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A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. A partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
PtoP Ep. 34 Hill
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Prompt to Page podcast, a partnership between the Jessamine County Public Library and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. I'm your host, librarian and poet, Carrie Green. Each episode, we interview a published writer who shares their favorite writing prompt. Our guest today is Kaitlyn Hill.
Kaitlyn is a writer who lives to tell love stories and make people laugh. While books make up most of her personality, Kaitlyn also enjoys messy reality TV, has never met a tea she didn't like, and thrives on overly ambitious home improvement projects. She resides in Kentucky with her real life romance hero.
Kaitlyn is the author of Wild About You and other Young Adult romantic comedies and can be found on social media at TheKaitlynHill and at TheKaitlynHill. com. Welcome, Kaitlyn, and thanks for joining us.
Kaitlyn: Hi, thank you so much for having [00:01:00] me. I've been really excited about this.
Carrie: Excellent. Well, I think you've worked in a public library before.
Kaitlyn: Yeah. I have, I worked for Lexington Public Library, the North Side branch. I was now thinking back on when I last worked there and it's been on four years this summer, which is wild. It feels more recent than that, but it was, I loved working at the library.
Carrie: Have libraries, aside from working there, have they been important to your development as a reader and a writer?
Kaitlyn: Definitely. Yes. I, from very young was a big reader and I kind of like. I don't know. I feel like unlike a lot of writers I know, I came to it a little later in that I wasn't a child that thought I loved to write. I thought of writing as something I did for school, but reading was fun. Reading was always fun.
Even reading for school as an elementary, middle schooler, whatever, was always enjoyable to me. But I, I loved, like, picking out books at the library for fun. And, and I was [00:02:00] always making up stories, even if I wasn't writing them down, I was getting into storytelling that way. So the library was always important to me in that sense, and then as I kind of found my way to writing for fun and writing fiction.
It was more like post college and I was living across the country and kind of very isolated, , for the first like year post college, but I got a library card. I lived in Seattle and so I got a Seattle Public Library card and just fell so hard into reading every like, reading really widely in the genres that I have ended up writing in, Young Adult and romance genres and age range.
And just, I was constantly on Libby, like checking out every ebook and audiobook out there and just spent so, so much time reading. And like, in a way that I couldn't have done if I was, having to buy all my books. So that was very, very useful to me. And I, [00:03:00] reading has been my best writing teacher.
I always say and feel that way. And yeah, I, I'm just really grateful for the way that I found my way to reading for fun again and was able to do it so, so extensively as I was figuring out what kind of stories I wanted to tell and learning a lot from these books I was reading at the time.
Carrie: Yeah, and that advice, or your experience, I should say, kind of aligns with some of the advice other prompt to page authors have given, you know, about reading widely and reading in the genres that you want to write in.
Kaitlyn: Yes, I think that just about any writer will tell you, that yeah, to write in a genre, it's really, really helpful to know what is currently being published and being written by other people, in that space. And you can learn a lot from it, pick up on style and things that you [00:04:00] like from other writers and things that don't feel as comfortable to you.
And, yeah, I just found it hugely useful and continue to find it useful. I'm still a big reader and now I mostly read on audio. I listen to a ton, a ton of audio books almost constantly in my, in my ears. So, and I learn a lot from it and learn a lot from reading other romance authors work.
Carrie: I listen to a lot of audio books, too, but mostly in my car, my commute.
Kaitlyn: Yes.
Carrie: But I heard you did an interview, I think, with the Lexington Public Library, and you mentioned at the time that you were listening to Thank You for Listening by Julia Whalen. And that's a book that I really enjoyed on audio as well.
Kaitlyn: Yes.
That one I think is so much fun in audio and like should be read in audio because it is about two audiobook narrators.
Julia Whalen
is an audiobook narrator and just has such a, like, great experience and perspective on that life.
Carrie: Yeah, yeah, that, That was, the meta [00:05:00] aspects of that book were really fun.
Kaitlyn: Yes. I agree. I agree.
Carrie: So, congratulations on your new book, which is Wild About You. And that rounds out your trilogy of showmances, I think you call them?
Kaitlyn: Yes. I, yeah, I call them reality showmances. And they're, they each stand alone, but they exist in kind of the same. There will be a couple Easter eggs here and there for people that have read Love from Scratch and Wild about You, but yeah, it is, it's been really fun to release this one and I've been really excited about it and people's response to it has been lovely.
