I’m thrilled to welcome my good friend/critique partner/writing buddy, Keira Kohl, to my blog today. I’ve known Keira for almost twenty years, and even though we rarely see each other in person these days, thanks to modern technology, ie. the internet, we’re in touch all the time.

Welcome, Keira. I’m so glad you could visit today. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
It’s always so hard to talk about yourself. 🙂 I grew up in Ontario, Canada and still live an hour away from where I was born. I work in IT for my day job. All that means is I get to play with software all day and try to break it. When it comes to genres I love the weird and unusual so I guess it’s no surprise that the erotica I write is paranormal. I’ve been writing for what feels like forever and I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t write. I live in Ontario, Canada with my honey and three cats.

I am a member of RWA and a graduate of Hal Croasmun’s screenwriting ProSeries. My interviews with writers of CSI and Flashpoint appeared in The Rewrit, the Scriptscene newsletter, the screenwriting Chapter of RWA. I write screenplays, thrillers, and paranormals, occasionally exploring an erotic twist. My characters have never complained.

So even though you grew up in Canada, I know you’ve travelled a bit. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?
So many places to choose from. But I would pick Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It’s quiet, the people are friendly. It’s gorgeous there. I’ve loved Cape Breton forever as long as I can remember. My family is from there and I’ve been going there since I was a child. It just feels like home.

I’ve never been down east, but it is on my bucket list. What about other talents you have? Or are there talents you don’t have that you wish you did?
I paint landscapes in oil. I wish I had a talent for drawing. I know that sounds contradictory but the landscapes I paint are free style and don’t require any artistic talent at all. 🙂

As you know, I have no artistic talent whatsoever, so even freestyle painting is amazing to me. Now let’s get to the writing part of this interview. Where do your best ideas come from?
I get ideas from everywhere. Sometimes it’s a problem. I have so many ideas floating around there’s never going to be enough time to write them all. I do my best thinking in the shower. I have no idea why and I’m not the only author who gets ideas in the shower.

You know how jealous I am of your ability to come up with ideas all day every day. But when you’ve settled on an initial premise, which comes first, the plot or the characters?
For me, plot comes first. I learn about my characters as I write the story. I usually have a very definite plot in mind and then think of characters to put in that situation. Then the characters grow as the story progresses. Most of the time it works out for me. Sometimes it doesn’t and I get stuck because I have to learn more about the character before I can move forward.

Yes, that happens to me all the time, too. Having so many ideas is a good thing when you’re writing short stories 🙂 Tell us about your new release.
My release is due out the end of this month. It’s Tempting Evil, a short story collection of three paranormal erotica stories.
In Satisfaction Guaranteed, a wannabe succubus meets her match for her last assignment: The college boyfriend who broke her heart.
In Scale Deep, a reporter learns more than she bargained for when she discovers that dragons are real… and they walk among us.
In School Bites, a woman bumps into her high school crush at a reunion. Curiously he hasn’t aged a day in 15 years. When the bodies start turning up she finds out why.

Sounds like very interesting stories. What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on getting my collection ready for publication. Once that’s available I’ll be working on revisions of Silk Secrets, the first book in my Spirit Chasers series. Silk Secrets is a fun, sexy story about neighbours who start to see more in each other than they did before – with the help of a match making ghost.

I’m looking forward to reading it.

Thanks for visiting today, Keira. I’ll keep an eye out for your debut book and post the links here when it’s available.

You can read more about Keira and her books on her website, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.