Kristen Painter is a former college English teacher, personal trainer, advertising exec, maitre d’, and runway model. When not building fantastical worlds, creating new characters or plotting herself out of a corner, she hangs out in the forum at Romancedivas.com, the award-winning site she co-founded with Jax Cassidy, blogs at www.kristenpainter.blogspot.com (except for Tuesday's when she's on deck at www.fictionistas.blogspot.com) or tweets at http://twitter.com/Kristen_Painter. She’s represented by The Knight Agency.
Where do your ideas come from?
-They come from everything and everywhere. I can see an ad in a magazine and suddenly a new story begins to take shape. Some ideas come from dreams. Others come from a song, a scent or a single word. The world is my idea buffet and I eat well.
Do blondes really have more fun?
- If they're with me they do. *wink* It's true my hair occasionally changes color, but blonde is my favorite. I'm not exactly the shy, retiring type, so it suits me.
What else do you do besides writerly stuff?
- I also design and create jewelry. I've been doing it for years, but only lately opened up my own shop online to sell some of my creations. It's a great outlet. Plus idle hands and all that. Check it out my shop, Blondissimo, here: www.blondissimo.etsy.com. I also like to cook. I credit my love of cooking with my Italian background, but my love of eating is probably just as much to blame. And lastly, I like to shop. If shopping were an Olympic sport, I'd be the Michael Phelps of shopping. But with more shoes.
What do you like to read?
- Everything. Sci-fi, old school fantasy, romance, biographies, cookbooks, the back of the cereal box...put it in front of me and I'll read it. Some of my earliest influences were Isaac Asimov, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Judy Blume and Stan Lee. As in Spiderman comics. Comic books, namely Spiderman and a long forgotten series called Cloak and Dagger, were my obsession as a teenager. No real question as to why I had no dates in high school, huh?
What advice do you have for new writers or those thinking about writing?
- Read a lot. Read across genres. Don't just talk about writing, do it. Learn the rules. Only once you've learned them can you break them successfully.
