Interview With Author Kristine Ceirane

Name : Kristine Ceirane

About Author :  

I am the author of the vampire novel

Journals of the Undead, which came out in November 2020.

I've always been a creative person. As a kid I was forever re-enacting something, telling stories, drawing. Writing didn't particularly excite me then as I couldn't write my ideas down fast enough. I became a writer in my early 20s. I have also done amateur drama and hosted my own TV show about books.

Author's Interview :

How long does it take you to write a book? 

Journals of the Undead took me 2 years. Stories can take from a few months to a year. And then I have ideas that I jotted down years ago and still haven't developed... In short, writing a book can take ages!

How old were you when you decided to become a writer ? and where did you get inspiration from?

When I was little I liked telling stories, staging one-kid plays, drawing posters for my imaginary films.. But I didn't like to actually write things down - my thoughts were flowing too fast. I thought I would like to become a writer one day and started writing stories in my teens. When I was younger, ideas just came to me - often from no-where, often I was inspired by the people I met, the people around me, history, or something I had watched on TV or read in a book.

Would you like to mention those people who supported your journey to become a writer?

My friends who were my first readers and critics, my literature teachers and my partner.

What else do you like besides writing.?

Reading, watching films, being outdoors and writing comedy sketches - I hope to record and present a few videos later this year.

What advice would you like to give to our new writers who have just stepped into this journey or are thinking of making a move?

Ask yourself who your audience is and why you want to write the story. This might sound weird so I need to explain it further. I was born in Latvia and grew up in the 1990s when Latvia had left the Soviet Union and was transitioning from socialism to capitalism. During the Soviet time there was no shortage of Latvian literature, however, during the wild 1990s arts were in a bit of a freefall. There weren't many books for teens written by local authors and I read lots of foreign literature instead. That left a mark - a lot of my early stories were set abroad. My debut novel, Journals of the Undead, is mainly set in London and all the protagonists are British. There are other Latvian writers who have done the same and I find a lot of young Latvian authors on Wattpad who set their stories in the US, for instance. Unfortunately, when you do that you can alienate your audience and sound unoriginal. If I were writing Journals of the Undead today, the action would take place a bit nearer to home and at least one of the main characters would be Latvian.

Advice number two: find people (friends, teachers, etc.) who would like to be among the first readers of your work and provide honest feedback. I type really fast and often make grammar mistakes I don't notice. Sometimes what makes sense to me doesn't make sense to my friends and they ask me to explain a particular paragraph or plot twist. Hearing their thoughts really helps.

How do you feel after writting? Does it make you more energize or exhausted?

Depends on what kind of a story I am working on. Journals of the Undead exhausted me because I was experiencing the same emotions my characters were going through. It was fun writing about Lucretia when she was having a good time but was tough when she had just started her vampire life because of all the pain and difficulties she went through. On the other hand, I've written stories that are quite light hearted or full of adventures and had a great time developing them!

Do you read your book Reviews? How do you Deal with bad or good Reviews?

I do read them every now and then. Although I like my stories - otherwise I wouldn't publish them - I am never 100 % satisfied. I know the bits that I think could be better and so does every author I know. So, when reading reviews I am interested to see whether my readers think the same. Bad reviews - well, they are inevitable, it's simply not possible that everyone will like my work. At the same time I don't like being criticised, lol, but I try not to respond to bad reviews.

What does literary success look like to you?

Seeing my work being published, read and discussed. If it is also earning my money, that's even better!

Would you like to give any special message to my blog readers?

Thank you for reading books. I am glad to see that despite various predictions, books haven't disappeared and people still enjoy reading.

Your published books:

Journals of the Undead ( See Review )

Your Upcoming books:

A sequel to Journals of the Undead, working title Beatrice in Amsterdam, hope to publish it in 2022

Latvian edition of Journals of the Undead, hopefully at the end of 2021

Thank you very much for giving your valuable time to my blog readers