably spend more time
chatting every day than we do sleeping!
When we co-write, we both write both characters. We come up with a general plot and a feel for
both characters, but we don’t have a formal outline or anything. We basically pass a word document back and
forth every few days. Sometimes we write
two chapters and pass it back at the start of a new chapter, and other times we
will leave off in the middle of a chapter.
It’s fun because we never know what direction the other is going to take
the story in, and we look forward to reading what each other came up with so
much!
Do you
have anything else to add for our and yours readers?
Stop by
and visit me! I have a wonderful group
of readers on Facebook that are very welcoming.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ViKeelandFanGroup/
Wow you
have made me laugh, I love that you gave writing a shot as many of our readers
do…. So THANK YOU
I want to give a big shout out for Vi..
Thank you so much, Vi for you time participating in
this interview, it was amazing so thank you..
Dawn L. Chiletz is the author of The Contest, Waiting to Lose, Enough, Can't You See, and The Fabulist. She currently resides in Illinois with her husband, two boys, and three dogs. In the summer of 2014, armed with a dream from the night before, she sat at her kitchen table while her boys played on their computers and began the first words of “The Contest.” She’s been writing and drinking large amounts of coffee ever since.
