authors – Lyndsey Hall

Interview: YA Fantasy Author Jennifer Kropf

I recently had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Jennifer Kropf, author of the gorgeously festive fantasy novel A Soul as Cold as Frost, about her upcoming projects and where she finds inspiration for her stories.

Here’s what she had to say…

Hi Jen! It’s lovely to finally get to chat with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. First of all, where are you from?

I’m from Canada, where it snows too much and often smells of pines. I have a husband and three kids, and we live in a little town on the cusp of Stratford, Ontario that has all the small-town-charm you can imagine. I like to write late at night, and I’m one of those weirdos who would rather brew a hot beverage and snuggle up with a book on a weekend instead of going out to do things.

That sounds like the dream! I’m definitely one of those weirdos too. When did you start writing and what inspired you?

Growing up, my dad used to read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis to me and my siblings before bed. We became obsessed with the world of Narnia, and Aslan. When I started having kids, I imagined having those same experiences with my kids at Christmas time, so I started writing A Soul as Cold as Frost with the hopes that every year at Christmas we can spend the month of December snuggling by the fireplace reading exciting Christmas stories, and bonding over them as a family.

What a lovely idea, that sounds like the perfect family tradition. Aside from The Chronicles of Narnia, what are your favourite books?

My favourite books to read have always been fantasy books, especially with exceptionally built worlds.

Those are my favourites too. Speaking of which, tell us a little about your debut novel.

I published my first book last year called A Soul as Cold as Frost, which centres around a girl whose eyes are opened to another realm at Christmas time, and throughout the series, will face all sorts of mythical villains pulled out of old Christmas legends.

It sounds like such a magical read, where do you find inspiration for your characters?

Obviously I love Christmas, so a lot of my characters are drawn from Christmas stories or legends. I have a few different versions of Santa Claus (multiple characters who impersonate different versions of Santa) in my books, along with The Snow Queen, The Gingerbread Man, and the Nutcracker.

I love characters inspired by myths and legends! What are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on Book #2 of The Winter Souls Series (A Soul as Cold as Frost #2) which I’m calling A Heart as Red as Paint. AHARAP centres around my main character, Helen, who gets a visit from a ghostly being (inspired by the ghost of Christmas past/present/future in the story A Christmas Carol) who gives Helen three warnings in the form of a riddle. She has to solve the riddle before her time runs out, or she’ll face the dreadful future she was warned about.

I’m so excited to read it next Christmas! What one piece of advice would you give aspiring authors?

Market your books way ahead of time. With the pandemic, most of my marketing plan was squashed when our province started going into lockdown and all my kids ended up being home for most of the year, but your best way to get people excited about your book is to start telling people about it way in advance.

Thank you so much for chatting with me Jennifer, it’s been lovely getting to know you and your books better. Where can we find out more?

Go to Jennifer’s website to learn more

Join Jennifer’s newsletter to hear about her upcoming releases

Find Jen on Instagram

Or on Facebook

I hope you enjoyed getting to know Jennifer Kropf better, I highly recommend A Soul as Cold as Frost, it’s going to become a modern Christmas classic and would make the perfect family read over the winter months. And keep an eye out for book two, A Heart as Red as Paint.

Jen is also contributing a story to Enchanted Waters, Merrily Merrily, which tells the origin tale of snow pirate, Zane, with cameos by other ASACAF characters you’ll recognise! You can preorder Enchanted Waters for just $2.99 and get more than ten fantasy short stories from bestselling, award-winning and up-and-coming authors, with all profits going to Oceana to help save the world’s oceans.

Lyndsey

Self-care for writers

August tends to be a slow month; school is out, lots of people take time off work and go on holiday or visit family. The weather is usually good (depending on where in the world you are, here in the UK we get equal parts sunshine and rain!) and the days are long and can be as filled with activity and excitement, or as lazy and relaxing as you please. Personally, I like a good mix of the two.

This year, however, I haven’t spent August enjoying the peace and quiet, or going on fun days out with my family and friends. This year, I entered Pitch Wars and have spent the last few weeks polishing my manuscript, submitting it for scrutiny by several potential mentors and anxiously waiting for requests. I’ve been frantically trawling the Pitch Wars hashtags and refreshing my inbox more often than’s healthy, agonising over whether I’ll be picked from the thousands of entries and whisked out of obscurity.

