Guest Post: Why We Write Paranormal by C.A. Kunz

We are excited to welcome C.A. Kunz today for a guest post! The C part of this author team is Carol, and A is her son Adam. Together they create some fun YA paranormal reading for us! They currently have their debut, The Childe, on a blog tour. 

Know that there is a giveaway involved here- a Kindle Fire!- and all you have to do to enter is to comment on any of the tour posts (like this one), including your email address. It's that easy! In addition to the shiny new Kindle, there are weekly giveaways comprised of a signed paperback copy of The Childe and a swag pack, which is open internationally. 

Why We Write Young Adult Paranormal Novels 

 If we had a dollar for every time we were asked why exactly we wanted our first series to be a YA Paranormal…we’d have a lot of dollars! To tell you the truth, the two of us share quite a fondness and complete love for everything paranormal and YA (be it fantasy, paranormal, or contemporary novels). Not to mention that writing for young adults is just so much fun and we have an absolute blast doing it. So it was easy to see what genre we were going to choose when we decided to write a series. Who doesn’t like a little teen angst (not too much though, hahaha!) mixed in with werewolves, vampires, wizards, fey, zombies, or any other creepy or magical creature that stimulates the imagination? Speaking of the paranormal, Carol actually saw her first ghost at the age of 8, and this experience was what first ignited her love for the subject matter. Oh, and when Adam reached his teen years, he also became quite infatuated (like his mom) with scary movies, television shows, and books about things that go bump in the night.

  So other than a love for the paranormal and finding that writing YA is great fun, what else drives this author duo to write in this genre? Well, the short answer is because it’s booming, and we find that a lot of kids and teens are connecting most with books that deal with the paranormal/fantasy (not to mention their parents and other adults are as well). To be honest, one of the main goals we had going into this whole process was really to get more young adults reading, and to enjoy it by not seeing it as a chore, but instead as an adventure. In a way we feel that we’ve met this goal because we’ve had several teens (who according to their parents hated to read) read The Childe and absolutely love it. We even heard later from the parents that their child was reading other novels in the same genre because of how much they enjoyed our novel (this is a huge reason why we do this). We were so elated when we heard this news, and it was definitely the affirmation that we needed to keep writing for this audience. Also, like all authors, we’d love it if when a reader picked up our book, they’d have a hard time putting it down and at the end would want to read more. We went into this thinking that if we could get just one person to do this we would consider it a major achievement, and if we have more, that would be totally phenomenal.

  

Unfortunately though for some reason, there’s still sort of a stigma attached to YA novels even with the immense popularity and success of Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games series. We actually encounter this stigma quite a bit and probably more than you might expect. It still confounds us that some people feel that writing YA is a cop out and doesn’t truly show that you have a talent for writing because they’re all “easy reads” (and basically “easy writes” as well) that have no substance. Well our response to this naivety is simply that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and then we proceed to let it roll of our backs. We could write an adult series if we wanted to (we actually have several ideas), but that’s not who we want to get reading more, it’s all about the young adults in our book, no pun intended.

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You might also be interested in visiting the other Tour stops; remember, comments = giveaway entries. For your convenience, here is a complete listing of the blog tour stops.

Sunday, Jan. 8^th – Books Complete Me (Opening Post: Cover Reveal for Dark Days and Blog Tour Details)

1^st Week:

Monday, Jan. 9^th – A Diary of a Book Addict (Review of The Childe)

Tuesday, Jan. 10^th – Book Love (A Unique Mother (Tiffany King) and Daughter (Ashlynn King) Review of Dark Days)

Wednesday, Jan. 11^th – Book Bite Reviews (Author This or That Post) AND Intoxicated by Books (Review of The Childe)

 Thursday, Jan. 12^th – Amethyst Daydreams (Guest Post: Playlist with Book Scenes)

 Friday, Jan. 13^th – Mundie Moms (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days) AND Fiktshun (Character interview: Cat Colvin)

2^nd Week:

Monday, Jan. 16^th – Reading Away The Days (Character This or That: Ryan Beckford) AND Jowanna Reads (Review of The Childe)

 Tuesday, Jan. 17^th – Blethering Book Worm (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days) AND Reading Lark (Guest Post: Why we write YA paranormal)

 Wednesday, Jan. 18^th – Katelyn Torrey (Sample chapter post from The Childe/Teaser of Dark Days)

 Thursday, Jan. 19^th – Bookish Babes (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

 Friday, Jan. 20^th – Mundie Moms (Guest Post: Cast Our Book) AND Me and Reading (Review of The Childe)

 3^rd Week:

Monday, Jan. 23^rd – Me Myshelf and I (Guest Post: Being A Part of an Indie Group – The Paranormal Plumes) AND Insane About Books (Review of The Childe)

Tuesday, Jan. 24^th – Katelyn Torrey (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

Wednesday, Jan. 25^th – Blethering Book Worm (Character spotlight: Robert Craven) AND Words 2 Follow (Review of The Childe)

Thursday, Jan. 26^th – Fiktshun (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days) AND All Things Books (Guest Post: Our Writing Method)

Friday, Jan. 27^th – Page Flipperz (Character This or That: Cat Colvin)

 4^th Week:

Monday, Jan. 30^th – Book Bite Reviews (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

Tuesday, Jan. 31^st – Me and Reading (Teaser Tuesday for Both The Childe and Dark Days) AND Page Flipperz (Review of The Childe)

Wednesday, Feb. 1^st – Reading Lark (Review of The Childe)

Thursday, Feb. 2^nd – Books Complete Me (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

Friday, Feb. 3^rd – Bookish Babes (Favorite reads: Indie published) AND Jowanna Reads (Guest Post: Author Interview)

5^th Week:

Monday, Feb. 6^th – Amethyst Daydreams (Review of The Childe) AND Reading Away The Days (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

 Tuesday, Feb. 7^th – Insane About Books (Character Interview: Ryan Beckford) AND Happy Twilighter (Link to Review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

  Wednesday, Feb. 8^th – All Things Books (Link to Review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

 Thursday, Feb. 9^th – Words 2 Follow (Our Favorite Reads: Traditionally Published)

 Friday, Feb. 10^th – Forever Lost In My Own World (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

 Saturday, Feb. 11^th – Books Complete Me (Special Post and Last chance to enter Kindle Fire giveaway)

 Thursday, Feb. 9^th – Words 2 Follow (Our Favorite Reads: Traditionally Published)

 Friday, Feb. 10^th – Forever Lost In My Own World (Link to review of The Childe/Review of Dark Days)

 Saturday, Feb. 11^th – Books Complete Me (Special Post and Last chance to enter Kindle Fire giveaway)