A Site for Teen Writers

Donita K. Paul is the Christy Award winning author of the Dragonspell and the Dragonkeeper Chronicles. She lives in the shadow of pikes peak in Colorado Springs.

  TeenInklings: If you could be any one of the races from your DragonKeeper books, which would you be?

  Donita K. Paul: I probably look most like a marione, but I would love to be a kimen.

  TeenInklings: What was your favorite part of writing The Vanishing Sculptor?

  Donita K. Paul: Getting done. I mean it, that was a hard book, and I was so glad to be finished. I like it a lot better now, a year after I turned it in.

  TeenInklings: What is the best piece of advise you've ever received?

  Donita K. Paul: The only thing you don't have to finish is a piece of pie. If you start, keep at it, and try to finish.

  TeenInklings: Which dragon, from all your books, is your favorite?

  Donita K. Paul: Gymn before he matured and when he was still feinting when under any kind of pressure.

  TeenInklings: Why do you write YA Fantasy and not something else?

  Donita K. Paul: I did write something else. And I would write it again. It is much easier than fantasy. My mother challenged me to write something different, and so I did. I wrote Christian Romance. I got to write a Christian romantic fantasy comedy last year and I can hardly wait for it to come out.

  TeenInklings: What is your average word count per day when you're really working toward a deadline? What about when you are writing casually?

  Donita K. Paul: When I am on a project I love, I write about a chapter a day which is 8-12 pages. Yes, I write for fun. But usually, after I write something for fun, I try to sell it. Especially if I really like it.