Expert: Cathy Clamp - 2/6/2009

Question
Hello. My name is Kendall Palmer and I'm attending Morgantown Elem. I hope to become an author and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.
1. Did you go to any professional organizations and if so, what were they?


2. Why do you enjoy this career?


3. What college did/are you attending?


4. If you hadn’t become an author, what career would you prefer to have?


5. What are the main skills you had to become an author?


6. What type of books do you prefer to write?


Answer
Hi, Kendall!

It's great you're considering becoming an author. It's a lot of fun and it's a good idea to start early to learn the skills you'll need to be successful. To answer your questions:

1. Did you go to any professional organizations and if so, what were they?

Well, I BELONG to several professional organizations, if that's what you mean. I belong to:  International Thriller Writers, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Horror Writers of America and Romance Writers of America.

2.  Why do you enjoy this career?

It's a lot of fun to take your imagination and let it become a reader's reality for a little while. To create a person on paper that people actually CARE about is a wonderful thrill. And, the money's not too bad either... [wink]

3.  What college did/are you attending?

Actually, I didn't go to college. I applied and was accepted, but wound up going to work right out of high school. Then I entered the legal field and have been there ever since. Writing is a side thing right now, until the money is good enough to quit my day job.

4.  If you hadn't become an author, what career would you prefer to have?

I'm a paralegal that's gone through a lot of schooling and certifications so that's my preferred career.

5.  What are the main skills you had to become an author?

Obviously, anything involving writing. An author who hopes to make a career of writing has to have a very strong vocabulary (because you can't keep using the same words to describe "blue" over and over in every book.) An author has to have a strong command of sentence composition (so keep diagramming those sentences, no matter how boring it seems now!) And an author has to be able to spell really well. The fewer mistakes in a manuscript that's presented to a publisher, the more likely an editor is to accept it and pay the author to publish it (that's the way it works, BTW. The publisher pays the author, not the other way around.)

6.  What type of books do you prefer to write?

Oh, all kinds, and I like to write magazine articles too. Presently, I've written an historical fiction about trains in Colorado, some horror short stories, articles about hunting and fishing in major magazines like Guns & Ammo and Fur-Fish-Game, and some science fiction. But mostly, I write what are called "urban fantasy" novels that are dark and kind of scary. Urban fantasies are like Harry Potter and Twilight. The ones we write are about vampires and werewolves and magic. In fact, we have one out this week in the stores. It's called MAGIC'S DESIGN. All of our books have romance in them and they'd probably get an "R" rating if they were movies for violence and sexual content. So they're probably not books you want to read right now.

Hope this helps answer your questions. Good luck with your writing! Oh, and if you want to see more of the stuff I've written, follow the link below to get to my website.

Cathy
http://www.ciecatrunpubs.com/About%20Us.htm