Kim: Our brilliant editor, Karen Ball, actually suggested that we write together. She also thought that for the first book it would be unique to have a mother/daughter heroine team – with Kayla’s character having the same nerve disorder that Kayla has. It all happened at a rapid pace: Karen asked for a proposal within a few days and we had to crank it out. But the result was amazing :-) and No Safe Haven was born.
Did you find it easy to work together on it?
Kayla: It took a little figuring out (and mucho chocolate!), but we finally got a system down so we both knew what the other was writing so everything made sense in the story. After writing about half of the book things got tremendously easier—and from then on it was just pure fun! :-)
Kim: Definitely. Kayla and I have an amazing relationship so it was so much fun, but it did take some good organization to figure out how to do it!
How did collaborating with this team impact you?
Kim: Kayla has always amazed me with her writing, but during this project there were many times I’d read her scenes and say, “Wow.” Her writing is so fresh and real, I kept wondering if maybe I should quit and just let her write everything. :-)
Kayla: Umm… I think the hardest thing is probably knowing the other’s characters. When writing as a “team” you have to make sure that such and such a character would say something the way she/he would in the other person’s scene, and act the same way. Also, you don’t want them to do TOO much of something. For instance, one time we were writing and had a character do a quirk ten times in two scenes. Our editor had fun pointing out our “pet phrases.” Consistency is so important, so we had to make sure we were really in our characters’ heads – especially in the same way the other person had the characters in their head. (Whew. If you followed that train of thought, I’m impressed.)
I understand completely. I'm sure the readers will, too. What are you reading right now?
Digitalis – by Ronie Kendig
Lightkeeper’s Bride – by Colleen Coble
I've read both of those books, and they're awesome, too. How did you choose your characters’ names?
Kim and Kayla: Andie was named after one of our friends from our writer’s group, Anesia was named after a girl we knew on Akutan (the island we lived on in Alaska), and a few characters were picked from our friends (i.e. Tammy the nurse is named after one of our dear friends- also a nurse-again from Alaska), and the others (Cole, Jenna, Zoya) we researched and to find just the right names. Race Against Time (book 2) and book 3 have a few more Athabaskan names in them as well, since several of our characters are Native Alaskan.
Would you want to work on another book together?
Kayla: YES! We look forward to the next two in this series as well as our next series. :-) We’ve loved the journey and I don’t think we’ll ever stop writing together, although we are doing things separately along with our books together.
Kim: Most definitely! This has been an incredible experience for us both and I love learning and growing together.
What do you want to tell us about the book?
No Safe Haven is really unique in several facets. Kayla is a very young full-length published novelist and she writes characters that are her age. NSH also tackled Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy which is a rare disorder that Kayla has. We wrote a mother/daughter book by a mother/daughter author team. It was amazing to see that translate to the page. I (Kim) wrote all the adult POVs and Kayla wrote all the pre-teen/teen POVs. I wrote in third person, Kayla wrote in first. The response has been amazing so far and we are looking forward to hearing what you think. Christian Retailing Magazine just chose it as their top pick and Romantic Times gave it 4 stars and a wonderful review. We’re just excited to see what the Lord does with it!
I was thrilled when I got home from the retreat and read my Christian Retailing Magazine and saw the up pick. Where can our readers find you on the Internet?
http://kimberleyandkaylawoodhouse.com/ is our website
www.twitter.com/kimwoodhouse twitter
Http://www.facebook.com/KimberleyWoodhouseFanPage Facebook Fan Page
Thank you so much for visiting me on my blog. We'll have to do it again with books two and three.
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