Small-Town Inspirations

In December of last year, my little sister had her first dance recital. It was a two day event, and was very hectic and busy, and we had trouble getting seats for everybody. On the first day of her recital, I saw someone with blue hair, and there was no mistaking who she was-Kadee Carder-one of my favorite authors who also happens to be from my hometown! (To read about when I met her, and how she inspired me, go check out this Instagram post!) When I saw her, I got fangirl giggles, but alas, I didn't get to talk to her, which turned out to be a good thing, because knowing I would see her the next day, I had an idea-"I should interview her for my blog!" With some encouragement from my mom, I made a decision; I was GOING TO talk to her tomorrow! All through the recital the next day, I had to swallow my anticipation and excitement. When it was over, I waited for people to clear out a bit, and then we left the auditorium and went out into the lobby. We waited a few minutes, all the while my anticipation grew and grew. Finally, I saw her. I tapped my mom repeatedly and whispered in a not-so-quiet whisper, "There she is!" I gained my composure, quickly walked up to her and said, "Hi." and stared blankly at her. She looked looked back at me and questioned "Yes?" with a puzzled look on her face. (Yes, it was that awkward, nervousness will make you do silly things!) After what seemed like hours (which was more like seconds), I told her that I was a fan of her work, and I was an aspiring writer and blogger. I asked her if I could interview her for my blog, and guess what...she said yes to the interview!

So, here we have it: inspiration and encouragement from Kadee Carder!

Question #1: What has been your greatest achievement as a writer? 

A. You know, it’s funny how we measure success. When I first began this writing/publishing business and career, I looked at numbers a LOT. I counted social media followers, I tabbed royalty payments, and I found myself let down a LOT because I was focusing on external factors, most of which I had no control over. I had a huge mindset shift about a year ago and began focusing on what I could do and I celebrated every win, no matter the size. So I have a lot of successes that I’m satisfied with, and proud of myself for overcoming obstacles every step of the way. However, I suppose I have to say that having “Insurrection,” book one of the Saylor MacTavish adventures, FINALLY in print by my publisher, has been my biggest win yet. I began working on Insurrection about ten years ago, as my Master of Fine Arts thesis. It’s taken a lot of edits, cuts, research, love, and dedication to marketing –and over two years of impatient waiting -- to get that book into paperback. My publisher released Insurrection as an ebook in October of 2016, so to wait all these years and finally hold that book in my hands is priceless.

Question #2: How old were you when you first started writing?

A. I have been writing for as long as I have known my alphabet. I have multiple stories from when I was first learning how to write, that I even illustrated myself – my sister has a copy of “Myrtle The Turtle,” a snappy little story of the slow adventures of Myrtle and her pal Dale the Snail.

Question #3: What was the first thing (that you can remember) that you wrote?

A. The first worthwhile attempt at a novel was a project I titled “K.I.D.S.” and I was probably in fourth or fifth grade or so. I filled a one-inch binder with loose-leaf paper. I think the story was at least a hundred and sixty pages, probably more, handwritten. I still have it in a memory box. It’s eerily similar to Ender’s Game.

Question #4: Can you describe the feeling of having your first book published?

A. Heh heh. She chuckles. Leans back in her chair and strokes her chin with her forefinger and thumb. Ten years of walks through my neighborhood, staring up at the blue skies, seeing Saylor’s island and kingdom of fire…ten years of writing well into the black morning, eyes bleary from the glowing computer screen, fingers numb. Twenty years of ideas simmering on that back burner, of pirate ships, baseball bats, and leathery gloves itching to grip a weapon…one year of researching agents and publishers, spending countless hours seeking words, compiling query letters, and hitting, “Send,” and enduring the endless silence of no responses…of hours spent in Body Combat at the gym, punching the shadows, the unspilled tears, the rejection, the loss of dreams shattered, of lifting heavy weights so that I could bear the brute force of gut punch reviews stating, “She has more weaknesses than strengths.”…And the fireworks of finally being accepted, of those dear, crisp words, “I would love to offer a contract…”…The rippling glitter of excited tears upon opening a brown box packed full of pages that you created…I walked this adventure with Saylor. I saw the sunset-smeared mountains and dusty hallways with her. I explored the ghostly tunnels and gritty weight rooms by her side. Maybe I didn’t have actual monsters to wrangle, but there has been fire, there has been, fear, there has been victory. There have been real high fives, warrior poses, chicken salads, tears, sweat, and blood mingling in the snapshots of our journey. It’s not for the weak or faint-hearted, but for those who dare continue down the road, it’s more of an adventure than you’d ever imagine.

