Erin Watt Spotlight
best selling authors of the royals series & more
Erin Watt is the brainchild of Elle Kennedy & Jen Frederick, They put their creative minds together and came up with the awesomeness that is Erin Watt.
To celebrate the release of their latest book "One Small Thing" they agreed to do a small interview with me here. I would like to thank the girls for agreeing to this interview and to congratulate them on such a successful release of "One Small Thing". Now lets get straight into the interview.
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You guys were very successful authors alone, and just as successful as a duo How did the decision come about to join together and give us Erin Watt?
The Romance community is a very tight-knit one, so we ran in the same circles (primarily sports-romance groups), where we got to know each other over our mutual love of American football. One day over conversation went from sports to writing something crack-tastic, and before you knew it - we'd plotted Paper Princess ;)
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What is your writing process for writing together? Do you each write from one characters point of view, if so are we allowed to know which characters you write or is that something we should try and guess :)
We try to get together to plot in person (more fun - plus an excuse to see each other!), and once we return to our respective home we set work or scene goals, and pass the manuscript back and forth as we hit them. The next person reviews, tweaks, and picks it up from there.
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If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don't be afraid to try new things! New styles of writing, new ways of publishing, you name it - the more you write, the better you are at it, so it makes sense the more new things you try, the more comfortable you are writing them.
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If you weren't a successful author what would your dream job be?
Elle: Oh, I don't know. Something working with dogs... by an ocean. Is doggie swim instructor a real thing? LOL
Jen: I actually have a full-time job currently and have no plans to give it up. I enjoy the work i do.
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What has been the hardest scene you have ever had to write in any of your books?
Wow, that's a lot of books you're asking us to pull from! If we narrow it down to Erin Watt books we can say any of the sexual and / or abuse scenes. It's very hard sometimes to capture the right elements of the scene - especially keeping in mind the varying ages of our readership. You don't want anything too juvenile as we have a lot of mature readers, but we also have a LOT of young readers and don't want anything too graphic.
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Are you working on anything new at the minute together or individually or are you taking a break for a while?
At this moment we're both taking a bit of time to work on our solo releases, which we've inadvertantly put on the bacburner while we were having so much fun writing together! Jen has just released Want You on July 1st and is working on more books for both her Gridiron and Woodland series. Elle has the first book in her Off-Campus spin-off, The Chase, releasing on August 6th.
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What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book.
Research really becomes about 'We want to get this right', so anything we decide to bring into a book that we're not confident about we'll research. Some topics take longer to research than others.
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From your first book to now, how do you think you have evolved creatively
Writing really is like lifting weights - the more you do it the stronger you become, so for both of us it's really been a matter of honing our skills and growing in confidence. No mater how many books you write, you're always going to have that 'what if no one likes it?' fear, but as you write more you get an idea of what works for you, or where your strong points are, and it becomes less scary to put a part of yourself out there.
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What do you do when you aren't writing? What hobbies do you have?
Elle: Its not weird if i also write for fun, right? I also love to paint, play piano, and run around in parks with my Dog.
Jen: Besides spending time with my family, I enjoy watching K-dramas and practising calligraphy. Currently, I'm trying to learn Korean in anticipation of my trip to South Korea next year. It's a slow process.
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Who is your favourite author?
Jen: I don't have a single favourite author. Instead, I have many authors whose work i love such as Meljean Brook, Alexa Riley, Claire Contreras, and Sara Ney.
Elle: I hate picking one author. I always feel like i get the answer wrong. Iris Johansen, Danielle Steele, Stephen King.....
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What is the most difficult part of your writing process?
Elle: Staying focused! Sometimes when you're writing you can write for hours like no time has gone by, but the moment your phone rings, or your dog barks the spell is broken and you got to get right back to that point.
Jen: Getting words on a page. Nora Roberts famously said that you can't edit a blank page. Getting words on a page is so important for me, but actually doing it can be a challenge.
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Does music give you inspiration for words? If so name one song that helped with the writing of this book.
Music can make us feel inspired to write (sort of a "you got this!2 pick-me-up), but we actually both require silence to write.
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Is there anything else you would like to add that i haven't included here.
We just want to say a giant thank you to our readers who have let us take them on an imaginary adventure and have allowed us to continue to do what we love - write! You guys rock!
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I really enjoyed doing this interview with these two ladies and as for their above mentioned solo books, i cannot wait. I already have 'Want You' on my kindle and i am loving it so far.
Below you will find links to Amazon for each of these fabulous ladies solo works.
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