Carrie: So you kind of alluded to this a little bit already, but you know, your training as a writer was maybe, you know, you didn't have a traditional MFA but, you know, many people on our podcast also do not have a traditional MFA. So how did you, I mean, you talked about reading a lot.
Was there anything else that [00:06:00] was helpful? Any resources that were helpful in your development as a writer?
Kaitlyn: Yeah, I definitely like started in a place of, I guess I said after college, but also like just towards the end of college, I, my senior year, I had a little less on my plate and like had some more time.
And so I got back into reading for fun and was also just looking for like stress relief. So I got back into reading all the things I'd missed while I was just reading for school for a few years, but also, so then as I started to think more about, being a storyteller myself and trying to write my own work.
I did take one writing class my last semester. I went to Transylvania and I took one writing class my very last semester there. And it was a fiction workshop with, a Kentucky poet, Richard Taylor, who is lovely. And I just have yeah, I think he's amazing. And his class was really lovely and delightful.
It was a short story class. And so that's quite different to me than novel [00:07:00] writing, but was really useful in just getting started, like, even writing on a regular basis. Letting others read my work on a regular basis because I just had never done that beyond like I don't know a little like study abroad while I was studying abroad in college.
I did a travel blog and that kind of thing So like others had read some of my just nonfiction travel stuff but fiction feels almost more vulnerable for me in some ways than, than just a blog can be. And so, yeah, that was a really good initial experience. And then I did kind of an online course from this nonprofit in the Seattle area while I lived out there called the Hugo house.
And it was like a, I don't remember what exactly the class was called, but it came with different packets that you work through that talked about not only writing, but like the publishing industry. So that was kind of my first intro into thinking about what trying to get published could look like and how [00:08:00] just kind of different steps.
I mean, every writer's path to publication can be different from each other's, but it was helpful in just starting to think about steps toward if I ever wanted to work on getting published traditionally, what that could look like. I think it also had stuff about self publishing, but just a little more insight into the industry, because all of that can be so opaque.
And in addition to giving, actually writing prompts and exercises each week, to toy around with in your own writing sessions and that was really, really good for me and it had a bunch of resources that I could hold on to and have been able to share with other people over the years because they were so useful.
I wasn't in Seattle for long and I didn't end up doing a lot with the Hugo House, but it kind of reminded me of the Carnegie Center and the kind of resources they offered and classes and workshops and things. So that seemed really awesome while I was there working with them and I'm trying to think since then Oh, well, I did do a met.
This was also huge. I can't leave it out. I did a mentoring program called [00:09:00] pitch wars that is unfortunately now no longer exists, but was run by volunteers and I think it was around for 10 or 12 years or something like that and it was basically authors who were a bit further along in the traditional publishing process, whether they had an agent already or had published books already, would mentor unagented newer writers who were pursuing traditional publication.
And you would submit your manuscript to different mentors or mentor teams, and each mentor or mentor team would pick one to work with, one manuscript and one author to work with during the contest or the program. And over a few months they, my mentors who picked me, helped me revise my manuscript and get it a little closer to ready for querying literary agents.
And then at the end of the program, there was an agent showcase. And so that was about, I [00:10:00] think, three or four months start to finish and I learned so so so much from my mentors not only about publishing and like the querying process and stuff like that that can be just so hard to know anything about if you don't have like a community already of fellow writers, but about revising and I until then been in kind of a vacuum with my writing where I was just doing all of the revising on my own or maybe with some small feedback from non writer friends or family members, so it was just huge for me to get these other writers who were really deeply engaging with my work and, working with me on how to, improve it.
And that was really educational in a short span of time, and ended up being through the program, how I connected with my literary agent in the end. So it was also really impactful on my publishing journey, ultimately.
Carrie: Yeah, that's great. It is a shame that it no longer exists.
Kaitlyn: I know there are [00:11:00] similar mentoring programs, that I think yeah, it's always just a cool thing for newer writers to try and if even just to like build a community of fellow writers from it.
I still keep up with my fellow mentees daily on the internet. So
Carrie: yeah, that's great You kind of mentioned using prompts in some of those classes that you took. Do they still play a role in your writing process? And if so, what way?
Kaitlyn: Yeah, I, so I w I've listened to some of your previous episodes recently as I was preparing to come on this.
