Q&A With Sally Kilpatrick 

This past weekend Jamie Beck connected me to several different authors, Sally Kilpatrick being one of them. Sally is the USA Today Bestselling author of six novels, her latest one being “The Not So Nice List”. 

Q: So Sally at what point in your life did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

A: I wrote for fun all through school, but I think I was in college before I had that first burning desire to publish a novel. I wrote my first serious attempt at publication when I was twenty-two. It was a historical western romance with a poker playing, breeches wearing, hangman eluding heroine. That novel lives under the bed now, and it won’t be coming out.

Q: What’s your advice to anyone wanting to write fiction? What’s your advice to anyone who struggles with writer’s block?

A: One, have a lucrative plan B to support yourself while you’re honing your craft and navigating the treacherous waters of publishing. Two, the only way you’ll learn how to write a book is by writing a book. Three, the only way you’ll learn how to finish a book is by finishing one. For writer’s block, I recommend morning pages. Even if you don’t write them in the morning, those pages help clear out all of the doubts and worries from your brain. Also, sometimes it helps to have two different projects going at once so you can switch back and forth when you get stuck in one or the other.

Q: Are you writing a new novel now? If so can you spoil a little about it?

A: I have just finished my first mystery, and I’m about to start on a second book in that same universe. I don’t want to give too much away, but the premise is that a great aunt and her niece solve crimes with the help of a found family. And a pet possum.

Q: If you were to write in a different genre, which genre would it be and why?

A: Well, I have written in women’s fiction and romance, but I may be pivoting to mystery. During the pandemic, I realized that Agatha Christie was a comfort read. I suppose it’s all a matter of whether or not you want a happy ending or justice or, well, both.

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to any of your novels?

A: I do have a film agent who was shopping around Much Ado About Barbecue, but it hasn’t been bought. I’ve toyed with trying my hand at a screenplay of either my first novel, The Happy Hour Choir, or one of my Christmas stories, but I suppose I need to heed my own advice. No doubt the only way to learn how to write a screenplay is to, in fact, write a screenplay.

And thanks for interviewing me! I hope there was something useful there.