[author title=”Kathy Tyers” image=”https://www.almostanauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/K1.jpeg”]New York Times bestselling science fiction author Kathy Tyers has spent thirty-plus years writing and publishing fiction and nonfiction. As a freelance editor, she has seen her clients publish their books with major and smaller publishing houses, and independently, in both Christian and secular markets. Kathy strives to maintain each editing client’s individual voice while enhancing every book’s quality and readability. [/author]
Can you share a little about your recent book?
Kathy: My most recently published novel, Daystar, is the fifth and final book in the series that begins with Firebird. It’s a messiah-in-space novel, in which a long-awaited Savior looks nothing like the chosen people expect. I tried to portray the incarnation of the same God in a very different time and place, among a very different people—and to answer science fictional questions such as, “If there were instantaneous communication among all humans in all places, would there need to be a First Coming and a Second Coming?”
Why do you write? Do you have a theme, message, or goal for your books?
Kathy: I have written because it brings me joy. It seems to be part of what God created me to do. When there isn’t a story on my heart that I strongly want to write, I work as a freelance mentor/editor, because it also gives me joy to teach others what I’ve learned down the years.
How long have you been writing? And how long did it take you to get your first major book contract?
Kathy: I’ve been writing for 32 years, since 1983. My first book contract came in 1986, and my first novel was published by Bantam Books in 1987.
How long does it take you to write a book?
Kathy: It usually takes me at least 4 months to write a rough draft and 8 months to self-edit it.
What’s your writing work schedule like?
Kathy: That depends whether I’m writing rough draft or self-editing. Each phase has its own schedule. I find rough-drafting emotionally exhausting, and I can rarely do that more than 2 hours per day. If I’m self-editing, I need to remind myself to get up and move, stretch, eat, sleep, etc. That can consume me, because it’s amazing to watch that wretched rough draft—which is really just “outline plus dialogue”—start to stand up and sing.
Do you have an interesting writing quirk? If so, what is it?
Kathy: Maybe it’s the fact that I can hear my characters speaking before I can see them. Perhaps that’s due to my background in classical music (I play and teach flute).
What has been your greatest joy(s) in your writing career?
Kathy: A young woman attending my church invited me to her baptism, saying she had decided to become a Christian after reading Firebird.
What has been your darkest moment(s)?
Kathy: There was a time when it was necessary, for the sake of my late first husband’s sobriety, to lay my writing career at the foot of the cross . I told the Lord that if he ever wanted me to write science fiction again, he was going to have to make it abundantly clear. He did that just a few months later—via Steve Laube!
Which of your books is your favorite?
Kathy: Either Wind and Shadow (#4 in the Firebird series) or Daystar, which I described above. I wrote Wind and Shadow as my arts thesis for a Masters degree in Christianity and the Arts, at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. Daystar finishes the series and won the ACFW’s Carol Award for Speculative Fiction in 2013.
Who is your favorite author to read?
Kathy: I have so many! Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, James K.A. Smith, Iain Provan, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and did I mention Tolkien? The books are much better than the movies.
What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had gotten, or that you wished you would have listened to?
Kathy: You’ll reach a point in your writing career when it becomes difficult to read for fun. You will have polished your self-editing skills so well that you’re distracted by details that other readers just won’t notice—but it’s all right. You still will be able to read for the joy of the well-told tale.
What is the single greatest tool you believe a writer should have in his or her toolbox?
Kathy: The ability to select the right viewpoint for telling your story—omniscient or limited, first or third person, deep or shallow, past tense or present tense—and then to write the viewpoint well. That’s something I stress when I teach at writers conferences.
How many times in your career have you experienced rejection? How did they shape you?
Kathy: My first novel, Firebird, was rejected just twice and then published by Bantam Books. After that, there were quite a few years during which I was able to sell everything I had written. Now, with the publishing industry in flux—and a new desire to write in a different genre—it sometimes feels like I’m back to square one. Either that, or I’m being nudged in a new direction. I’ve been the “Mommy” of so many books that I’m finding a new kind of joy in being a “midwife” for my editing clients’ books.
Kathy’s Books:
Enclave Publishing: Firebird, Fusion Fire, Crown of Fire, Wind and Shadow, Daystar
Star Wars novels: Truce at Bakura, New Jedi Order: Balance Point
eBooks, Greenbrier Books: Shivering World, One Mind’s Eye, Crystal Witness
We love helping your growing in your writing career.
I couldn’t remember where I’d heard your name before, but then I saw the Truce at Bakura. A couple of months ago I picked up the MicroMachine tie-in to that novel, thinking the little figures came with the book (The set is packaged to look like your novel). I’ll have to pick up the actual novel now that I know you’re Christian to boot! Awesome!