I'm sorry. I hadn't even heard of the podcast before I met you, but then, I love it. I've listened to a bunch of episodes now. And it's been really informative for me. I've loved to like hear other authors' especially local ones, perspectives on this. So anyway, I was recently listening to the episode with Elizabeth Kilcoyne, who's a friend and [00:12:00] how I really related to how she was saying that like she kind of bristled at prompts in the past as it felt like this rigid structure that you, I don't know, you didn't want to, it felt kind of confining to like work within the structure of a prompt sometimes to me as like early in my writing life.
And I think that can like, still ring true a little bit sometimes. I, I still feel myself getting a little like, just, I don't know. I, I don't always feel super inclined to work within the structure of a totally random prompt, but it sort of really, at other times can be really helpful. I'm sounding very contradictory of my own thoughts here, but yeah, so like in the past, it's, I've associated prompts with a rigid framework in which I don't, I didn't pick it.
I don't want to like write this type of story or whatever, which for a long time is the kind of thing that kept me from thinking [00:13:00] I liked writing, because when I was only writing like what I was told to for school, of course it wasn't going to seem that fun because I didn't yet see like how to put my own voice and creative spin on just about like any prompt.
Like you can take many, many different types of prompts and make them something that is actually fun for you, even if it doesn't seem fun for you or interesting or related to the kind of things you want to write at first. But yeah, it just kind of takes, like, being able to break yourself out of the, I don't know, really rigid, like, conformity of, that I think, like, public education can often put us in.
I say with all the love in my heart and respect for, the school system. I grew up in public schools and all my family members are teachers and they're amazing. But I think that like the, the education system often is, works more and more towards like stifling [00:14:00] creative, thinking and creativity and not necessarily like because of the teachers doing just like standardized
testing and standards they have to meet and everything. Yeah, and that trickles down to like students like me thinking, I don't know, different things like writing can't be fun because I have to fit these guidelines. So, all of that long winded explanation to say, in the past, prompts haven't always worked for me, but as I kind of grow as a writer, and also, Yeah, I find that as I, I feel like I'm getting better at writing, I'm also much more critical of myself and more aware of when what I'm writing is not good.
And so I really like slow myself down and that can be really tough. And I get stuck a lot more than I used to. And so I find prompts can be really useful in just getting me to write, getting me to put words to page. Like even if it's not something that's going to end up in the final [00:15:00] book, just some prompt about like, Imagine your main character doing XYZ, and then I have to just write a scene that, yeah, is not going to end up going anywhere, but helps me just get out of the funk of not knowing where my own story's going, or figuring out who a character is, and that kind of thing.
So yes, I have come around on prompts.
Carrie: Yeah, I think, yeah, many people have a complicated relationship to prompts.
Kaitlyn: Yeah.
Carrie: Is there a specific prompt you wanted to talk about that is your favorite?
Kaitlyn: I kind of made up based on what I do in my writing an idea for one. So yeah, who knows if anyone will find this useful, but if you want to write a book or a scene or just a little vignette that is sort of related to Kaitlyn Hill's personal writing process so far.
Um, I, as, [00:16:00] as I touched on earlier, have written books based around reality TV settings. And so those have spun out from TV shows that I enjoy and the shows and the books are not the exact shows that I watch or anything like that. They become their own thing, but they definitely all drew initial inspiration from whatever show I was currently obsessed with and the thinking of like what kind of characters would I put in this world and what would I do with them and how would they fall in love in this world and how would it be totally chaotic and all of that.
So the prompt would be to pick a tv show that you enjoy and it can be reality tv or it can be something scripted and this is also related to how like some of my earliest writing for fun was in fan fiction which I think can be so helpful and freeing as a writer, to not have to do a bunch of world building yourself.
It's like an existing [00:17:00] universe that you love and just playing around in that space. So picking a TV show you enjoy and maybe like watching a few episodes to get inspired, and then imagining what kind of character would be really, unlikely to thrive in the world of that show. And basically write out, you know, from there, a scene or whatever you want it to be of this character in the world of that show.
And like, you can then think from there, like, why would they struggle with it? What about their personality and background makes them ill suited to this world, but how do they end up there anyway? What are then, like, their reasons for staying, or would they be trying to leave, or what's their goal out of it?
And if you want to go to the romance route, you can do that with two characters. and write kind of a meet cute situation, in that setting. And you could also do this with, you know, an [00:18:00] existing character, just whatever thing you're currently working on. Take its main character and put them in your favorite show for fun.
And what would they be like in that world? And, you know, yeah, that kind of is just like a mix of your own original thing and the dabbling in the world of fan fiction and how it can be really like freeing to write in this beloved fictional space that someone else already decided a lot of the details for you.
