Katherine Genet, spirit worker, Druid, polytheist pagan, and author of the Wilde Grove fiction series
The Creative Council
Welcome to The Creative Council, where I interview creatives about their lives and work and the ups and downs of being a creative soul.
Today’s interviewee is Katherine Genet!
Katherine is a spirit worker and author of the Wilde Grove fiction series. She’s a Druid and polytheist pagan and her books are immersed in this world.
The Interview
Hello Katherine! I’m so glad we finally found the time to do this together. Ready?
· When did you start creating? Do you remember what pulled you in?
I’ve had a lifelong love of writing, and I remember it always being a part of my nature, the desire to make stories of everything. I think it’s the way I look at the world – through the lens of story.
· When did you start pursuing your current craft for real? As in, when did you begin to take yourself seriously as a creator?
I started submitting my work to magazines when I was in my early 20s. I was writing non-fiction then, and would have been around 25 when I submitted a book idea to a publisher here in New Zealand. The pitch was accepted, and I found myself a published author of a real book a year or so later.
Life was difficult then, however, and I didn’t publish again until my children were older and I was in my early 40s. Writing, particularly long-form book-length works, requires space, and being a single parent of a large family, it was a long time until I had that. I spent a couple years taking university writing courses during that fallow period, however, learning to write short stories and poetry, and it was through those courses that I discovered that fiction was something I could successfully write.
· Are you still having fun? If yes, how are you making sure it stays fun?
Even on a bad day, I couldn’t think of a better job than writing. It’s the most delicious fun to use my imagination like this. Of course, it is also a job, so keeping it fun is important, and to preserve the joy of it, I think it’s important to keep the reader and everything and everyone else out of the initial story writing process. If you write the first draft thinking about anything other than the story, then it becomes painful, because you’re always second-guessing yourself.
· What has been your biggest ‘mistake’ thus far, and what would you tell people about to make that same mistake?
If I had to call anything I’ve done a ‘mistake’ then, from a business point of view, it would have been the years I spent roaming around genres trying to find what I could write and where that intersected with what I could sell. But it’s hard to think that was a real problem, because it was all good experience, and through that process I found my voice as a writer and learned the skills I needed to write what I do now, and what brings me a full-time living.
· Of all the milestones you’ve reached thus far, what has been your favourite? How did you celebrate it?
I should probably celebrate milestones more. Finishing each book sounds like it should be a milestone to celebrate, but mostly it’s just a relief to have it done, before the business of getting it ready to publish.
Feeling able to really call myself a writer though, that was a big thing. I remember walking down the street repeating to myself ‘I’m a writer’ and feeling both amazed and dazed. It had taken a lot to really feel that. Making enough money from it finally – that too was a milestone that also left me dazed and delighted. I probably did celebrate that one, now that I think about it – paying the bills and buying books was suddenly a lot more enjoyable.
· What do you struggle with most as a creative person?
My personal struggle with it has been to recognise and let it be okay that each project (in my case a book) is a different thing, and that it’s all right to change up a routine or to structure writing it differently. To be consistently productive as a creative person requires, I think, a calm and clear routine, but it’s easy for that routine to become a set of rules, which doesn’t help. You have to hold it lightly.
· ‘You have to hold it lightly.’ I love that, thank you for sharing that insight. Have you always had that struggle, and what advice would you give creatives dealing with the same?
If I’ve had a particularly good day, or week, or book, then I find myself wanting to do everything the same, to structure everything the same. But no day or week or book is quite alike, and it’s been a bit of a learning process to keep the routine but be less desperate about it. It’s a juggling act, to give yourself enough space to create while also making sure that you don’t become rigid about it. I give myself little talks about it, reminding myself that it’s okay, that I’m doing well.
I think it also helps if you’ve someone else to give you pep talks when you need them, to just encourage you that you’re doing well. Writing is wonderful and an absolute blast when it’s going well, but it’s not easy. It’s still work, a delicate dance where a lot of time you have to be able to get out of your own way.
· What do you do to stay inspired?
Refilling the creative well is an essential thing. I think we all find our own ways of doing it. For me, it is walking and reading and always casting about for that interesting thing that will spark something. I also have to make time to just be and do what looks from the outside, I’m sure, a lot like nothing. But this doing nothing is time where my mind is relaxed, allowing room for inspiration.
· What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
I’m currently doing it! The series I’m writing now is one I wanted to write years ago but could never find a way into. I did finally come across whatever it was that I needed to discover the story structure of what I wanted to tell, and I quit the genre I was really beginning to make my name in to start essentially from scratch to do it.
· What is the biggest compliment you ever received about your work?
I get emails from readers saying that my current series of books have changed their lives, have helped them through the hardest of times. For what I’m writing now, that’s more than I could ever have hoped to hear.
· What’s the best creative advice you ever received?
Wow, that’s a hard question. I’m not sure that anyone ever told me this, but at some point you have to stop learning how to write and just write. Write something from beginning to end, then write another. On the job training, really, although I’m not saying that those first efforts are publishable. The most help I ever got for my writing was reading Stephan King’s On Writing. That was when I decided I could try to write something long all the way to the finish line. Finishing a novel was hard before that.
· As you might know, I’m pretty woo-woo. On a scale of 1 to ‘I was burned at the stake in a previous lifetime’, how woo-woo are you? And how does that express itself in your life and/or your creative practice?
I’m pretty sure I was burned at the stake in a past life. The series I’m writing now, is woo-woo all the way. I’m deliberately using the format of fiction to teach magick. What’s even better, is that it’s working.
You can find Katherine and her work on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.
Are you a creative and would you like to be interviewed next? E-mail me at marielle@mswordsmith.nl and we’ll make it happen!
Great interview, Katherine’s Wilde Grove series was a lighthouse in a personal storm for me. Can’t wait for the next instalment.