Question #5: What inspired you to be an author?

A. The final kick which inspired me to leap into writing was when I read Madeleine L’Engle’s book, “Walking On Water” around 2008. It’s about life as a Christian artist, and creating Christian art. Her writing spoke to me so clearly that I wanted to pass that along to other readers. What would happen if my writing inspired others to tackle their challenges? And more importantly, what would happen if not?

Question #6: Where do you get inspiration for your content?

A. The five novels following Saylor and the Alliance Military Guard spawned from my childhood friends and a game we played on the playground. My three or four girlfriends and I pretended to be pirates, orphans, avengers, saving the world, and escaping bedtime. The characters we created really stuck with me and I changed them a bit once I began writing – Saylor was initially a boy named Taylor. Ha! Yes, we did pretend to be boys, because when we grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s, girls didn’t get to go on adventures in mainstream media.

So a lot of my content comes from real life situations or concepts. There are actually a lot of moments of my life that I’ve put into the series – Saylor’s first kiss with Tucker came from one of my own special moments. The idea of the oxinals (the tech Saylor has to deal with in the first three books) came from my hours spent practicing softball. I played for about ten years while growing up, loved it, but hitting was a weakness. To help me improve, my dad drilled a hole through a softball and strung it up from a tree in our backyard. I’d spend hours hitting it and eventually needed a reason to keep hitting that ball – so what if it were trying to kill me?! That helped.

I like to take real life and play the ‘what if’ game, and then explore from there.

Question #7: What is your favorite novel that you have published?

A. I think “Earthshine” is my favorite book so far. It’s the most recent. Every book that I write becomes my favorite, ha! However, I love where Saylor and Tucker ended up, and that we get to see them work as a team, and explore life together outside of the island where they met. It’s placed in a beautiful location, the Azores islands, and I just love the twists and turns that it takes. I think any reader can pick it up and enjoy the book by itself, which makes it special.

Question #8: What are some challenges you've faced, and how did you overcome them?

A. Giiiiiirllllll every step of this process has been a challenge. I cannot be rosy-eyed and fluffy about it. I’ve read a lot of author bios where they say, “I don’t know what happened, I just had this idea, wrote it down, and then it just somehow got popular and now I’m a millionaire.” Those drive me crazy! They are not the standard, they are the one-in-a-million story. After taking the initial time to write and edit a quality story, I queried literary agents for over ten months, sending out 69 individualized emails. I received 20 responses, and all were a standard, “We are sorry, but we are uninterested.” Silence from all the other agents. After those months of silence, I decided to self-publish Insurrection and found ways to do book signings, where I learned how to improve my pitch for my book. Then I went to a book conference where I did “Pitch-a-Palooza” and speed-pitched to agents and publishers. That’s where one agent stopped me after my second sentence and said, “You can stop. I am not interested.” That was hard to take. Shaking hands, sweaty everything, broken heart, super fun. Plus I was hungry. But then I met my publisher and we immediately connected. While there were lots of amazing experiences along the way, it was almost like that for every good thing, there was a bad thing. Oh, you get a book contract! Oh, your book will only be an ebook. Oh, you have an editor! But you also have twenty-four hours to edit your super long story. Oh, you finally have a book in print! Oh, you have to pay people to read it and get reviews otherwise nobody cares. So it’s very up-and-down.

There have been many many times when I wanted to give up. But there was always someone at my back saying, no, this is a great story, please keep going. I had to switch gears from writing “because people will love it,” to, “because I love it.” I had to learn to listen to my tribe of support rather than the critics. I had to learn what my boundaries were and what my achievable goals were, rather than hoping that outside factors would possibly work out.

