Toch Island Chronicles by Kat Heckenbach

Today we have another installment in the Splashdown Book Tour series. Please welcome Kat Heckenbach, author of Finding Angel and Seeking Unseen. She also did cover drawings for all three of my books. She's doing a self-interview for us today. Welcome, Kat!

Q. What part of the writing process do you find the most challenging?
A. Honestly, the chaos surrounding finding time and peace/quiet to write. I need order. I often feel like Kermit the Frog backstage at the Muppet Show, trying to rein in the chaos around me so I can get the show on the road. I’ve got kids to homeschool, dogs to let in and out (and in and out), the TV blaring the latest Wii game in progress in the background, the “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” and all the things that go along with running a household. But for me to be able to focus, all that has to either be taken care of or somehow turned into background noise. Doesn’t always work.

Also, I’m someone who doesn’t shift gears well—I work much better if I have blocks of time to do things and tackle one project at a time. Doing a little of this and a little of that doesn’t generally work well for me. Therefore, setting aside an hour or so a day to write, or writing a certain number of words a day, doesn’t work either. By the time I’ve gotten myself in the zone to write, the hour has passed or the quiet has degraded to chaos again.

Q. Which part of the writing process is the most fun for you?
A. Figuring out how I’m going to make a scene fit in, or work in a necessary detail, or link two story arcs together. The weaving, the placing of the puzzle pieces. I suppose you might call this plotting, but it’s not just working out the events of the story. It’s figuring out how to make the insignificant significant. One reviewer said this about a plot element in Finding Angel: “There are other treats abundantly throughout the book, including one so magnificently clever and totally awesome that I'll not spoil it for you. I will say when I first read it I shouted "Oh! WELL DONE!!! How cool!!!" right out loud. For that one moment alone the book is worth your time.”

That statement made my heart flip! That’s exactly what I mean—the clever little twist, the thing you think at first will be one thing, or will be nothing at all, and then, wham, it becomes a major twist in the story or a link between two places/things/people in the book. I love finding those things and making the connections—and I love finding out that others get a kick out of the results!

Kat Heckenbach grew up in the small town of Riverview, Florida, where she spent most of her time either drawing or sitting in her "reading tree" with her nose buried in a fantasy novel...except for the hours pretending her back yard was an enchanted forest that could only be reached through the secret passage in her closet...

She never could give up on the idea that maybe she really was magic, mistakenly placed in a world not her own...but as the years passed, and no elves or fairies carted her away...she realized she was just going to have to create the life of her fantasies.

Now she shares that life with her husband and two kids. Ok, maybe "share" isn't the right word--more like lives that life in her writing and tries her best to be normal the rest of the time...

Kat is a graduate of the University of Tampa, Magna Cum Laude, B.S. in Biology. She spent several years teaching, but never in a traditional classroom—everything from Art to Algebra II—and now homeschools her children.

[Kat's Website] . [Kat's Blog]


[Buy Finding Angel on Amazon] . [Buy Seeking Unseen on Amazon]Note: These are affiliate links.

Blog Tour Sites:

[R. L. Copple] . [Kat Heckenbach] . [Diane M. Graham]
[Travis Perry] . [Paul Baines] . [Keven Newsome]
[Robynn Tolbert] . [Frank Creed] . [Fred Warren]
[Ryan Grabow] . [Greg Mitchell] . [Grace Bridges]