Michele Skaggs Interview!
Welcome back! It’s Monday, so it’s time for your Monday Morning Author Interview! This week we’re honored to be visited by Michele Skaggs, award-winning author of The Elementals of Sacred Lake series. Let’s get right into things!
Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym?
No. Although, I was going to publish under my full name, but then decided to leave my middle name out.
Where do you get your information or ideas for your books? From other stories, movies, TV shows, my friends. Most of my ideas have come from my childhood. My book series I’m currently working on is a fictional biography. Many of the magical places I have created, were made up when I was a child. I began writing it in honor of my dearest friend, Allen, who passed away years ago. He is one of the main characters—the Fire Elemental, actually.
What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books? That the book is never finished. It doesn’t matter how many times I edit it, it still will never be perfect for me. But we are our worst critics.
What is your writing Kryptonite? The internet/social media
What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Best money ever spent as a writer would have to be my iPad. I love working on it more than my laptop.
What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Stephen King. When I was younger I could not get into his books, but now that I am older, I love reading his books.
How do you balance making demands on the reader with taking care of the reader? I write what I want to write first. When I edit it, I look back over it as a reader and change things I know my readers would want. Not all the time, though. There are times when it has to be what I want. So I try to balance it out that way.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have 5 unpublished books and 2 half-finished books.
How do you do so much on a given day without burning out? I’m usually busy during the day. So I plot what I want to write in my head and stop what I’m doing for a few minutes to make notes. Then I write it all at night. That usually helps to not get near a burn out, if I’m constantly thinking about it and how the scene will play out. What also helps is if I do feel a burn out coming on, I stop working on my story and read another book or watch a tv show. I stick to fantasy shows, because I have found they give me inspiration for my writing.
How can readers get in touch with you? They can email me michely6886@yahoo.com, follow me on Instagram @michele_skaggs_6 or follow me on Facebook: Books by Michele Skaggs
What are you working on now? I am working on my final edits for my third book in the Elemental Series to send to my publisher. And I’m also editing books 4 and 5 in the series.
Is there anything you’d like to share with the readers? Anything new? I would like to share that I have a short piece coming out this fall in an anthology called The Darkness Between. My piece is named: Shadow Under the Moon.
Great! Thanks for the time, and good luck with the rest of the series!
Michele is active on social media; you can find her on Instagram as @michele_skaggs_6, and on Facebook, and you can buy her books right now using the buttons below!
She’s also given us a sneak peek into her stories – check it out!
