Writer Finds Inspiration and Publication
Kimberly Love Struggles Through Rejection, Finds Her Dream
Jun 5, 2009
Rejection is one of the hardest parts of working your way towards a professional writing career. For the novelist Kimberly Love, rejection isn’t easy to take.
“I hate rejections; it almost makes me want to give up.” Love said during a telephone interview on May 22, 2009.
She received around twenty rejections before her first novel, Mirror of Who You Were, was published by Publish America on April 20, 2009. She’s not having much trouble with rejection anymore. Her second novel, Memoirs of a Gibson, was also picked up by Publish America with a publication date to soon be announced.
“I’ve written my whole life and then it seems like it’s all happening at once,” Love said, “It’s all happening so fast.”
The fast track to Love’s writing success didn’t come easy. Raised by a single mother of four in Canada, she’s experienced tough times. She saw how much her mother struggled to raise the family.
“I wouldn’t say it was a struggle,” said Lynda Cripps, Love’s mother, “I did the best I could for the kids given what I had to work with.”
Doing the best for Love included being her biggest supporter.
“I tried to encourage Kim because what I’ve read and what I’ve seen of her work, I’ve been quite amazed.” Cripps said.
Cripps watched her daughter try many different things, including photography, but Love always came back to writing.
“Like most kids, Kim didn’t know what she really wanted to do,” Cripps said, “but she always liked writing.”
Love Finds Her Way Back to Writing
Love felt like she had hit a brick wall after dating bad boys and finding herself in abusive situations. She realized she was living a life her mom hadn’t intended for her and she wanted to do better for herself. Love also gave birth to her first child, a girl, and realized she wanted to offer her daughter a different life.
“It’s s like you have to work through your pain before you can see the other side,” Love said.
The key to a better life was her writing. Love said she’s been writing her whole life but the idea to pursue being a published author didn’t occur to her until a few years ago.
Mirror of Who You Were is a love story that occurrs when two strangers have a chance encounter that changes their lives forever. It was inspired by a short period of her life and writing the story helped her deal with loss.
“It was the easiest thing I’ve ever written because everything just flowed out of me,” Love said, “Normally it isn’t that easy.”
Love is not short on inspiration. Finding that her mind wanders, she takes long drives to think things out. Another source of inspiration and character development is one of her jobs as a bartender. Love has found that bartending helps her connect to people because they open up to her.
“If you’re a bartender people will talk to you and you hear so many stories,” Love said, “It benefits my writing being around so many other people.”
Her second novel Memoirs of a Gibson is a memoir told from the perspective of a guitar. The idea came to her as she watched her boyfriend play. She wondered what it would be like to be the guitar, and how the guitar would feel if it were passed between different people. The novel started as a story she worked on for a three day novel writing contest over Labor Day weekend, 2008.
“The publisher of the contest is really weird and I wanted to write something outside of the box.” Love said of the contest.
Finding the Discipline to Write
Love juggles single motherhood and two jobs. Besides bartending she attends beauty school. Learning how to fly a Cessna 172 plane is another of her passions and she is on track to get her private pilot’s license. She has no intentions of being a commercial pilot, but instead wants to fly passengers privately, as a hobby.
Finding the time to write has taught her about discipline.
“It would be easy to just say that I’m too tired.” Love said of finding the discipline to write. But she is reminded of her daughter, and the desire to offer her a better life. Love says she gets up early to write or writes when her daughter is asleep.
In the future Love would like to see herself as a full time novelist, with plenty of time for her daughter and her hobbies on the side.
You can learn more about Love and her future projects on Kimberly Love's website.
Source
- Kim Love was interviewed by telephone for this article on June 5, 2009.
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