Kim Harrison, author of the New
York Times #1 best selling Hollows series, was born in Detroit and lived most her her life within an easy drive.
After gaining her bachelors in the sciences, she moved to South Carolina, where she remained until recently returning to Michigan because she missed the snow. She's currently working
on the Peri Reed Chronicles, and when not at her desk, Kim is most likely to be
found landscaping her new/old Victorian home, in the garden, or out on the
links.
For More Information
- Visit Kim Harrison’s website.
- Connect with Kim on Facebook and Twitter.
- Find out more about Kim at Goodreads.
Can you tell us what your book is about?
In a nutshell, The
Drafter is Bourne Identity meets Minority Report. While on task, special agent
Peri Reed realizes her partner has put her name at the top of a list of corrupt
agents. Abandoning her employer and partner both, she has only her intuition to
guide her as she tries to clear her name and bring down the agency that trained
her. It’s a SF, thriller, action kind of story, fast paced and with a lot of
attention put on relationships and how they move us.
Why did you write your book?
It’s no coincidence that the main character in The Drafter is dealing with similar
issues as a person suffering from Alzheimer’s. I took Peri Reed’s coping
techniques and a few of her gut reactions from the same. Her special skill
destroys her memory, and though she occasionally regains it, she’s incredibly
reliant upon those she trusts to keep her centered and herself. Her special
ability make her very powerful, but it’s tempered by the vulnerabilities an Alzheimer’s
patient deals with every day. I wrote The Drafter to say that those dealing
with memory issues are still important, still worth considering, and still part
of society.
Bu-u-u-ut, you can skip right over that and still enjoy it
as an action thriller with a modified-human twist.
Are you consciously aware of the plot before you begin a
novel or do you discover it as you write?
My ideas form slowly, over the course of years, and most of
my series plots are developed by taking two or three of these “I wonder if”
concepts and mashing them up together. The setting is almost as important as
the characters, and I’ll often research a city and gain ideas there as well.
But what I look for most is that the ideas touch upon something that can be
experienced, be it joyful, such as finding an enduring love, or painful, as in
dealing with memory loss. The Drafter,
incidentally, deals with both.
What do you like to
do for fun?
At a recent family reunion, my aunt pinned me in a corner,
demanding to know how I had time to landscape a tired yard, knit five baskets
for Easter, walk the dog, rake the leaves, and still have time to write nine to five. My answer? Everything out of my
office is therapy, and it’s true! Writing can be so mentally taxing that at the
end of the work day, I’m very eager to dig into some of life’s daily
challenges, seeing it as a relief, not a chore.
What do you like the
most about being an author?
I am creative every day in ways I
never imagined. I can arrange my day as I see fit to take advantage of an odd
bit of sun in the garden or an invite from my mother to go to lunch, or even
take a day off to be with a sick child without worrying if I will have a job
when I get back. I can invest my time and energy as heavily as I want without
the fear of losing my time-investment due to downsizing. Occasionally, I have
the opportunity to work with incredibly talented people who know more than I do
about this incredibly complex, markedly small world of publishing. I can touch
the lives of people I would never otherwise, bring my thoughts to theirs, which
is heady in itself, and a privilege that I have the greatest respect for. It’s a profession that goes all the way back
to the fire at the mouth of the cave, and it centers and connects me. What more
could you ask for?
What kind of advice
would you give other fiction authors?
I have one piece of advice I like to give out: write like
you have the contract, which means, write with purpose and a goal, not a long
term, but short term. One page. One chapter. Whatever you suits you. Don’t go
back and rewrite until you get to the end of the story, but do go back and make
notes in the margins when you see the need to change something. Save actually
doing it for the rewrite, otherwise you will be rewriting the same chapter for
a year.