Today’s Featured Author: Vanessa M. Knight
I met Vanessa at a local bookstore’s author fair, and we really hit it off! She was kind enough to meet me at a café after work one day, where we chatted about her writing journey, her characters, self-publishing, and her many adventures (and research trips!) to Las Vegas. It was so much fun getting to know the person behind the books, and I’m excited to share our conversation with you. Please enjoy my written interview with Vanessa M. Knight!
Meet Vanessa
Vanessa M. Knight has always enjoyed writing, and once she found mysteries, she was addicted. She props up her laptop in the suburbs of Chicago with her family and menagerie of four-pawed claw-babies (AKA cats and dogs). That laptop has partnered-in-crime to write contemporary romances and mysteries with a dash of humor and splash of snark.
When she has a few moments to spare, you can find her singing off-key (but she assures everyone it’s still considered singing), reading, scrapbooking or killing a few brain cells as she searches for the best Moscato in all the land.
For more information on Vanessa, including her Internet haunts, contest updates, and details on her upcoming novels, please visit her website.
Check out her newest book in the Roxy Horne mystery series, Straighten Up and Die Right, along with her other books, on Vanessa’s website, Amazon, or Bookshop.org. (Affiliate links; I may earn a small commission.)
Q&A
What inspired you to start writing in general?
I started writing when my son was probably about 3, and he’s now 32. I always had this imagination, and I wrote this book and thought it was the best thing ever. It was so awesome and so cute.
Now looking back, it was bad (laughs). I think it was shortly after Twilight came out, and I thought, “Oh, she got this published, and she has an agent, so naturally she’s going to want my book.”
I didn’t know how to find other agents or anything, so I just looked for hers and sent it and got a lovely rejection back. Thank you so much. Then I gave up for a bit. I didn’t write anything for a couple of years.
Then I found RWA (Romance Writers of America), and there’s a chapter here called Windy City, so I went there and met a bunch of people. After that I started a new book.
So, you had this idea for a long time and then you finally wrote it up?
Basically, the way books work for me, I’ll get an idea and it’s never the whole book. It’s more like one scene of let’s say a man and woman are in a coffee shop and fighting about something, and then I build the book from there, like what got them to that point and what happens after that.
I’m one of those writers who gets halfway to the book and have problems because I don’t know who the bad guy is, and one of my critique partners always asks me how can I not know, like don’t I know from the beginning? But that’s not how I write.
Often by the time I get there, it’s either too obvious or too on the nose, or I think the character is actually not so bad, so then I’m sitting there figuring out which one’s the bad guy now. When I find out who it is, I’m going to be so shocked.
I let the characters tell me who they are as I write, and I just want to spend time with them; they’re so fun.
So, that’s why you write a series with the same characters?
Yes, most of my books are series. My romantic suspense books are what you would expect from a romance, so each book focuses on two different characters from the same universe.
Because of that, you see the same people in all the books, but each book focuses on a different couple getting their happily ever after.
When I started writing with Roxy for the Roxy Horne series, she was basically the star of each book. She’s the main character in all the books, and then she has the various sidekicks. Roxy is trying to be a PI, but she keeps tripping over dead bodies, or her best friend gets into trouble, or a painting gets stolen from her boyfriend’s casino. All these things are happening where she gets pulled into it for each book.
How did you first get published?
I went through a small press and published a couple books with them. Then I started self-publishing while I was with them, and a few years later, after I had done a lot of self-publishing, I got the rights back from the small press.
While I was with them, there was one series that was theirs and everything else I did was mine. In the end, it felt like self-publishing was easier.
I have a good editor, and I found a great cover artist that I love who has put up with me. For example, for the Busted series, I knew exactly what I wanted, and I gave my cover artist pictures of the models that I wanted and explained exactly how I wanted it, and we went through 26 iterations until we figured it out to make it exactly how I wanted.
It’s my favorite cover, partly because it was so hard, but once we got the first one down, the rest were easy.
Now when I go and say it’s this series, I don’t even have to give her a picture anymore. She does all my book covers because she’s just so she’s amazing. I have all these people who support me and who help me, so feel like I can self-publish.
What is your writing routine?
I write on notepads first, so I can write anywhere when I have a couple of minutes, and there’s arrows and pictures and all this stuff. Then I take it to the computer, so it’s almost like an edit because as I’m typing it up, I can tell if it won’t work there or put this somewhere else or move this here.