But, with announcement day just a week away, I’m finally starting to calm down and accept my fate. I don’t jump at every email notification or scroll through my private list of mentors’ tweets constantly…anymore. I’ve actually started to take some time for myself, after months of stress with the competition, moving house, my job etc. And it got me thinking: what can writers do to look after themselves and replenish the creative well?

Self care for writers Lyndsey's Book Blog

Read

This one’s not for every creative, not all writers can read when they need a break from work, it’s a fundamental part of what we do and switching off the part of our brains that analyses the writing of others and tries to find ways of improving our own craft is nigh on impossible. My tip is to read outside your genre, pick up that new thriller everyone’s been talking about while you’ve been busy writing a historical fantasy, grab a light, summery contemporary to contrast your horror WIP. Try a graphic novel, or a classic you’ve always fancied but never gotten round to.

Read for fun and remember why you enjoy it, if you can’t switch off the analytical part of your brain don’t beat yourself up, use your new experience to feed your creativity for your next project.

Travel

Get out of your comfort zone, you don’t have to go far to benefit from the change of scenery. If you can get away for a few days abroad, a city break is a fantastic way to research the setting for that story you’ve been daydreaming about between editing your manuscript. If a staycation is on the cards, why not rent a cottage in a beautiful location or even go camping and spend a few days getting close to nature, reconnecting with your nearest and dearest.

If you can’t stretch to more than an afternoon at a time, try being a tourist in your own town. I’m lucky to live within a short drive of lots of historic towns with castles and cathedrals galore. You might stumble upon inspiration in the quiet corners and cobbled streets, but if not you’ll still learn something new about local history and have fun exploring your own hometown.

Get creative

A lot of creatives don’t just limit themselves to one outlet, they have a number of skills and talents they enjoy using to express themselves. If you love to draw or paint, knit or sculpt, take some time out of your busy schedule to return to your other artistic passion and get another part of your creative brain whirring for a change.

Try something new, check out local craft classes like photography or flower arrangement, join the Women’s Institute or a choir. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do, as long as you express your creativity via an outlet other than writing. It can be just for yourself, gifts for your friends, or you might even end up opening an Etsy store and selling your makes. The sky’s the limit!

Rest and relaxation

Do nothing. Enjoy lazy Sundays in bed with a pot of tea and a new Netflix series. Bake a cake or a loaf of bread and eat it warm from the oven. Sit in the garden and feel the sun on your face (which is probably deathly pale from spending so much time indoors at your laptop). Have a glass of wine. Heck, have a whole bottle! Share it with friends and laugh and dance. Fill your days with the small things that bring you joy, wear your favourite outfit and go window shopping or grab a frothy coffee in an independent cafe. Paint your nails, or let your kids paint them. Cuddle your dog (or cat, or guinea pig).

Whatever you do, be truly present. Don’t worry if your mind wanders, but bring it back round to the moment and enjoy where you are, who you’re with and let your senses be filled with the experience. You’ll feel a wave of contentment wash over you, and nothing will go to waste when you next sit down at your laptop, it’ll all be there in the back of your mind, informing your writing and enriching your stories.

Indulge your muse

If you absolutely can’t go without writing for more than a few days, why not open your little book of plot bunnies and write a piece of flash fiction or a short story based on one of your ideas? You can always expand it into a longer piece later, but for now just write whatever comes to mind, get it all out onto the page until you’ve satisfied the craving.

It can be difficult when the thing you enjoy most is also the way you make a living, it becomes a challenge to find other activities to unwind and replenish the creative well, but as long as you don’t let yourself slip back into ‘work mode’ and start thinking about deadlines you can get away with doing your favourite thing just for you. We’re lucky really, not many people love their job so much they can’t stop themselves from doing it during their down time! Just remember to separate the two, writing for work and writing for fun.

I hope you like my tips for self-care and avoiding burn out as a writer, let me know in the comments what you do to relax and recharge your creative batteries!

Lyndsey

Beautiful People – Author edition

Welcome to the latest edition of Beautiful People, hosted by the fabulous Sky at Further up and further in and Cait at Paper Fury! Beautiful People is a monthly link up for writers that helps us get into our character’s heads by answering ten different questions about them each month. This month’s questions are a little different, though. In July, we’re zooming in on the author with ten questions about our writing process.

Let’s get started, shall we?

How do you decide which project to work on?

So far I’ve written one novel and started another, and I keep my plot bunnies saved in OneNote for when I’m finished with the project I’m currently working on. I actually combined a few ideas from my notes to create the second MS, so I guess it was a case of choosing which plot bunny felt the most intriguing and trying to flesh it out by interweaving other ideas. Luckily, several of my plot bunnies could be combined, which made my choice so much easier!

