Campus Author Speaks About Debut Novel from MWSU Campus Watch on Vimeo.

For some students, finding the time to read for class can be difficult, but for one 19-year-old sophomore, reading just wasn’t enough. Kendell Penington, an English student, recently published her first novel. The author shares her experiences with both the writing, and the editing process as well as her plans for the future of the series.

• “Guardians of the Lost Realm Series… The Guardians is the first book.”
• “I started writing probably the beginning of my senior year of high school so, about two years ago. I made five super-naturally gifted characters and put them in our world living among humans protecting them from otherworld threats.”
• “Each race special abilities. You have people who can communicate with the dead, people who can manipulate energy.”
• “I looked at the whole seven book saga of J.K. Rowling and other seven book sagas and I went with six books originally, but I still had too much to fit in there so after thinking about everything I wanted to have the whole series come out to seven.”
• “I have them all planned out I know what the main plot of everyone is going to be.”
• “I’m one of those annoying authors that doesn’t answer every question right as it comes along. I make you wait for it. You’ve got to keep them reading.”
• “I’m working on book three right now. So far I’ve been lucky and haven’t had to deal with negative reviews.”
• “I guess probably the worst constructive criticism I’ve gotten has been in edits.”
• “It’s pretty easy to write the beginning, the middle, and the end of it because I have big things planned for the beginning, middle, and end. It’s writing the filler stuff in between and how everything is going to progress to where I want it is where things kind of come to a halt.”
• “Book three has been pretty challenging to write just because the filler stuff in this one is difficult. I know what I want to happen I don’t know how to fit it in there just yet.”
• “I just got edits in for book two… It’s called the secret society.”
• “As far as what it’s about though I can’t tell you that.”

READ the story on Kendell Penington in The Wichitan.