Meet Lindsey Kinsella

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsey Kinsella. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsey below.

Lindsey , first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

“Overcome” might be a strong word, but I’d definitely say it’s something I’ve worked, and continue to.

Being an author is an inherently isolated profession. There’s no one to say you’re doing a good job. For my first novel, it was about two years before anyone read it; that’s 24 months of worrying whether it was awful!

And, of course, even when you get feedback at first, it’s from family and friends; they have a vested interested in telling you it’s good.

Then there are the bad reviews. There might be one two star review for every ten five stars, but you’d better believe I, and probably every other author, obsess over the former.

So how to overcome that? For me, simply learning the craft has helped. Being able to see the quality of my writing improve with every book is a major boost.

But I’ve also found beta reading for other authors contributes. Of course, I do it primarily to be of help; the indy author community are surprisingly supportive of one another. But it also allows me to peek behind the curtain and see manuscripts at a similar stage to mine, rather than the polished. published product.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My writing stemmed from, naturally, a love of literature, but also from a fascination with natural history.

As such, my books have had a semi-educational element; bringing geological time, evolution, and the weird and wonderful array of life which came before us to the reader.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Perhaps the most obvious is creativity. I feel the need to build something of my own, and writing is an excellent outlet for that.

Having a working knowledge of the subject material also helped. I’m often asked how much research I had to do, but, in truth, it wasn’t all that much. Most of that information was already stored away in my head.

But I think the most important thing is perseverance. Writing a novel is a long process; and having to wait years to find out if it was worthwhile is a big investment. The temptation to quit reared its head on many occasions.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I’d have to say my editor: Donna Marie West; which is strange since I’ve never even met her in person. After submitting my first novel to her, I very quickly learned how little I knew about writing a book. I can honestly say The Lazarus Taxa, and everything that has and will follow, is infinitely better thanks to her feedback and support.

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