Interview with Karen Honnor

The WRITE Prompt had the pleasure of speaking with Karen Honnor, a published author and poet, who grew her blog into a book and never looked back.

The tagline from her website–Author, Poet, Blogger, Thinker – It’s all about playing with words–says it all.

Karen has always enjoyed playing with words in various ways. From a childhood enjoying stories and writing her first poetry and scripts, through a long teaching career reveling in bringing stories to life with her classes and sharing her love of language, to more recently devoting her time to writing away from the classroom.

In 2018, Karen started a blog, Midlife Musings, focused on midlife, motherhood, and mental health. After much interest in the blog, Karen decided to turn some of those musings into a book, Finding My Way, which she published in 2019.

Finding My Way

Karen moves from moments of angst to zen in her account of personal discovery - written with humor and searing honesty, as she invites us to join her finding her way through motherhood, midlife and menopause. Her inspiring commentary on life as a middle-aged woman in the 21st century has a reflective writing style that involves the reader and is a no holds barred look at modern life.Writer and blogger who bakes and loves a stage, Karen has always loved a hat and here she wears many - wife, mother and career woman. Karen uses her writing to explore the difficulties inherent in juggling her many roles and is bold enough to speak out about her confidence issues and mental health. She may not have all the answers yet but is looking at the path ahead with a determination to succeed and a little more sass in her step.

Poetry has long been a passion of Karen’s. In early 2020, the lockdown provided time for her to turn that passion into another published piece. Diary of a Dizzy Peri is a chapbook of poems dealing with the many struggles of mental health and menopause.

But Karen’s proudest achievement is her novel, Unravelling–A Tale of Strength, Love, and Dementia. Like her other works, this book draws upon her real-life experiences.

Having lost her own father to dementia, it was important to Karen to write a sensitive but honest portrayal of someone suffering from the life-altering effects of the disease.

Unravelling–A Tale of Strength, Love, and Dementia

Born in 1939, Doris never really knew her father. Circumstances meant that she took on much of the parent role for her younger sister, Lillian, as they grew up in the East End of London. Life may have been hard but they had each other, at least that's what Doris thought. Jump forward to her later life and she is no longer able to make sense of her everyday world. Doris looks for connections to the past as reassurance and seeks to hold onto her memories, as she battles dementia. Though she no longer knows the name of her granddaughter, the girl who sits by her side and listens to the memories, piecing together a life of love and strength and acceptance. This poignant tale tells of family and friendships built over several decades. As Doris recalls the different snapshots in time, they serve to reveal the personality she is losing to dementia, snapshots which come together at the end to leave a lasting impression.

TWP: What was your road to publishing like?

Karen Honnor: I procrastinated a lot, mainly about if my finished project was worth publishing at all.

I had good support from my husband and a close friend who both encouraged me and helped me to research publishing options. Traditional routes seemed far too daunting and so I decided to go with Amazon’s KDP route which, on the face of it looked a simple process.

Be warned, it takes longer than you think and there’s lots of information to read and absorb.

Let’s just say that the publishing and then the marketing of my books has been a sharp learning curve and I’m sure there are things I could have done differently or better, but I’m still here.

I think all writing has some aspect of its author within it – the two cannot be completely separated.

Once I’d conquered the uploading process and all the tweaks that involved making – thankfully the tutorial videos and google research helped a lot, I pressed the publish button and waited.

Then the hard work started, that of selling yourself really.

Something I remain uncomfortable with, it feels akin to standing on a busy street waving a flag and shouting “Please buy my book!” Over time though, people have. Even if there may never be hordes of readers, the fact that they get in touch to tell me how my writing has touched them in some way, keeps me moving forward with it all.

With successive books, I have learnt a little more each time I publish. Research is key, in both the writing and publishing processes but at the end of the day, I know I have to stop procrastinating and do what I feel is right for me.

TWP: Can you tell us a little about how you started blogging and whether you feel this has helped you as a writer?

Karen Honnor: I started blogging in 2018, about 18 months before I published the first book.

That year was a difficult one for me, with both health and work making a negative impact. I think the blog was initially a way for me to feel that I had control over one element of my life and as I wrote, it proved therapeutic.

