Guest Author Thursday: Josi S. Kilpack

Josi is the author of several novels, including Banana Split, the most recent novel in the Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery series, and Daisy of the Newport Ladies Book Club series, a collaboration with authors Julie Wright, Annette Lyon and Heather Moore. Daisy is scheduled to be released in May.

Josi’s next two signings will be:

Saturday, March 24th at the downtown Deseret Book from 3:00-5:00

Saturday, March 31st at the Fort Union Deseret Book from 6:00-8:00

Connect with Josi: WEBSITE | BLOG | TWITTER

Find out more about the Newport Ladies Book Club HERE.

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There was a time when I considered myself a voracious reader—I would start a book and could do nothing else until the book was done. I read several books a week, stayed up late, and always had a book with me. It got to the point when I couldn’t find enough good books to read, I would ask everyone I knew for recommendations and read most of them. And then I started writing and my love affair with reading developed complications.

I’m not what I would call an “educated” writer. I don’t have a college degree and I didn’t have the goal of becoming a novelist in high-school and college. Hence, when I started writing my first book, I had nothing other than a decade of neurotic reading as a foundation of how to pattern my own creations. I certainly don’t discount the part all those books played in my ability to write a coherent story, but I didn’t know what I was doing and although I did have that first book accepted through a program where I paid a portion of it’s publication, it was not well crafted and it didn’t do well. I was embarrassed but determined to do a better job. So, I found a local writer’s conference. I read books on how to write novels, but perhaps the most important skill I developed was becoming a critical reader.

Until this point, I liked 98% of the books I read. I followed the journey of whatever character was presented to me and closed the book with a satisfied smile on my face while I reached for the next book in my stack. It wasn’t that every book was well written, I just didn’t care. I was reading for the journey and easily satisfied. Now that I was writing, however, and feeling my lack of training and skill, I began asking myself what I liked and didn’t like about the books I read. Did I like that character? Why? Did I find the ending satisfying? Why not? I started asking myself what I would change if I could, how I felt the book could have been improved, and what elements I absolutely loved. It was exciting to feel like I was taking a class with each book I read, but in time this began to work against me.

Now that I was more aware of elements of craft, characterization, and structure, when these things were done poorly, I found myself aggravated and annoyed. I started not finishing books when they were so poorly done that I couldn’t get lost in the pages. By the time I’d been writing for 4 or 5 years, I was finishing about 60% of the books I picked up. The other 40% would be put aside after about 20 pages, never to be picked up again. By the time I’d been writing for 9 years, I was finishing about 30% of what I picked up. Granted, my writing was taking more of the time once used for reading, but I think I’d have made time if not for the fact that I’d lost the joy of reading. I couldn’t seem to turn off my critical assessment of what I read. It was frustrating to pick up book after book after book and put it down because I couldn’t get my brain to click into the story. I noticed too many adverbs, too few adverbs, names that were hard to pronounce, motivations that didn’t make sense, too much setting, not enough setting, ridiculous dialogue. Now and then a book would capture me, and I would ride that wave all the way into the shore, relieved to know that I could still enjoy a book, but I was more and more discriminating and harder and harder to please.

For the last two years I’ve set goals on how many books to read, and I have not met those goals. I’ve been annoyed by this—I miss reading—and I’ve worried that my own writing will suffer from not having the creative energy sparked by other people’s books. But what to do? Life certainly hasn’t become less intense. I was ruined, right?

And then, this year, I decided to read all thirty-five finalists for the Whitney Awards. Even as I said I would do it, I couldn’t imagine how it would work. I hadn’t been able to read 30 books in a year, let alone thirty-five in less than three months. And I have serious prejudice against a couple of the genres—I don’t read them AT ALL—but I was committing to read five of them? Still, I knew other people easily as busy as myself and they were doing it. I could do it too.

I worried about my novel deadlines—I’m on two right now—how would I ever fit reading this many books into my already limited time? But, I was committed all the same. Here I am, almost two months into the Academy reading and absolutely loving it! I’ve read twenty of the thirty-five finalists so far and am still going strong. I have almost finished one of the categories I dreaded—it wasn’t too bad—the other one is looming but I’m feeling encouraged. I haven’t loved every book, but only one was so unenjoyable that I put it down at fifty pages. It still seems impossible that I’ve found the time, but I have, and my writing hasn’t suffered. In fact, I think it’s been helped. There’s been a few different books that got me so excited about my own story, I pumped out 2,000 words in the hours following my reading of it. In the process of this experience, I’ve been reminded of how much I once loved to read. I’ve remembered how fun it is to get lost in someone else’s journey, of how invigorating it is to visit new places and read different styles of writing and I have been able to turn off the uber-critical part of myself.

I have four weeks left to read the remaining 15 books—and I’m looking forward to it and thinking ahead to all the nooks and crannies I can fit some reading time into. I hope that when I finish all thirty-five—and I will finish—that I’ll be able to continue finding great books to enhance my life and my writing. I can’t imagine letting go of this love affair again but I’m very grateful for second chances to rediscover something wonderful.