Author Interview: Nadine C. Keels

Please welcome my guest author for today, Nadine C. Keels. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to interview Nadine and introduce you all to her. Let’s get started with the interview:

Please introduce yourself, including the titles of your published works.

I’m Nadine C. Keels, a bibliophile-turned-author with a particular passion for fiction. I’m also a cinephile, as narrative films fall right in line with my overall love of story and good storytelling.

My published works are:

• Eubeltic Descent
• The Movement of Crowns Series (three books)
• Love Unfeigned
• Hope Unashamed
• Inspiring Love: Three Romantic Reads
• World of the Innocent
• Yella’s Prayers
• Dream Debbie and Tea & Cream Debbie (short stories)
• Hope. Lyricized. (spoken word)

How long have you been writing?

Back in third grade, my little eight-year-old self got a kick out of a homework assignment: “Write a story using this list of spelling words.” Been writing stories ever since, only now I use whatever words I want.

What genres do you write?

So far I’ve written historical fantasy and contemporary love stories including romance, literary fiction, coming of age fiction, a romantic comedy, and women’s fiction. No telling what other genre(s) I may branch out into sometime, if a story comes to me that calls for it.

You wrote a historical fantasy fiction series, Movement of Crowns. How did you come up with your ideas for creating the world of Diachona?

I drafted my earliest scenes of The Movement of Crowns as a senior in high school (though only one of the original scenes actually made it into the final book.) As a longtime lover of historical fiction, I knew Crowns would take place some time in the past, but it turned out that the setting wasn’t in any actual place in our world. I just went with it.

When it came time to give the book a title, I took a phrase from one of my spoken word pieces called “His Order of Things,” from the lines that refer to “the rise and fall of kings / the movement of crowns, of scepters, of rings…”

What was the hardest part of writing a historical fantasy fiction book?

The hardest part for me wasn’t writing historical fantasy but finding some way to define it. Back when the idea of Crowns came to me, I’d never read or heard of a Christian Fiction book that takes place in a completely imagined world with a historical feel but no magic involved. I didn’t want to simply call it “historical fiction” since it contains no real history. Couldn’t call it “alternative history” because even that is rooted in real history. It wasn’t exactly wrong to call it “epic fantasy,” given its majestic and heroic themes set in a fictional world, but epic fantasy tends to have something magical/fantastical about it. So I took to calling the Crowns series “epic fiction,” but it’s kind of hard to market books with a genre name you more or less made up!

When I eventually stumbled on the “historical fantasy” label, and learned that it can include entirely fictional history without a magical element, I adopted the label. Still, since I’m not sure how many ChristFic readers are familiar with historical fantasy, I include a little explanation about my books when I can. Fictional history in a completely fictional world—no magic or mythical creatures.

Do you have any interesting writing quirks?

I’m quite sure this quirk isn’t exclusive to me, but I get into character and physically act out scenes sometimes to get a better picture of how I want to put them on paper. If my character laughs in the scene, I laugh. If my character cries in the scene, I cry. Tears included. And so forth.

Many of those scenes are also accompanied in my head by songs that have inspired me or by songs or musical scores I wrote/thought up myself. (I guess that’s my cinephile self mixing with my bibliophile self.) If I were able, I’d write out what I hear and hum the Crowns score. It would require a pretty full orchestra.

What are your plans for the future? Do you currently have any books in progress or scheduled for release?

I’m currently writing a historical romance, a spin-off from the Crowns series. Yes, Eubeltic Descent is also a spin-off, but it’s more than a century later. The one I’m working on now picks up about a year after the original trilogy, with a lot of returning characters. I didn’t imagine I’d be working on two spin-off series in the Crowns world at the same time, but, well. There ya’ go.

And finally, what would you say is one unique or unknown fact that your readers may not know about you?

Huh. Well. I wouldn’t call myself a Christmas fanatic, but I’m pretty close. I’d say the main places where it peeks out in public is in my reviewing and blogging, since I’ll write and post about Christmas books and movies whenever. But I’m in a Christmassy mood more often than I actually tell people. And with that, Seasons Greetings to everyone reading this!

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To find out more about Nadine C. Keels and her published works, please check out these link:

• Author Website: https://prismaticprospects.wordpress.com
• Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/nadine_keels
• Free romantic comedy with author newsletter signup: https://mybookcave.com/d/07d93837/

Thank you, Nadine, for visiting M.D.Schlatter Books and for allowing us to get to know you a bit better. Best of Wishes…we look forward to more reading in Diachona!