The blog was posted anonymously at first until I got a little braver and put my name to it. The feedback showed me that my experiences were not unique and that others were struggling.

From a writing point of view, it showed me that readers connected with my subject matter but that they also appreciated the way that I conveyed experiences honestly and in a way they could picture. I think the poet in me contributed to that – I enjoy the descriptive aspect of my writing, whatever the genre.

As blog posts are short, they were a good way to play around with ideas. They also got my name out there a little and helped me to make connections with others.

Social media can be toxic but on the whole, it has opened doors for me, led me to interviews, author talks, magazine features but most importantly to forging friendships with kindred spirits, other writers, and people who want to read what I write.

Those are valuable connections to have.

TWP: Do you have any advice for writers on how they can better reflect on their own lives to find inspiration? 

Karen Honnor: I think all writing has some aspect of its author within it – the two cannot be completely separated.

It doesn’t mean that all my writing is a mere self-indulgence, an exercise in ‘me, me, me!’ I find it just creeps in at the edges.

My latest book started from a 10-minute writing exercise on my creative writing course, exactly a year ago as I write this now. I had to pick an object from the classroom where the first session was held, a classroom within a local museum.

In the mighty forest of authors and their work, I am barely a sapling swaying in the wind. But just occasionally, that wind carries a word or two of mine to new ears and that is a beautiful thing.

I chose a simple bus trolley ticket and completed a piece of freewriting. Something about the object and the atmosphere there got me thinking about who might have held that ticket in their hands and why it had not been discarded at the time.

That seed grew into a character in my head, and once she was there, I had to tell her story, create her memories, her past, present, and all that went with it.

I guess if I had not had the real-life experiences I had with my Dad and his dementia, then my character might not have had dementia and this ‘bus ticket’ exercise may well have just stayed as a couple of paragraphs within my notebook.

The resulting story is not a rewriting of what we both went through, but those experiences form a backdrop. I believe that they allowed me to write the characters empathetically and to bring the story alive.

My other books – memoir and poetry – are more personal. Being upfront about mental health and menopause has helped me and has led to others talking about them too. Keeping the conversation going is important and empowering. Writing can be a powerful tool.

TWP: Do you have any favorite writing prompts, exercises, or routines that help you stay focused or that have inspired you?

Karen Honnor: I find walks help me. I like to get out in the park, see the sky and the trees – even better be close to the sea, when I can.

It’s like nature kick-starts my creativity. When I have had times when I feel that I cannot write, I have often found something on a walk that gets a few cogs whirring. I always like to have a notebook and pen on me, to jot down thoughts. It’s great to sit on a bench, notebook in hand, writing in the fresh air.

I used to have a regular habit (pre-pandemic) of going to a local coffee shop each week, just to sit with my latte and notebook and people watch, waiting for inspiration to hit. It usually did. I’d love to get back to that.

At home, I have made a small space dedicated to my writing – my writing den. It has a desk, laptop, stationery bits, a noticeboard with a few chosen photographs and inspirational quotes.

I think I thrive in a cozy place, wrapped in a little nostalgia. I’m also working on putting my phone to one side – much writing time is wasted as I fall down Twitter rabbit holes!

TWP: Lastly, do you have any parting advice for aspiring authors who are hoping to one-day be published?

Karen Honnor: Go for it!

I like that some people have read my work, I love that it has made an impact upon some of them. I am grateful every day that I get to write and to bring people and places to life.

Know it won’t be easy. You might get lucky and hit the exact formula of great writing released at just the right price to just the right readers, but it’s unlikely that the planets will all align so wonderfully for you.

Therefore, think about what you really want from publishing your work. I know I’m not going to sit on a best-sellers list and head off into the sunset.

In the mighty forest of authors and their work, I am barely a sapling swaying in the wind. But just occasionally, that wind carries a word or two of mine to new ears and that is a beautiful thing.


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Sara Seitz

Sara Seitz is a freelance writer by day and novelist by night. In the fiction realm, she enjoys writing engaging, character-driven stories that highlight the plight of the underdog and leave the reader guessing until the very last page. Interested in hiring Sara? Visit her freelance site at penandpostwriter.com

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