Cantres asked Elizabeth Reyes:

As a Latina, your books are inspiring to the culture. Thank you for creating such fierce/memorable latinx characters. I am an aspiring writer and would love to know about your journey as a writer. Which authors/books influenced you to be a writer? How long does it usually take you to write one of your phenomenal books?

Elizabeth Reyes My apologies for such a LONG delay in responding to this. I don't come here often enough and when I do it's just to do something technical on one of my titles.

First off thank you for your kind words. I think just reading in general inspired me to write. Anything I read really sparks something in me to write. As early on as when I was a child reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books then Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary.

I honestly never aspired to become a writer. I just wrote because I loved writing. It was my therapy. My hobby. Like some draw, or paint or run. I would sit and write. Still do just for fun. And then the day of self-publishing came along and I decided to finish one of the MANY unfinished stories I'd been working on for years. I published it and at first nothing became of it but then a few bloggers picked it up and started passing the word along. Next thing I know I'm getting emails asking when the next in the series was coming so I put out the second in my Moreno Brothers series and the rest is history. =)

How long it takes me to write a book depends on the story. Some come to me faster than others. Some like Girl In the Mirror came to me in it's entirety. From beginning to end. Start, middle, twists, bombshells and all. I couldn't type fast enough! I've written entire novels in as short as 2 weeks and some as long as 8 months. But typically I can have an entire first draft of story written in about 2 months. =)

Thanks for your interest and again sorry it took me so long to respond. I will try to get better at this. =/

flag