I do think about writing every day, but I usually don’t. There’s contemplation of doing it, and there’s definitely procrastination involved, but I don’t really have a routine. I have a to-do list on my phone that has everything I need to do, literally everything, like take my medication and go to the grocery store, so I also have recurring editing and writing on there.
I try to do one of those every day, but usually after I finish a book, the well is dry, so I usually don’t do anything for a month or two while my editor makes their notes, and then I’ll get into making the edits, which is my worst nightmare.
I did not realize, but if someone does track changes like in Word, all the edits go to the side, and if there’s enough of them, there’s just an ellipsis, so when I open the document for edits, there’s just all these ellipses.
The first time I got one back like that, I thought, “Am I even writing English?” But you also learn that mistakes are okay, and that people pointing them out is okay, because it just makes it better. You’d rather your editor tell you you’re wrong and not the reader.
Have you dealt with writer’s block and how do you handle it?
I like to think of it as the well being dry. You pour so much of yourself into a book, and then you keep pushing to get it done and edit it when you get it back, so when you’re finally done, you’re just like, “I can’t do it.”
When that happens, I read. Eventually I get to a point where I’m reading books, and I think, “This is fun. I could try writing like this.”
I also think, “This is so good. I can’t write this well, so I should get back to writing so I can get this good.” I also do just get ideas while I’m driving, so I get back to writing when that happens.
However, one place I tend to have writers block is in the center. When I’m in the middle of a book, I think it’s all terrible or I hate it or why am I writing.
When that happens, I read or talk to my critique partners if I need to brainstorm new ideas. It could be as dumb as possible.
One thing I tend to do is just talk to the characters about the most mundane things, like “How about them Cubs, I love the Cubs” and maybe they’ll say back, “I don’t care about the Cubs, I’m not from here” and then I’ll say, “Okay then, who do you like?” Just a back-and-forth with the characters to start getting something on the page.
It’s where there’s no substance at all, but eventually I’ll get to the point where they’re saying things that are meaningful. Once I have a meaningful dialogue, then I’ll build the scene of where they are and what’s going on and go from there.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
You can’t edit the blank page is one of my favorites, I believe Nora Roberts said that. Once you have something on the page, you can do something with it. I will write absolute awful fluff with the understanding that this is going to have to be fixed, but I’ll just get the words on the page.
Usually, I know what I want to happen in that chapter, so I’ll just put down the conversation occurring and layer in the rest later.
So, do you usually start with the dialogue?
Yes, the dialogue makes sense to me. I’ve watched so many movies and TV shows, and in those you see people talking. So, I usually start with the dialogue, and I build the scene after, like what are they doing as they have this conversation? Maybe she takes a sip of her coffee, or she throws a basketball to the side because she’s angry, so I piece together the scene as I work through the dialogue, and I think about what scene makes sense for their character.
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Probably just write, even if you think, “This is terrible.” Yeah, it might be, but it might not be. There have been so many times when I think it’s awful or stupid, and then the next day I come back and it really wasn’t that bad. It might need some work, but it’s not as horrible as I thought.
However, there’s also times when I think I’m writing the next Pulitzer Prize winner, and I come back the next day and think, “Oh, why did I do that? What was I thinking?”
It’s very subjective, so it changes from day to day, but you have to write to have anything at all to work with.
What’s that saying, write drunk, edit sober? I believe that’s from a book by Peter De Vries. It’s like that. Something I write while I watch TV or listen to something, but when it comes to editing, I have to actually pay attention.
Which books or authors have most influenced your writing?
I really like Janet Evanovich. I like to think that my books are kind of an homage, because Roxy is trying to be a private detective and has a quirky cast of characters.
I enjoy it when the writing is funny and goofy but also trying to find that happy medium where it’s not too stupid. Sometimes that’s hard because you don’t want the character to be a joke, but you also want it to be fun.
I work a 9-to-5 where I write policies and procedures, so it’s mundane and boring. If you really want to fall asleep, read some of that. Because of that, I want what I’m reading to make me laugh and smile, so that’s what I try to give my readers as well.
I also like A.R. Winters. She’s a self-published author, but she writes Vegas stuff, so it makes me smile because I’m really into Vegas.
