Author Bio:
Karin L Cox is the author of the DARK GUARDIANS paranormal romance and dark fantasy series (Cruxim, Creche, and Creed), several short story and poetry anthologies, and a New Adult romance novel ‘What the Sea Wants.’ She officially has too many words in her brain, usually all swimming around in wine. Often, they come out in dribs and drabs, or sometimes in poetic explosions, but mostly she has to coax them out one at a time and wrangle them into line.
She lives in sunny Queensland, Australia, where she occasionally hits the beach in an effort to avoid a vitamin D deficiency from shutting herself in a dark room to converse with fictional people. She comes with all the usual accessories: cat, dog, kids, full-grown man-child, several outfit changes, and shoes she can’t seem to walk in so swaps for thongs/flip-flops. She would also like a dream house, a hot pink camper with a waterslide, and an unrealistically proportioned waist.
She enjoys camping, dancing, folk music, poetry, writing, wine and sometimes even Facebook.
What inspires you to write?
I'm inspired too much at times, but I mostly write when the tiny voices in my head start piping up with information and ideas and dialogue and they just won't shut up; often, this happens at two in the morning when I can't sleep. I'm a raging insomniac.
My novels are usually a melding together of things I've seen or heard in my personal and professional life, in the news, or in my reading about philosophy, religion, and life and death in general. I'm a person who quite likes to delve deep and 'go dark', exploring the big questions and mysteries of life. As a rule, I hate small talk. I want to talk about serious issues: passion, sex, love and death and the human condition. It's fair to say I'm not for everyone, but deep and meaningful conversations about those things inspire me.
Tell us about your writing process.
A bit of both. I really like Libby Hawker's 'Take Off Your Pants' method, but I'm also a fan of Blake Synder's 'Save the Cat' as a basic framework for the three-act structure.
I like a little bit of direction, but if I try to write very strictly for a market or try to force things into tight parameters, I become paralysed with inaction. My general approach is to have *some* scaffolding. I usually figure out how a story will end at some early point in its conception, but I never plan every single chapter or plot point. I find that the process of writing irons out the kinks. During the writing phase, my novels sometimes meander down interesting paths that lead to novel solutions, often ones I could never have conceived of during the early planning page.
One thing I need to do is set aside my natural urge to edit as I go. A program called Write or Die has really helped me not focus on perfecting each sentence and just getting the draft down on the page. I set it to kamikaze, so if deliberate too much over a sentence, it starts eating what I have written! It has forced me to only focus on quality, corrections, and perfecting things once the draft is complete.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I listen to my characters (sometimes), but I don't talk to them. To be clear, my characters are not a persistent voice in my head. I usually get some sort of channelling of a sentence or two or a line of dialogue that will crop up and seems 'attached' to a particular type of character, who I then flesh out.
When I am writing dialogue for a character, I read it aloud, but I don't talk to my characters. Hey, I'm not bonkers!
Who are your favorite authors?
I have so many favourites, and they are all very different. I love literary fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, some romance and even non-fiction and nature writing. Two Aussie authors I adore are Tim Winton and Charlotte Woods, who both write about nature beautifully.
As a reader, I am a genre-swapper who always has several books on the go (and I'm the same as a writer too, which isn't always ideal). Of course, since I edit fiction, I am constantly reading new authors too. Recently, I worked on a fantastic cozy mystery by a debut Scottish author, and I'm editing a literary-style Australian murder mystery by a debut Western Australian author at present and about to start a LGBTI another short fantasy story in Arshad Ahsanuddin's The Secret Histories series. My editing schedule is pretty full-on and so diverse that I'm never short of a good read!
xxc
Of course, my first love will always be fantasy. An indie author who always makes me want to stay up all night reading is Amy Harmon. Her writing has a lovely flow. I really enjoyed The Bird and the Sword series and also her historical novels From Sand and Ash and Where the Lost Wander. Another historical fiction/romance I really enjoyed recently was JoJo Moyes The Giver of Stars. Currently, I'm reading Leigh Bardugos' Shadow and Bone (Grisha) series after watching the Netflix season.
What genres do you write?
Paranormal Fantasy, Gothic Romance, New Adult & YA Romance
How did you choose the genre(s) you write?
Did I? I like to joke that they choose me!
I wish I was better at sticking to one genre. I also have a half-finished military romance, an erotic romance, and a YA novella in the works, as well as more fantasy. Usually, I just have an idea and then the character's voices appear and won't quit, and I feel the need to write the story down. Once I start, it takes shape and the genre becomes clearer. But I'm a terrible genre-masher too. I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I can't help switching up the formula and trying something a bit different.
What three things are on your writing desk at any given moment?
A cup of coffee.
A glass of wine (if it's past 4 pm).
A photo of my beautiful daughters.
(Sometimes a cheeky black cat if he wants attention).
What hobbies do you have when you need a break from writing?
I enjoy listening to music, mostly mellow roots, blues and folk. I love dancing, but don't do it enough. I also enjoy long baths, and floating in the pool during summer. I float like a champ! I'm like a human lilo, or maybe I'm part dolphin.
Each week, I schedule in a long bushwalk with a friend to (try) to photograph native wildlife. Getting back to nature is important to me. I feel most alive and creative when I'm camping out in the wild. I could easily go feral (some might say I already have).
What formats are your books in?
eBook, Print
Website(s)
Home Page Link
Follow On Amazon
Link to Author Page on
Author’s Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
All information is provided by the author and is presented as it was submitted so you the reader get to hear the author’s own “voice” in their interview.
