Kiersten Hall has been writing stories all her life … in her head. She is finally taking the time to put those stories down on paper for others to read.

In 2015, she began with releasing “I Do” Fifteen Years of Wedding Misadventures – her humorous memoir filled with stories and mishaps from her career as a professional wedding videographer. The next year, a fictional 3-book series based on real people she has known over the years, began: Corner Confessions – A Novel (2016), The Lies We Live (2018), and the last book is due late 2020.

Books scheduled for 2019 include Kiersten’s first children’s book (May/June) along with a non-fiction opinion book (July/August). Early 2020 sees the release of her second children’s book about a pet octopus she once had (yes, an octopus.) In late 2020, along with the final round of secrets in her book series, she has another memoir planned.

Visit Kiersten Hall’s website and Amazon Author Page.
You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Also check out her upcoming books and upcoming events.

What motivates you to write and how did you get started?

I’ll answer this two-part question backward: Over the course of twenty-eight days in 2005, I sat down and did a ‘brain-dump’ on all of the fun and interesting things I saw over the course of fifteen years as a professional wedding videographer. By that time, I had been involved with over 1,400 weddings and wanted to find the time to write down everything I had seen before I forgot it all. After I finished my so-called manuscript, I gave it to my mom to read for reminiscing purposes and instead, she decided to edit it. (My mom used to be a copy editor for military contracts through Aerospace Corp. Any paper with words on it will be edited by her; it’s second nature.) After a couple of rounds of editing, I published a small run of printed books and then got on with raising kids and life, in general.

Fast-forward ten years with four kids who had become taller than me, I once again sat down at a computer with a less-than-cooperative ‘e’ key and re-typed my entire “I Do” manuscript. Fortunately, I was smart enough to print out the final copy of the book all those years ago since the computer I had originally written it on no longer powered-up due to a bad (and old) motherboard. In 2015, I re-published my wedding-industry-memoir with a few changes inside and in 2017, the cover went through a redesign accompanied with a new title: “I Do” Fifteen Years of Wedding Misadventures.

In those ten years between the initial writing process and launching the book worldwide through Amazon & social media, I developed eleven other books – anywhere between a simple outline and notes jotted down to manuscripts close to being ready for their first round of edits. I had found that once I had primed the pump of creativity, the flow never stopped! Needless to say, it was extremely frustrating to not have the time to write over that decade.

So, for the first part of the question, I would have to say my motivation stems from the opportunity to ’empty my head’ of all the stories that are concocted up there. My brain never stops… unless a math problem presents itself, then it pretends it’s not home. Of course, once a story is written down and out of the cranium, another one moves in which means I need to write that one, too.

To make up for lost time, I’m striving to release at least one new book per year, if not more. 2019 will see at least two books – one of which is my first children’s book. I’m very excited about this new story and genre!

What’s most rewarding about writing?

Truth be told, I would have to say the best part is when the nice delivery person shows up at my door and drops off a box of finished books. Yay me! I got another book done! 😉

The most rewarding moment, though, is when I get to interact with prospective readers for the first time, as well as current readers when they tell me their analyses of the stories and which characters they liked and didn’t like in my Corner Confessions Novels series. When a reader tells me how they relate (positively or negatively) to various characters, I know I have succeeded in drawing them into my book(s).

What’s your favorite genre and why?

Truth be told, I personally tend to lean toward biographies, history, news, trivia, science-type reading. The only two reasons I wrote “I Do” was to make sure I had written documentation of what I had seen over 15 years of shooting weddings and as a ‘here’s-what-your-mom-has-been-doing-during-your-entire-childhood’ excuse for my kids (my schedule was darn close to 24/7/365 with the amount of business I had contracted.)

So starting off with my accidental (and humorous) memoir, the ideas started flowing. The pipeline is currently queued up with more fiction, non-fiction, opinion, murder/mystery, children’s, more humor, and even some poetry-type work which should be interesting since I don’t consider myself a very poetic person.

My thought process on all of this: If an idea enters my thoughts and won’t go away, I’ll put some time into it and see where it goes. If the words flow and I wind up enjoying myself, I’ll pursue it further. If I hit a wall, I’ll table it until I can get the creative mojo going for that piece.

Short answer: No favorite genre. I’m an all-over-the-place kind of person… in pretty much anything and everything that has to do with my life. 😉

Where do your characters come from?

Of what I’ve published so far, the characters are definitely either people I personally know or know of. My character names come from my Facebook Chat list; if you happen to be online when I’m looking for a name, your name stands a good chance of being a character in one of my books.

Who is an author who inspires you and why?