Since one of your series is set in Vegas, do you go there often?
Yes, I do, probably about once or twice a year. My ex and I talked about moving there after retiring, and I wasn’t sure if that was his dream or my dream, so I went there and stayed for a month. I found that I love being there. I would love to snowbird there.
It’s so beautiful and quiet. I stay by Lake Las Vegas, which is about 40 minutes from the Strip. I absolutely love it. That is my happy place. I also love that I can go there because my mystery books are set there, so when I go there, it’s research.
I ended up going to a pig farm for my newest book Straighten Up and Die Right. This is where all the food scraps from the Strip end up. They cook it and make it into pig slop for the pigs to eat, so they’re recycling the food.
I thought I’d put that in my book, so I went to Vegas because I’m a responsible person who does her research, and I scheduled a tour there to see how it really is. It was absolutely fascinated. It was wonderful to meet the people and talk to them, and the woman touring me was very nice.
It was right outside the landfill, so I drove down this road, and one way was the landfill, and the other way was the pig farm. I’m sure you can imagine the smells and there were flies everywhere.
They were a family business who’d been doing this for many, many years. Her cousin was operating the forklift, and her brother was doing something around the farm, and they had their dogs there, so they were living their best life. These dogs were so happy with all the bone scraps lying around and all that land to run and play. Yes, I couldn’t open my mouth because I was worried a fly would fly in, but it was a cool experience.
That’s been my mantra these days. I want to experience the sides of Vegas most people don’t see, so when I’m writing about them, it’s authentic. I’ll have specific restaurants on my list to visit when I go, or I’ll do other tours like that pig farm. I’ll make up a name for the restaurant or whatever in the book, but I’ll know it’s based on something I actually experienced.
I’ve told people that Vegas Vanessa is so much more fun and adventurous than Illinois Vanessa. Around here I already know all the spots, and I’ve experienced the things I’m writing about, because I’ve lived here for 50 years. If I write about the L, I’ve ridden it at least 30 times, so it’s not anything new. However, when I visit Vegas, I’m interested in doing all the new things so I can put them in my books, so it’s been a lot of fun every time I visit Vegas.
What books are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney. The main character is an obituary writer, and he gets drunk and writes his own obituary that gets published in the newspaper. The book has been very funny so far.
What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?
I work full-time writing policy. I’m in information security, so I read, write, and interpret policies. I make sure the business is doing what they’re supposed to be doing in terms of security, and there are a lot of meetings as well. I don’t write as many policies now, but it’s something I used to do. I would hope readers would be surprised by that, because it’s a boring job, and I write books that are fun.
What are you currently writing? Anything coming out soon?
I’ve started the next Roxy book, but it’s moving slowly since Straighten Up and Die Right just came out on September 15th. I plan to start writing in earnest after the holidays and a family wedding.
Check out Vanessa’s Books
You can buy Straighten Up and Die Right, along with her other books, on Vanessa’s website, Amazon, or Bookshop.org. (Affiliate links; I may earn a small commission.)
Connect with Vanessa
For more information on Vanessa, including her Internet haunts, contest updates, and details on her upcoming novels, please visit her website. Also, check out her Facebook page at vanessamknightauthor and Goodreads profile.
Wrapping Up
Thank you so much to Vanessa for sitting down with me after a long day at work.
Talking with her was a fun reminder that there’s no single “right” way to write a book. Her stories often begin with something as simple as a single scene or conversation, and from there, she lets her characters show her where the story needs to go. Sometimes that even means figuring out the villain along the way.
I especially loved hearing about Vanessa’s approach to research. Her trips to Las Vegas aren’t just vacations, they’re opportunities to experience the places, restaurants, and unexpected corners of the city that make their way into her books. Her visit to a pig farm for Straighten Up and Die Right might be one of the more memorable examples of an author taking research seriously!
I also loved her advice that you have to write something before you can edit it. It’s so simple, but it’s something writers often get stuck on. Whether the first draft feels brilliant or absolutely terrible the next morning, putting words on the page gives you something to work with.
Between her Roxy Horne series, romantic suspense/romance books, self-publishing journey, and delightfully unconventional research methods, Vanessa has created a writing life that clearly lets her have fun with her stories. That joy comes through in the way she talks about her characters and the worlds she creates.
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