Author Karen Kingsbury ~ Guest Blog

Karen Kingsbury is currently America’s best-selling inspirational author, at a time when inspirational fiction is the fastest growing genre in publishing according to industry experts. More than 30 Life-Changing Fiction™ titles have sold over 6 million copies. Dubbed by Time magazine as the Queen of Christian Fiction, Karen receives hundreds of letters each week and considers her readers as friends. Her fiction has made her one of the country’s favorite storytellers, and one of her novels—Gideon’s Gift—is under production for an upcoming major motion picture release. Her emotionally gripping titles include the popular Redemption series, the Firstborn series, Divine, One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, Oceans Apart, and A Thousand Tomorrows. Karen and her husband, Don, live in the Pacific Northwest and are parents to one girl and five boys, including three adopted from Haiti. You can find out more about Karen, her books, and her appearance schedule here.

Karen first visited Novel Journey in February of 2006. Here is a link to her interview.

Gina asked her a series of questions and the answer dropped our jaws. This woman writes 10,000 words a day. Karen gave just a little teaser on how she writes so many words. (Excerpt quoted below.)

"Karen: This is my New Year’s resolution: Don’t bother sitting down to write unless you’re going to do ten thousand words.

Gina: [Laughs.] Oh no.

Karen: My best day was twenty four thousand.

Gina: Wow.

Karen: If I want to be done writing by four or five in the afternoon I have to set a ten thousand word quota. You know it’s just God. It’s just His gift. I can’t take credit. It doesn’t come hard for me. I sit down, put my fingers on the keyboard and it’s very visual. The story plays out and I just take notes.When I’m writing I feel like I’m reading. And my first draft is pretty close to the end product. Like I said, it’s just God’s gift. I couldn’t do it otherwise.

Gina: That’s awe inspiring. You have six children and keep a day job type of schedule?

Karen: That’s right. You know if I can write a novel in two to three weeks and I’m only doing five or six books a year, you do the math. I have a lot of down time to spend with them."

For today's guest blog post I've asked Karen to expand on her answer, giving us a few more nuts and bolts from her process. This is what she had to say.

For me, writing has always been like seeing a movie play out in my head, and then capturing it on the page.

I'm not sure that all writers have this experience, but when I'm writing a novel I feel like I'm taking dictation on this moving picture playing in my mind. I rarely feel like a writer, but more like a reader - my hands flying as fast as they can across the keyboard.

There are a few things that make this possible.

First, I must be clear-minded from the other aspects of life. This means that I can't be focused on the business of writing, or my daily schedule, or what the kids will be doing when they come home from school. I have to give myself completely to the story.

Second, I need to block out distractions. In our house there's a room I can go to where our wireless Internet is not available. That's a great place to start, since otherwise I might be tempted to check e-mail or do a quick check at the weather in the city where I'll be traveling next. These distractions take me right out of the story and prevent me from connecting with that picture in my head.

Third, I find that instrumental, inspirational music helps me stay focused on the story. I use headphones, and it seems to help me give myself over to the movie in my mind.

Again, all writers go about the writing process differently. But maybe this will give you a look at how God makes it happen in my little writing world."