One big challenge was my first bad book review. There will always be someone who does not like your writing. Fact. When I read my first two-star review, it knocked me flat. Lots of tears. Lots of walking through the dark night, staring up at the stars, wondering what I was doing. But then I woke up the next day and my daughters still loved me, the coffee pot still worked, and I could still go to the gym and lift heavy weights. I found out that the monsters weren’t so scary, and that in fact I was tougher than I knew. So I keep on writing, lifting, walking, dreaming, and praying. These stories didn’t come just for me. I believe God gave them to me to pass along, so until he closes every single door, I will continue exploring, writing, and learning perseverance. And every time I want to give up, right at the last second, something new comes along. I thought this was a journey of learning how to write, but it turns out this is a journey of learning how to trust.

I will say this about overcoming challenges: I had to learn to look at challenges as opportunity to learn. That’s actually why I wrote Kingdom Come, because I realized there was so much more to my life and your life than “the end.” I realized that we each have three unique tools to manage the obstacle course. And that the obstacle course is in fact why we are here. So with some seeking, some prayer, some research, I hammered out Kingdom Come, which will serve readers as their own guidebook, in a way, to overcoming adversity. The challenge is the adventure. Adventure awaits.

Question #9: What is some advice you have for young or new aspiring authors?

A. 1. Consistency and persistence: Write every day. Read every day. Study, learn, edit, improve. You can always get better; you only get better by intentional working.

2. Write for you. Even if everybody else hates it, and you love it, then it is successful art.

3. Think long-term, as in, at least ten years. If you aren’t willing to spend the next ten years building toward begin a successful writer, then you will get burned out and give up. Don’t expect things to move fast, and don’t give up when things don’t work out right away. They probably won’t work out right away! The book industry moves super slow. While books are easier to access and put into print now, the industry is the toughest it has ever been. Your work has to be unique, fresh, original, and straight up in the right place at the right time. The ending of your writer journey will not be what you think it looks like, but something even more amazing. The journey is the adventure. So while you wait, keep working, keep writing, because you can always improve, so you might as well keep writing to be the best artist you can be.

4. Take long walks outside and dream. Experience life because it is the ultimate inspiration.

5. Build a tribe of people who you love and who love you. You will need support, so build that authentic family who sticks with you no matter what.

So, there ya have it! Now go on and go check Kadee Carder out and get one or two (or maybe three or four) of her books! Here's a photo of her, her bio, and her social media information!

Fierce yet sparkly, I rally seekers to thrive in their stories. The goal is magic, the medium is ink, and the fuel is coffee. And sometimes pizza. I teach English on the university level when I'm not dancing around the living room with my family, lifting heavy at the gym, traveling the planet, or binging superhero shows.

INSURRECTION, INCOMPLETE, INDELIBLE, HERE BE DRAGONS, EARTHSHINE and non-fiction inspirational KINGDOM COME roll out perilous motives, twisty plots, and daring protagonists. Grab some real estate and your copy of my latest adventure, and follow along on KadeeCarder.com.

Visit http://www.kadeecarder.com for inspiration, encouragement, freebie codes, and more!

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And please feel free to subscribe for encouraging blogs! Kadeecarder.com

I’m giving away a free, empowering e-book to those who subscribe to my email list at kadeecarder.com/subscribe. Titled IGNITE, the 60-page book offers a serving of inspiration, a dash of hope, and a cup of grace to help you get kickin’ on those challenging tasks you’ve got to do!

From the moment I met Kadee at her writing workshop at our small town library three years ago, she has inspired and encouraged me as a writer and blogger. It is encouraging to know that someone, from anywhere, can do anything they desire, even rocking blue hair in small-town Texas while writing awesome novels! Go find who you are and live your dreams! I'm starting with berry-colored hair, AND this blog post! :D

Share your thoughts, how did Kadee inspire or encourage you? Drop a comment, email me, or click the "chat with me" tab at the bottom of your screen, and go check out Kadee Carder! (If you haven't already!)

Goodbye for now,

Kyra :)

P.S. Here's a picture of my new hair color!

My hair is actually redder than the picture showed but you get the idea! :)

#newpost #followme #bookgirl #fangirl