Carrie: Yeah, that sounds like a really fun prompt. Could see all kinds of crazy situations that you might have fun playing around with. And I like your point about fan fiction being freeing. It also seems like a really good way of learning about what it was that made the original what like what you were attracted to about the original
Kaitlyn: totally and like a good practice in voice and [00:19:00] like if you're going to match kind of the voice of whatever point of view the show is from or people on the show.
Or if you're going to have kind of your own original take on it. Yeah, I just think fanfiction is great and a lot of writers I know still read and write it. Just as a, almost like self care thing. To just do something fun for you that is not going to try to be published anywhere.
Carrie: So, do you, or have you written fanfiction?
Kaitlyn: I don't currently. I've definitely thought about trying to get back into it because of all the reasons I just listed of why it's so great. Like, take my own advice and go, let myself play around in that world more is something I should consider doing probably. But as a teenager, I did for sure. And I was.
I've told this story plenty of places now, which my teenage self would be horrified by, because I did not tell anyone that I did it. I [00:20:00] was so embarrassed to, or like just hid the fact that I wrote fan fiction, read it, whatever. But I was a massive fan of the , boy band, the Jonas Brothers. And so I wrote Jonas Brothers related fan fiction, which is not like a fictional world.
It's almost weirder because they're real people. It's definitely weirder because they're real people. Um, but yeah, that was a big community that young Kaitlyn was a part of.
Carrie: That's great.
Kaitlyn: And I have close writing friends now who were the same, but with One Direction, a different boy band. So that's really funny to me.
Carrie: Um, so you had to pick your team, pick your boy band.
Kaitlyn: Truly. Yeah. They kind of, they overlapped a little bit, but One, One Direction was a little later on. So there wasn't a ton of competition in the communities.
Carrie: So, so you were writing a little bit earlier than you originally said.
Kaitlyn: Yes, [00:21:00] but I just did not, I didn't even think of it as,
like that wasn't writing that I was doing. Like I was, this was just my weird hobby that I kept in secret. Like, I don't like writing. I'm just making up stories. So yeah, it was really funny. Like, in my kind of college years figuring out what I was going to do post college, putting together all these pieces of like things I'd enjoyed all along.
And maybe I'd enjoyed different forms of storytelling all along, even sometimes written, but I just hadn't even thought of it as writing that I was doing. So yes, the signs were always there.
Carrie: So, do you have any final tips you'd like to give our listeners?
Kaitlyn: Sure, I think just wherever you are in the writing process, or in your, like, if you're trying to pursue a publishing career, or just writing for you, any of that.
I think it's just [00:22:00] important to keep it fun for yourself. And, yeah, which maybe doesn't ring true for every type of writer. I know it doesn't, actually, probably. But, the kinds of things that I write, like, I I had to give myself permission to just tell the kind of stories that I wanted to tell that are fun and have some depth to them, but are largely meant to be light and have happy endings.
And that was something that I didn't necessarily take seriously always, or think was like a valid art form. And it's, it was just really powerful for me to come to the realization that there is so much value in stuff that is fun and light and happy. And even if you're writing heavier stuff, just if it is enjoyable for you or cathartic for you or is, Just, you're getting something out of it.
That's already worth it, let alone what it'll do for eventual readers. So yeah, I, I just try to keep front of mind, especially as I get [00:23:00] farther into my publishing life, that writing is fun for me and I started writing because it was fun for me. And so I want to, I want to keep it fun and if I'm not having fun with one project or whatever, maybe like,
pause, pivot to a different thing, or write one of these silly, like, side quest scenes that'll never end up in the book, but just get back to the parts of it that I enjoy and keeping that central to my process, I think is, is big and can, can get lost in times when you feel like you have to be a serious, literary person and meet some not really
real standard of literary merit or things like that.
Carrie: Yeah, that is great advice. And of course here at the public library, we, love all books. So, um, we're, you know, yeah. Thank you for, thank you for reminding [00:24:00] us of that. And thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Kaitlyn: Thank you so much for having me.
I love getting to talk writing with people who also think about books a lot and read a lot of books.
Carrie: Excellent.
Thank you for listening to Prompt to Page. To learn more about the Jessamine County Public Library, visit jesspublib.org. Find the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning at carnegiecenterlex. org. Our music is by Archipelago, an all instrumental musical collaboration between three Lexington based university professors.
Find out more about Archipelago Songs from Quarantine Volumes 1 and 2 at the links on our podcast website.