Ask the Author: Nicole Kiefer
Answered Questions (8)
Nicole Kiefer
Gosh, there are so many. I don't think I have one favourite, I love them all for different reasons. In Contemporary Fiction I would pick Gideon Cross and Eva from the Crossfire series. In fantasy fiction, it would be Drustan and Gwen from Kiss of the Highlander.
Nicole Kiefer
Hi Tiffany,
I don't think I so much overcame the bullying then as I grew older and maybe a little wiser, I accepted it for what I believe bullying is, ignorance and fear of others knowing of that ignorance. Bullies want to feel superior and powerful, and they try to achieve it by making others feel inferior. Once I realized that I stopped fearing them, and pitied them instead. Over time they realized that all they got from me was kindness, acceptance and pity and most stopped. It also helped that I learned self-defense and nobody was willing to mess with me any longer.
Since my Dyslexia was discovered a few years after I was done with school I didn't have any kind of support to help overcome it. I read a lot about Dyslexia and talked to people who had it and after a while I realized that because I loved reading and read a lot my brain had learned to compensate for my dyslexia in that department. Only I had no idea how it or I had done it. There is no cure for Dyslexia and I'm far from "over" it. Still I began to develop my own system. For example, when I write I let someone read it and words I repeatedly write wrong end up on a list beside my laptop. I use narrator software to hear mistakes I can't find while reading, When I can find someone with time I let them read it to me as well, often finding mistakes that way. Where I still struggle a lot is with grammar and punctuation, but I work on it every day to get better.
As to being made fun of after finding out... hmm... not really everyone I talked to was understanding and supportive until I started as an author. After my first book was published I wrote about it online a lot, trying to promote it but encountered a lot of harsh and often mean critique over my spelling mistakes. I'm someone who can easily laugh at herself and her shortcoming, I make fun of myself at times and I think I could have easily dealt with beeing made fun of, but what I encountered bordered at hatred. It was one of the reasons I didn't start again after moving to Canada, I feared to find the same. Luckily I didn't, people here are more open minded I think, at least when it comes to things like dyslexia.
I don't think I so much overcame the bullying then as I grew older and maybe a little wiser, I accepted it for what I believe bullying is, ignorance and fear of others knowing of that ignorance. Bullies want to feel superior and powerful, and they try to achieve it by making others feel inferior. Once I realized that I stopped fearing them, and pitied them instead. Over time they realized that all they got from me was kindness, acceptance and pity and most stopped. It also helped that I learned self-defense and nobody was willing to mess with me any longer.
Since my Dyslexia was discovered a few years after I was done with school I didn't have any kind of support to help overcome it. I read a lot about Dyslexia and talked to people who had it and after a while I realized that because I loved reading and read a lot my brain had learned to compensate for my dyslexia in that department. Only I had no idea how it or I had done it. There is no cure for Dyslexia and I'm far from "over" it. Still I began to develop my own system. For example, when I write I let someone read it and words I repeatedly write wrong end up on a list beside my laptop. I use narrator software to hear mistakes I can't find while reading, When I can find someone with time I let them read it to me as well, often finding mistakes that way. Where I still struggle a lot is with grammar and punctuation, but I work on it every day to get better.
As to being made fun of after finding out... hmm... not really everyone I talked to was understanding and supportive until I started as an author. After my first book was published I wrote about it online a lot, trying to promote it but encountered a lot of harsh and often mean critique over my spelling mistakes. I'm someone who can easily laugh at herself and her shortcoming, I make fun of myself at times and I think I could have easily dealt with beeing made fun of, but what I encountered bordered at hatred. It was one of the reasons I didn't start again after moving to Canada, I feared to find the same. Luckily I didn't, people here are more open minded I think, at least when it comes to things like dyslexia.
Nicole Kiefer
Don't know, never had one. But I imagine I would take a step back from whatever I am working on, take a ride, or a walk with my dog, go to the spa, just relax. Then I would try to find out the why and if I can't well then I would read something, watch something on TV, or just take some time away from the story. But like I said I'm not sure.
Nicole Kiefer
Everything... :) It depends I think if you write with the goal to entertain or to make money. If you write with the goal to get published bit time, to cash in six figure royalty checks, then you have to follow the rules. I hate rules. I write because I love writing, the money yeah... sadly something everyone needs. Still I write the way I like writing, if I get constructive cretique I think about it, and sometimes try out how it looks when I follow it, but in the end I do as I like. Not the way to make big bugs, but since nowadays it's easy to self publish, that's fine. Writing is freedom, I can eliminate rules of society, brake the laws of physics, expand our universe or boil it down to one atom. Anything is possible, nothing is not archievable when writing.
Nicole Kiefer
Well start by reading, a lot. Reading counciously that is, it's in my opinion the hardest thing to do, reading and analysing what you read. Find out what makes you keep reading, what it is that you like, what draws you in.
Then write, and keep on writing no matter how much cretique you get. Cretique hurts but it's good it makes you grow. Otherwise just keep on writing.
Then write, and keep on writing no matter how much cretique you get. Cretique hurts but it's good it makes you grow. Otherwise just keep on writing.
Nicole Kiefer
Well... I am trying to find a home for my Utopian Saga, doing so I got one very helpfull rejection telling me what I need to change on my manuscript. So now I saitting down and rewrite the whole Saga, or at least I am trying too. If in the meantime I find a publisher, well then at least I had a very good exercise.
Nicole Kiefer
I get inspired all the time, there are stories in everything, and everywhere. Watching, and having an open and imaginative mind helps. I go to the mall and see stories, I see something in TV, hear on the radio, or just watching my kids I see stories. Some of them I deem worthy to write down. Some are just the beginning of a much larger story. All need a happy ending.
Nicole Kiefer
In the hospital, waiting for my Husband to come out of emergency surgery after a hernia. It was a standard surgery, still I have enough experience and imaginantion that I was walking around worried. Of course at some point when time draged along, I wondered what if he would not come out alive. Lot's of hoorible things went through my mind, then the surgent came and told me my husband was fine. But the waht if was stuck in my head, and now that I knew my husband was fine, I knew that my what if needed a happy ending. On the drive home, I decided what if needed more drama then what my life had to offer. The next day I began to write the story outline, and decided what if needed also a complication. By the time my husband was ready to come home half the book was already written.
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