Kris Radish: Slice of Life

Krish Radish takes us behind the scenes of a writer's life --- and into her mind --- in today's guest blog post. Her latest novel, The Shortest Distance Between Two Women, takes the emotional measure of mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. Is Emma Lauryn Gilford on the verge of a breakdown...or a breakthrough?

Kris' other books include Searching for Paradise in Parker P.A., The Sunday List of Dreams and Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral.


Lots of authors say writing a book is like giving birth to a real live baby. This must be why I always feel as if I am about to have a series of labor pains. The birth of The Shortest Distance Between Two Women, my sixth novel and eighth book, finally gets me close to those goofy people on television who have a mess of kids and are now getting divorced.

My labor pains come to me in swells. When I talk about my work --- which is really an embarrassing word when you love what you do --- I'm talking about my non-stoppable, wild, emotionally charged and often hilarious mind. I am writing inside of there all of the time. I carry around little pieces of paper and there's a tablet next to the bed and one in my gym bag and about six in the car. Because my ideas come to me all of the time I have to be ready at a moment's notice to throw a tarp over them and haul them off so I can put them into the computer. It's true what they say about forgetting things when you get older...and those other years before this --- well, I have no excuse for them.

Once I create a character and figure out what in the hell is wrong and right with her they become very real to me. I have so many of them sleeping in the closet and under the desk now, I may have to put up a tent soon. But that's the way I make my writing real, too. One of the greatest compliments I get is when readers tell me they feel as if they know my characters or the characters are like someone they know. Whew! What a relief. I sometimes joke that I am writing true fiction, but the big secret is it's really what I am doing.

And before you ask, the answer is kinda-sorta. My characters are based on people I may have seen at the airport or talked with for most of my life or watched from a distance, and they are also totally not those people because I roll them around inside of my head before they come out speaking entire sentences.

When someone reads one of my novels I hope that they are entertained and that I touch some emotional chords that make them laugh, cry, feel, think and have a really good time. So go pour yourself a glass of wine, crank open my novel and prepare for what I hope you will think is a wonderful jolt of life.

---Kris Radish