My first novel is fantasy, and the second is a sort of contemporary with elements of magical realism/fantasy. I want to try a few different genres until I really find my niche. I might try horror next!

How long does it usually take you to finish a project?

As I’ve only written one novel so far, I’ll say about nine months, because that’s how long it’s taken me, but to be honest it isn’t finished yet. I’m submitting it to Pitch Wars in the hopes a mentor will work with me to edit and revise my MS until it’s near perfect, and that will take until November. Even then, an agent or publisher might require more edits. So a long time. But I’m hoping that with each project I’ll get faster and faster at drafting and revising.

Do you have any routines to put you in the writing mood?

I make a cup of tea, make sure I’m comfortable and have everything I need at arm’s length so I won’t have to get up for a while, and I’m one of the odd people who need background noise so I put something on Netflix. If I’m struggling with a scene or plot point I like to take the dog for a walk and think about it while I get some exercise and appreciate nature. Maybe that’s strange, I need silence to think about my story, and noise to create it.

What time of day do you write best?

I am such a night owl, I don’t even function early in the morning, and if I’ve had a bad night’s sleep forget it. I love long and quiet weekends to just sit at the laptop for hours on end (with breaks to walk the dog and eat, of course), but generally I don’t get into a groove until late afternoon, early evening, and then I can keep going until the early hours.

Are there any authors you think you have a similar style to?

I honestly couldn’t say! I’d love to be compared to a famous author, it would be the greatest compliment, but I’m not sure who I think my writing is similar to.

Why did you start writing, and why do you keep writing?

I’ve always written, whether short stories or poems as a kid, blogs and essays as an adult. Novels have always been one of my favourite things in the world, but I never imagined I could write one until about a year ago. I started to get an idea for a story, and the more I thought about it (while walking the dog, doing the dishes, waiting to fall asleep) the more I knew I needed to write it. I realised I can Google absolutely anything when I need an answer to a question or a tutorial for fixing something, so surely there must be blogs and articles about how to write a novel. I was right, the internet is full of amazing bloggers and writers sharing the craft. So I started to read everything I could, using it to outline and plot my novel, and eventually I stumbled upon the writing community on Twitter, discovered NaNoWriMo, and all the other online competitions for writers.

In a nutshell, I started writing because I got an idea for a story that nagged me every waking minute and wouldn’t go away, and I keep writing because I’ve fallen in love with the craft and found my tribe.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve written?

It would have to be something about myself, my Uni application personal statement or a job application, because I’m absolutely horrible at selling myself, I’m so shy and anxious. Writing fictional stories is easy in comparison to writing something true and honest about myself.

Is there a project you want to tackle someday but you don’t feel ready yet?

I’d absolutely love to write a multi book series, but it’s so daunting. The way authors like J.K. Rowling and Sarah J. Maas weave hints and foreshadowing through early books about what will happen much later into the series, it’s an art form and I’m nowhere near skilled enough to plan that far ahead and execute it well at the moment. One day, hopefully! At the moment, I’m thinking one book at a time, as debut authors almost never get multi book series deals, so my MS The Fair Queen is ‘a standalone with series potential’ and I’ve got a few ideas for the sequel(s) up my sleeve.

What writing goals did you make for 2017 and how are they going?

I only started writing this time last year, so my goals weren’t really conscious or set in stone, but I wanted to complete my first novel, revise it, and start querying by the end of 2017. I’m entering Pitch Wars next week (submission window opens in 3 days!!!) so I’m a good way to achieving my goals, as if I get in I’ll get to work with a mentor for two months and then pitch agents in November. If I don’t get in, I’ll work on my MS for a couple more months anyway and start querying before Christmas.

Describe your writing process in 3 words or a gif!

If you’re just starting out as a writer or looking for blogs to help you improve your craft, check out some of my favourite writer/bloggers and their amazing words of wisdom:

Faye @ Writerology
Kristen @ Well-Storied
Christine @ Better Novel Project

If it weren’t for these three awesome ladies I wouldn’t be anywhere near ready to enter Pitch Wars and I’d probably have given up writing after 10k words.

I’m hoping to have more time to post once my Pitch Wars submission has gone, but if I get in I might be a bit AWOL for most of September and October too (plus I’m going to Asia for ten days in September! So excited :-D)

Lyndsey