Hey everyone! We interviewed Rosalyn Kelly, author of Melokai. Read on to find out about what inspired her, what she does besides writing, what she’s excited about, and more!
Hi Rosalyn! Thanks for letting us interview you! To start, we want to know – what are your three favorite books that inspired your writing?
This one is hard to answer as almost every book I read inspires my writing in some way or another! Inspiration for my genre – epic fantasy – has to be George R. R. Martin for his incredible A Song of Ice and Fire. Stephen King’s On Writing spurred me on to write and helped me to hone my craft. And finally, I was blown away when I read the magic realism novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez for its inventiveness, complexity and scale.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
When I’m not writing I tend to be reading! Mainly books, but also magazines. I never watch television and only occasionally watch movies or go to the cinema. I paint with acrylics, hike, do yoga and spend time with friends and family. I also enjoy travelling and experiencing new places, people and cultures, and am often daydreaming about where to adventure to next.
Okay, so as an author, for sure writing is definitely not easy. But what is the hardest thing about writing for you?
The hardest thing about writing has to be managing the self-doubt and fear that no one is going to like what you’ve written, what you’ve spent a year (or even longer) sweating over and nurturing to life. To challenge this, I like to re-read some of the positive feedback I’ve received from readers and the glowing five star reviews I’ve had for my debut book Melokai to remind myself that I shouldn’t doubt myself!
That’s true, and certainly it’s encouraging to get some excellent reviews from readers who enjoyed your work! But we want to know – what are you excited about right now?
I’m incredibly excited about book two of my In the Heart of the Mountains epic fantasy trilogy. I’m in the early stages of writing, but was buzzing after I’d planned and plotted it! I love that warm, fuzzy feeling of creation, of being on the verge of producing something from nothing. I always feel a bit euphoric when I have a story in my mind that I’m about to get down on paper.
We’ve reached the end of the interview! Thanks again for sharing all these wonderful responses with us. One last question – which work of yours would you recommend a reader start with?
My debut novel, an epic fantasy called Melokai is the best place to start. It is book one of the In the Heart of the Mountains trilogy, and can be found on Amazon here.
