Our own Kitty Bucholtz is always full of smiles, laughter, and a joke for everyone at RWASD. She also is an accomplished writer and teaches some wonderful workshops on self-publishing as well.
You can find out even more about her at www.kittybucholtz.com.
Tell us a little about yourself! Who are you? What do you write?
I have a T-shirt that says, “I’m just a Michigan girl in a California world.” Sometimes I think that says everything about me – haha!! I’m partly practical and logical, partly whimsical and emotional, and I’m a lot about laughter and encouragement and Love. So I end up writing a very similar character most of the time – a woman who is faced with a situation she doesn’t want to or know how to deal with, but who finds it inside herself – often with a little divine inspiration – to find a way through it and learn that she’s stronger than she knew. I don’t know if I always write about her because I hope I’m her, or because I want to be her, or…I don’t know. But she’s my girl. I put her in romantic comedies, and superhero urban fantasies (with romance, of course), and supernatural suspense.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I remember writing stories on a chalkboard my mom leaned against the wall in the hallway at home when I was five or six. I wrote stories throughout school, but I grew up in a pragmatic, Puritan work ethic kind of culture, so artistic pursuits were considered nice hobbies. It wasn’t until I moved away from home that I first submitted my work for publication – and I was accepted my first time! I had a devotional published in 1996, and that was when it really became real to me. Once that happened, I couldn’t stop writing, couldn’t stop trying to get published!
What does RWASD mean to you?
My fabulous friend gave me a year’s membership into RWASD last year when times were tough in my life. Over time, I’ve found that she’s not the only wonderful and generous person in RWASD. 🙂 I’ve so enjoyed the laughter and encouragement at the meetings, the amazing online encouragement to write more and make our deadlines, and the amazing speakers we’ve had since I’ve joined!
What is the biggest challenge you have faced on your journey to becoming a writer?
I think the hardest thing for me is that my personality and my upbringing have mostly
pushed me to accept what those in authority say to be true. So when editors said chick lit is dead, I believed them and tried to think of something else to write. When agents said, don’t write other books in your series if you haven’t sold book one yet, I agreed that that sounded logical and I wrote the first book of the next series and the next. When other professional writers told me, don’t worry about writing the full book, write great proposals until you get an agent who will tell you which book they can sell, I took their advice and wrote a dozen three-chapters-and-a-proposal.
Following all of that advice not only didn’t help me sell a book (although I did get an agent), but when I decided to self-publish, I didn’t have a dozen completed books like so many other writers who chose to self-publish had ready to go. So in some ways, my biggest challenge has been trying to learn how to make wiser decisions that work for me. The number of “experts” in publishing has only grown, so it will continue to be a challenge for me to find my own way, taking into consideration what works for other professional publishers, but making decisions that will hopefully work best for me.
What attracted you to the genre you write? Why does it speak to you?
I love “love”! I love happily ever afters and great endings and good winning over evil. I also love what happens after two people in love get married, so I had to write about newlyweds in my superhero series! I’ve been married to my college sweetheart for 26 years now, and there is so much laughter and good times to tell people about, I think I’m just compelled to write it down in fiction! But I also have to write about action sometimes, and spiritual goings on, and stuff that I can’t figure out.
Where is the weirdest place or what is the weirdest thing that inspired an idea?
LOL! My husband knows this story, so I don’t mind putting it in print again. I was mad at him one day because he spent all of his free time playing Xbox, reading comic books, playing D&D, and hanging out with people who did the same. I was bored and lonely and irritated (and probably wrong about how much time he actually spent doing those things!), and I came up with a story about a woman whose husband was doing all this and ignoring her, and she created her own superhero who would be there for her. Eventually it morphed into Unexpected Superhero, about a woman who not only marries a superhero (unbeknownst to her), but discovers she has a super power as well. So I guess the moral of the story is – sometimes being mad at your husband turns out well in the end. Haha!
Who’s a writer you would do backflips to meet and why?
Ooo, that’s a hard one because I’ve met three of my favorite writers already! I met Jennie Crusie at RWA in New York, and another fan took a terribly fuzzy picture of us that I still have. Haha! I met and was able to have a conversation with Jim Butcher twice in the last few years. And I met my all-time favorite graphic novel writer, Mark Waid, author of Kingdom Come, and had a terribly embarrassing fan girl moment that turned into a memorable, lovely conversation. I’d LOVE to spend more time with any of the three of them!
If you could go back 20 years ago, What advice would you give yourself?
Listen to others, weigh their advice, and trust yourself to make the decisions that work best for you. Then don’t stop writing!
Tell us about your latest novel!
I’m so excited about this one! Love at the Fluff and Fold has been a long time coming. It’s book one of The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series, and I expect to have it out in the fall (working on the edits now). The prequel short story, “Welcome to Loon Lake,” was formerly published as “Rescue at Loon Lake” in the anthology Moonlit Encounters, but I’ll be re-issuing it this month as a freebie to introduce the series. I’m also working on book two, Love at the Sea and Ski, right now. I hope to have that out by the end of the year.
The most fun part of this series is that I set it in the real location of the little lake community where I grew up, combined with some larger nearby towns. Then I added in all the fun things that make up quirky towns with funny characters, and I added some rather ridiculous plot twists. The point of this series is good, clean fun! I’ve had a blast writing it.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Here is the first meet between Danny and Cassie after a long time apart near the beginning of Love at the Fluff and Fold:
His steps slowed as he came around the corner of the building and looked up the stairwell. She’d heard him coming. Her feet flew down the steps and she jumped the last two to land in arms.
There wasn’t anything he could do but crush her to him, pulling her back into his heart where she belonged.
A voice in his head told him he was a dead man. No pun intended. If it wasn’t for Uncle Wille, this would be the Worst. Idea. Ever.
But for now…
Before you go, any advice to give to the new writers out there?
Keep writing. Enjoy yourself. Write what makes you happiest. You’ll do your best work that way, and other people will be most likely to enjoy it!
RWA San Diego 
Lovely interview! I’d like to add, way before either of us where members of RWASD- Kitty was my first RWASD friend! LOL! I still think fondly of that meeting and hanging out with you!
That’s so funny, Marie, because YOU were MY first RWASD friend! AGES ago!! Haha!! I still love hanging around you. 🙂