Author #Interview with Cinta Garcia de la Rosa

The Funny Adventures of Little Nani (Volume 1)

Cinta García de la Rosa

First off, I want to thank you for being here today, Cinta! I understand you recently published a children’s book, The Funny Adventures of Little Nani. Want to tell us about it? What age range is it appropriate for?

Well, thanks for hosting me in your blog, Chantel. It is a pleasure. Yes, I just published my first book and it is a children’s book. It is a collection of short stories featuring Little Nani, who is a little girl who wants to be a witch and creates all kind of funny and absurd situations due to her misuse of her magic wand. Every story tells a different adventure, and Little Nani will meet different characters along the way. About the age range, I didn’t write the stories thinking of a specific age range. I think my book can be equally enjoyed by little children, teens, and adults.

Sounds like a lot of fun! Honestly, I don’t really know all that much about how one goes about writing a children’s book. Can you believe you are the first children’s book author I’ve met? That’s exciting! Tell us about the process of writing for children. I can only imagine it’s much different from writing for adults or teens.

You made me smile. The fact is that I am not an author of children’s books. My Little Nani took shape in my head by mere chance and I decided to write her stories. Writing for children is a bit more difficult, because you have to be extra careful with the language and tone you use. Besides, you cannot use references that wouldn’t be recognizable for children. You have to tell a story that is both attractive to them and educative enough for them to understand the moral of the story.

What inspired you to tell this story?

Little Nani is pretty much a reflection of myself. I always have these funny chats and conversations with my friends, and I wanted to write stories that reflected that. I wrote the first one just for fun, to post it in my blog. People liked it so much that they started asking me for a second story. When I realized  I had enough stories in my head as to write a whole book. So my readers inspired me to write the book.

Do you do your own illustrations, or did you hire someone else?

I hired an illustrator, since I am useless at drawing. My illustrator, Almudena Romero, is fantastic and I love her illustrations, which are magical and remind me of the magical worlds created by Beatrix Potter. She is a great artist, and all of you can check her work in her website www.almudenaromero.com

All I can draw are stick figures! Glad you were able to find a good illustrator to help bring your vision to life!

Does your story contain a message that you’d like to spread to children?

It is a collection of ten stories, and each story contains a message. With my stories I try to teach children to be responsible about others’ belongings, to care about the environment, to learn when to apologise, the value of friendship, and other values that I consider are important for children to know.

Sounds like these are really good teaching stories. 

Deciding to self publish was a very tough decision for me. How did you decide to self publish? Was it a hard choice?

No, from the very beginning I knew that I wanted to self-publish. Then I got contacted by an agency that offered me a contract for publishing my book. After some months, I discovered these people were a fraud, so I went back to my original plan of self-publishing. It is the best one can do: you are in control of everything and you choose everything you need for your book to look as good as possible.

Any advice for other authors out there?

Well, I always say I am not the right person to advise people, but I can share what I can learnt from my own experience. What I recommend to every writer is to write daily.

Daily means daily. Don’t try to look for excuses like “I don’t know what to write about” or “I don’t have any good idea just now”. Just write. Even if it is a silly paragraph, or a nonsense sentence. It is important to create that habit of writing every day. Also, never give up. If you really believe that your stories can interest other people, just write them and share them with the world. Chase your dreams because we just have one life to live.

That's very good advice!  You can't write a book if you don't WRITE! 

Thank you so much for visiting with us. I know most of my readers usually come to my site looking for books I recommend for them to read, but if you have young kids, check out Cinta’s book.

I want to thank you, Chantel, for letting me visit you here.

AUTHOR BIO

Cinta García de la Rosa is a Spanish teacher who always dreamt of being a writer. So she writes, every day, compulsively. Always active, she is also an avid reader, a blogger and a book reviewer. Her first writings were in Spanish, but, since she got her BA in English Studies, she decided to start writing in English. Now, she feels more comfortable writing in English than in her mother tongue. She has just published her first book “The Funny Adventures of Little Nani”, a collection of stories for children, with illustrations and other surprises. She is also working in other projects: a collection of short stories, the Groovy Cool Adventures Project, and a novelette based on the British Regency period. Apart from writing and reading, she enjoys meeting new people, dancing, and traveling.

What to know more about Cinta? Connect with her at one of these places below: 

Twitter:  Austenite78 

Facebook:  Cinta Garcia de la Rosa (Author) 

Goodreads:  Cinta Garcia de la Rosa

Blog: Cinta’s Corner

Website: www.cintagarciadelarosa.com

Wondering where to buy The Funny Adventures of Little Nani (Volume 1)?

Createspace

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Happy reading everyone!

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