karen@karenranney.com
Odds and Ends
My name is pronounced Rain-ey, not Ran-ney. I know, odd, hmm? It’s a married name, but my real one.
Who I am
I read something the other day that moved me. It was a comment that people want what you do not because of what it is, but who you are. So I decided to tell you who I am, in as succinct a way as possible:
- I believe that you can accomplish almost anything if you believe it and add your actions to your thoughts.
- I believe that there are more nice people than there are ugly ones, and you should ignore the ones that bring you misery.
- I believe in the magnificence of the human spirit, in the kindness and love of which we’re all capable.
- I believe that character is what you do when no one is looking.
- I believe that we are judged by how we treat those of us who need help, how we care for the innocents among us and the animals in our world.
- I believe in the transformative power of love.
My story
When I was five years old, I decided I was going to be a writer.
I used to carry around this really big blue book, holding it in my arms much like I would a doll. I can still feel how heavy it was and recall the marks it made on my arms. I remember sitting on the front steps in Sherman, Texas with the book beside me. Sometimes I would sit with it in my lap and open it up, my fingers sliding on top of all those words. I’d try to match the ones I already knew to the ones in that magical book.
“I’m going to be a writer,” I told my mother. And she, in the way of most mothers, smiled and said, “That’s nice, honey.”
Little did I know it would take me a few years.
My oddities as a writer
I’m one of those writers who writes regardless of circumstances. If there’s a hurricane, a flood, a death, an illness, I write through the experience. It’s how I cope. I can point to each one of my books and tell you if I was undergoing some trauma at the time. The book itself has become a catharsis, and consequently, I feel a special bond to it. Those books are Tapestry, My Beloved, After the Kiss, and The Scottish Companion.
But that’s not to say they’re my favorites. I don’t have one. Or perhaps my favorite is the one on which I’m working.
I like throwing my characters into the deep end. Conflict is one of those components of a novel that I adore. Just think about how much conflict we have in our daily lives.
I also tend to write books about people who are flawed, but not whiners. The women don’t expect a man to rescue them and the men don’t blame women for everything wrong in their lives.
Hopefully, my characters always have a deep core of beliefs, but they do not always act in perfect ways. In other words, they’re like real people.