K T Bowes of Bowes Library Corner
Hi, I write under the author name, K T Bowes. I have 12 novels out and am currently writing a 13th, in between trying to live my life and take care of the silly things like vacuuming, working and mowing the lawn.
No. of Kids: I have four children, aged between 21 and 18, but I did pop twins in there for good measure. I have three daughters and one son, who claims he’s traumatised by being raised in a house full of women.
Current City: I currently live between Ngaruawahia and Huntly but spent my first five years in New Zealand living in Flagstaff in Hamilton. I live between the mountains and the river and it’s the best place on earth.
What’s your blog all about? I blog about anything that captures my imagination. I’m an author, so I might blog about my novels or something else I feel passionate about. Sometimes I blog about things I think could help other women, like parenting issues. I wish blogging was around when I was raising my children – I’m sure I could have saved myself a lot of agony.
Why did you start blogging? I started blogging initially because I noticed many other authors with their own soapboxes and I wanted one too. I didn’t realise quite how much of a great way it would be to express my opinions or vent my issues.
What is your favourite part about blogging? Having a creative outlet for sure – now I can write whatever I want and I love that. And, as I said above – I also LOVE the fact that I’ve met some incredible people through my blog – I’ve been blown away by some of the women who have consented to be featured on my blog – I’m pretty lucky!
How do you manage juggling family life with blogging? I’m still trying to find that balance – I do spend a lot of time on my blog, but I try to remember that it’s absolutely not as important as my family, so if it’s family time, it’s family time and my blog can wait.
Any advice to new/other bloggers? Advice to new bloggers would be to allow comments. I’ve read some lovely blogs and been desperate to leave an encouraging comment at the end, only to find I can’t because there’s no facility for me to do that. Blogging is interactive so you have to leave the door open. Yeah, sometimes you’ll get the odd idiot wanting to say stupid things but delete them. How do you know if someone liked your post or agreed with you, if you don’t let them say so?
What is your favourite thing about blogging? My favourite part of blogging is definitely when people comment or PM me on Google+ about something I’ve said. I’ve had lots of interesting discussions as a result of my posts about internet supervision for children and the risks attached to a teen’s online presence. I also had some really positive feedback from the post I wrote with tips for taking sick children to hospital for operations.
My life is still hectic with work, running a house and trying to make time to produce novels for my growing fan base, but it’s definitely easier now the children are finding their own way in life. When they were younger it was impossible to get time to myself and I had to let my own desire to write take a big back seat. I look back and have no idea how I got everything done. I think I must have spent at least 18 years in a fog. A mother’s work is never done though. 2 of my children are still in Hamilton and I often get phone calls which start with, “Please could you help me just…” My other 2 are in Palmerston North and that can be harder. My middle daughter was seriously ill last year and that involved more trips up and down the Desert Road than I care to remember and lots of worry and sleepless nights. So even though they’re big, I can still be derailed by their issues without warning. But that’s what we do isn’t it? When they need us, we lay everything down and just go.
My top 3 favourite posts would probably be:
1. My tiki tour of the Waikato – beautiful Ngaruawahia
2. An Exclusive Interview with Logan Du Rose
3. Children’s Surgery – How to make it exciting
Top 3 favourite blogs would be:
1. The Huffington Post
2. Humans of New York
3. Demelza Carlton’s Place
