Q&A with writer and blogger Kari Wolfe

Kari Wolfe is a writer and a blogger at Imperfect Clarity in whatever time is left over from being a stay-at-home-mom to a very precocious and energetic three-year old. She blogs on a number of topics including writing, book reviews, interviews, and setting and meeting goals.

Currently, she is on a mission: to combine fiction writing articles with and articles on how she’s trying to live her life to the fullest and she’s going to bring you on that journey with her through her blog.

Tell us a little bit about your background.

Well, I’m originally from Huntington, West Virginia, and currently live in Colorado Springs, CO. Before moving to Colorado, I received my bachelor’s degree in science, majoring in physics and mathematics from Marshall University in my home town.

It’s always been my dream to write. And, by dream, I mean I have written my entire life but always have been told that I should do something else.

That and I’ve had setbacks, mostly in school.

During middle school, I wrote erotica—not the most appropriate topic for a pre-teen—and my writing was confiscated by the guidance counselor who pulled me into her office for a good talking to. I don’t remember what she said but I remember the embarrassment I felt. I don’t write erotica anymore.

In high school, I co-wrote a book with my best friend, Mikie—my character would flirt with his character, his character would tell mine no and that we were just really good friends, etc. So on and so forth.

As an adult, I kept a journal that was used against me by an ex-boyfriend who threw anything negative I wrote about him in my face. Same guy who would take me to a secluded spot, make me feel guilty for whatever he was upset at me about and once I cried, he’d take me home.

When I married my husband, it took me a while to finally realize that I was safe. If I didn’t want anyone to read my writing—regardless of what it was—no one would. He wouldn’t go through what I’d written without my permission. I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2008 and, with his encouragement, I won.

For my blog, Imperfect Clarity, I’ve interviewed some awesome people: Seth Godin, Peter Straub, Conrad Williams, Christopher Moore, Les Edgerton and more.

Tell us about your current book. Give a short summary and also how you got the idea for this book.

Realizing there is more than to life than observation, a voyeur kidnaps a struggling stay-at-home mother and her children only to fight the trapped evil spirit of the house they are hiding in through his possessed partner-in-crime.

For this work, I combined several different ideas.

First, the newest Tool album has a song called “Vicarious” about how some people watch the news and the worse the news is, the better they like it. The idea is they are “living vicariously through the eyes of others,” a phrase criminologist Jack Levin used in a personal conversation with me about why people are so fascinated with the idea of serial killers. The song reminded me of our conversation which gave me Jake, the story’s protagonist.

Second, I wanted to try my hand at a novel about a haunted house. Easy as that. As to what the house actually does… I took a subject I was interested in, memory, and started asking myself questions about what I could do with that subject.

Last, the overall theme of the story is forgiveness of self. It probably took longer to come up with the overall theme than anything else. Plotting out the book’s main points and what I definitely wanted to have happen helped a lot in discovering this.

What is a typical writing day like for you?

I have a three-year-old daughter who is autistic, so in some ways, I really don’t feel like I ever have a typical day. On Monday and Wednesdays, she goes to preschool and, after my own physical therapy, I have an hour before picking her up. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have hippotherapy and speech therapy.

Fortunately she takes a nap most afternoons—or, at least, I’ve instituted a rule of quiet time where she plays in her room. This is when I do most of my writing.

After Natasha goes to bed, I have some time available then, but I use it for reading and relaxing mostly. My husband is home, so it’s more difficult for me to concentrate on writing fiction.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

I love to talk. You can ask my husband 😉

Seriously, I love to create. I love to come up with an idea and to work it out on the page. Recently, I’ve been inundated with new ideas and I keep jotting them down. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to get to them all!

What is the most difficult part of writing?

Sometimes it’s just DOING it. I freewrite, to get my hands flowing across the keyboard and to kickstart my brain.

Sometimes it’s just time—there are days I have no energy to focus on fiction and I only focus on nonfiction, blog entries, that type of thing.

And sometimes it’s focusing on the here and now. Daydreaming about having your books in bookstores and name on the publishing lists is great—but you have to do the work first.

Do you have a website?
Yes, Imperfect Clarity at http://www.imperfectclarity.net/

Imperfect Clarity is a detailed look at the thought processes of a fiction writer trying to improve her life and become successful by living her life to the fullest.

The idea here is to combine fiction writing articles with my own fiction and articles on how I’m trying to live my life to the fullest that I can. I am learning how to do this not only from different websites I have found talking about motivation but also by actually DOING these things I talk about.

I’m in the process of branding it and hopefully will be able to institute those changes within the next month. I’m really excited about it.

You can sign up to receive Imperfect Clarity both through email (http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ImperfectClarity&loc=en_US) as well as through your favorite RSS reader (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ImperfectClarity).

What are you working on right now?

Including The House (my fictional work-in-progress), I am currently working on a four or five-post series for my blog about resistance and procrastination. I have several nonfiction ebooks in the works as well as a guest posting position.