Erma Bombeck. I started reading her books around the age of six or seven – I liked her book covers and ‘cherry’ was my favorite flavor. So, naturally, I picked up her book, “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?” and started reading. Her style of humor has been an underlying theme throughout my entire life thus far, and I’m sure it will continue since it’s now a well-anchored habit.

What do you look for in other people’s books?

Unusual content and no ‘Hollywood endings.’ If I’m going to dip my toe into the vast unknown of literary works beyond my happy-place of science, industry, and facts, the book(s) I pick up had better grab my attention and not give me some fluffy, shallow story. Otherwise, I’ll run right back to my documentary on the annual wildebeest migration in the Serengeti.

Tell us about your newest book or what you’re writing now.

Well, the illustrations are currently wrapping up on my first children’s book! For some unknown reason, I channeled Dr. Suess last October and within 45 minutes, managed to slam out a 20-stanza poem… couldn’t tell you where that came from, either. My version of poetry is something like, ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, and you know, whatever…’ and that’s about as creative as I feel on any given day when it comes to poetry. I’m pretty sure I failed that section of 8th grade English class, too.

I’m also working on the layout of an opinion-book I actually wrote back on January 1, 2018, during the first six hours of the new year. It had been brewing in my mind for a while, but New Year’s Eve/Day wound up being the time of the unscheduled ‘brain-dump.’ It’s a needed book and over the years, I’ve helped a handful of people with the advice included in this book. Now I’m sharing my advice/opinion with the rest of the world. The content I’m putting out into the world will either have people appreciate me or hate my guts. It should be an interesting year…

What kind of book would you like to be known for?

Being I tend to write all over the place for several demographics of readers, I would hope everyone reads – and enjoys – at least one of my books. Maybe even tell all of their friends how much fun they had while reading my book, too!

Personally, I’m simply grateful that I ran with this idea by taking the time and carving out the opportunity to ’empty my head’ of my stories – documenting them before old-age sets in and I forget everything. I’m even more grateful people took the time out of their schedules to read my stories – whichever book/genre they happened to choose.

What encouraging advice can you offer new writers?

+ Write down everything that pops into your mind, as trivial as it may seem.
+ If you’re old-school like me, carry a notebook and pen with you at all times. If you’ve figured out how to use your smartphone beyond making phone calls, taking pictures, and playing solitaire, use that device instead.
+ Don’t throw anything away that you develop or partially develop – even if you think it’s garbage. You may be able to pilfer from it in the future.
+ Don’t lose any of the papers you write your notes and ideas on. 😉
+ Don’t doubt your abilities and talents. There’s a reason why an idea or storyline popped into your head and won’t go away. If you’ve been given this gift, run with it.
+ Your rough draft is exactly that; rough. Don’t despair and don’t give up.
+ Before giving your work to an Editor, read through your full manuscript at least twice, if not more, and make sure at least half of those times, you’re reading out loud (you’ll pick up more mistakes this way.)
+ Find a good (and critical) Editor. This person should be able to give you constructive criticism. Their job is to edit, not placate you with warm, fuzzy feelings. They aren’t there to be your friend. They are there to edit your work.
+ Find a group of Beta Readers: Once your Editor has flayed your ego and tossed it to the wolves, go on and find a group of 9 or 11 more people who aren’t there to be your friend, either. I work with an odd number in case there’s a conflict of opinion, I go with the majority. These people represent the world audience of readers. Ideally, you should find these (unknown-to-you) people online or through referrals of people you have worked with in the past who weren’t afraid to give you their honest opinions (and you used those critiques.) As much as it may hurt, it’s better to take care of inconsistencies, typos, forgotten words, tense usage, etc. before going ahead and printing off cases of books and publishing online for the world to see.
+ Between all of the times your manuscript is at the Editor’s, read and reread your manuscript over and over, ad nauseam. Don’t forget to read out loud for at least half those times. You’re going for perfection, here.
+ Never let anything go out into the world with your name on it unless it’s 2000% perfect. You’re putting your name and brand out there and it’s a lot harder to reel in mistakes and insults than it is to put the time and effort into it prior to releasing your work for all the world to see.
+ None of the advice above is meant to scare the behoozus* out of you. Instead, it’s meant to set you on the right track with the confidence to do what you’re meant to do.
+ If you’re self-publishing, advertise, advertise, advertise! And get out there, in front of prospective readers, and talk to people! This is the cherry on the top of all your hard work; interacting with people who will or have already read your work. Have fun with this part… it helps balance out all the time you spend in your head and in front of your computer.
* Behoozus is a made up word. You have my permission to use it in your everyday chatter. 😉

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