Ask the Author: Sheritta Bitikofer
Answered Questions (9)
Sheritta Bitikofer
I'm being a little adventurous this summer. So far, I'm reading Dark Wolf Rising by Stephanie Rowe and I'm enjoying it so far. Then I have the first book in One True Mate by Lisa Ladev. I tasted the first few chapters and liked it. Then, I've got Wasted Words by Staci Hart, whom I met on Facebook. It's a good mix of styles and my evenings are sure to be exciting. All of these books are a little edgier than I'm used to.
Sheritta Bitikofer
I have issues with control, so I've made it a point to never be left wondering about something. I'm also naturally curious. However, there's one mystery that may never be solved. I do not know the true reason my parents divorced. My mother raised me by herself since I was two years old and both parents have remarried, but I do not know the concrete reason for their divorce and I consider it too taboo to ask. Whatever the answer, it doesn't change my past and it won't have any bearing on my future.
Sheritta Bitikofer
I believe my favorite fictional couple is Raphael and Susan from the first novel in a trilogy titled "The Kiss of Night" by Debbie Viguie. Raphael is a vampire on a mission to recover a lost relic that could mean the difference between life and death for the human and vampire races. Susan is a human and one would have thought that she is powerless to help, but because of her faith as a Christian and who her grandmother was, they become an unlikely, but effective team. I loved this novel and swooned at the lovely bits as Susan and Raphael fall in love. I've always loved these kind of romances where two completely opposite people find each other oddly irresistible. I suppose that's why I write in the genre that I do. If you haven't read any of Debbie Viguie's work, I highly recommend it!
Sheritta Bitikofer
My most recent book that I'm working at revising, I actually got the idea from working at my first job at Subway. I was told to go scrub the floors and while I was doing that, I got the crazy idea of "what if a really good looking guy came in right now and saw me scrubbing the floors like this? What would he think?" And that inspired the scene where Tabitha, a persecuted Christian, is scrubbing the lobby floor at her restaurant and Luke, her future assistant manager, walks in and they meet for the first time. From there I developed the whole Christian persecution system with the idea of ghettos, political party agendas, the Enury Laws, all made to resemble the Nazis and what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, but with Christians instead.
Sheritta Bitikofer
As any writer knows, it's a struggle to keep yourself accountable to stick to a writing schedule. I'm no different. There are some days I look at my book and I'm like "I don't even want to touch that thing right now" and then I'll go to browsing facebook or working on my blog. But once I get going, it's hard for me to stop. It's like a locomotive train, even when I try to put the breaks on it takes a while for me to slow down. I'll want to find a stopping point first and believe it or not, that's hard. But just takes that motivation and sometimes a simple song or thinking about the next scene gets me excited to open the word document and keep going.
Sheritta Bitikofer
Currently (May 2015), I'm working on taking those novels I wrote in high school and going back to revise and edit them to make them ready for publishing. I've already done that for two of the novels and have three more to go before starting on something new. I have over 60 story ideas in the works, so you can expect many more books from me in the future.
Sheritta Bitikofer
Don't give up. I know it sounds cliche and everyone says that, but it's advice that I should have taken. I wrote three novels during high school, got one nasty comment that they weren't interesting and wouldn't get published, and I gave up writing for 3 years. Never do what I did. If you believe that writing is your passion and calling in life, don't give it up for anything and don't write to please anyone but yourself.
Sheritta Bitikofer
The whole reason I write is because it's like therapy. After I've spent a few hours writing or planning my next book, I'm relaxed and emotionally stable. I took 3 years off from writing and I was a mess during that time. When I came back to writing, I rediscovered my joy. Writing makes me happy, plain and simple.
Sheritta Bitikofer
What I find works best is to just take a break. When I'm in the process of planning a book and get stumped on the big question of "Well, what happens now?", I tend to walk away from the project for a little while because I'm burned out on story telling. I never forget about it, of course. And when I come back to it, I'm full of new ideas of how to keep the plot going.
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