Valentine's Day may be over, but Romance is never out of fashion for many readers.
Vancouver-based Romance writer, Carol Mason, joins us for this exclusive Book Buzz interview:
BB: Hi Carol, and welcome to Book Buzz. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get your start in writing and what made you choose to write a romance?
CM: Hi Book Buzz members. Reading, and English Literature were all I was ever interested in, in school. From as early as being 12 I was reading my Gran's Harlequin Romances, and thought they surely had to be easy to write. Then in University in Toronto (Ryerson) in the mid-nineties, a
friend told me she was going to write Harlequins because they seemed so easy and you could make quite good money. So I decided to give it a try too. I wrote two. I soon discovered they are not easy to write, you can't actually make much money doing them (unless you spit out
about 6 a year!), and in fact, they are not an easy route to getting published. The books I wrote weren't fantastic, I don't think, mainly because my heart wasn't in genre romance. I knew I wanted to write a
book that still had love story elements to it, but something more hip, current, believable, that deals with issues that all women can relate to. Fortunately to save myself the bother of having to have the books rejected even more than they already had been, my apartment got broken into, my computer stolen, and with it, the novels that I had been too lazy to back up! So it was goodbye to trying to write novels, and hello to the real world and to a career in advertising after that.
But writing about diamonds and toilet roll eventually became boring and
nagging away at me still - some ten years later - was my belief that
if I had another crack at writing, perhaps this time, with a little
more self-awareness and experience of life, I might be in with a
chance. So I gave up my job, and decided to write a book and give
myself a year to get published. I wrote a lovely novel (or so I
thought) but it failed to make it. As did the next, and the next. But
with each one, I was developing my voice, my story-telling ability,
and the true story that I wanted to write was gradually coming out.
Plus I had managed to land a very good London literary agent with my
second effort, so I decided to keep going. When my agent could not
sell my third novel, I was about to give up.
Getting published started to feel impossible. I'd written three good stories and had thrown myself into them in every possible emotional way -- what on earth would it take? My husband encouraged me to write one more. This would mean I had been at my second-time-around attempt at novel-writing for five years. We decided that if, after five years, I was still unsuccessful, then I should maybe give up the dream. Then the wonderful moment came where my agent rang me and told me to go and buy myself a bottle of champagne because she had sold The Secrets of Married Women to Hodder & Stoughton in a two book deal! I simply could not believe my ears, and wondered if she was going to the say "Ha ha! Only joking. Of course you're not being published. You have failed again!'
Why romance? Well, at the end of the day isn't romance the thing on
everybody's mind? Other issues come and go, but everyone wants to find
love and to feel loved. I couldn't imagine writing a book that didn't
have some kind of emotional romantic drama at the heart of it.
BB: What is a typical writing day like for you? Where do you write? 
What is your writing process?
CM: I walk my crazy, super-high-energy dog for about an hour. Then I grab my second cup of coffee and my biscuits and head off to my computer. I write in our house - upstairs, we have an area that's not quite a room and not quite a landing, under a skylight. It's not really out of the way, but so long as I am the only one home, it works. I love it most when it rains, and I hear it on the glass above my head. It's annoying as anything when it's sunny and I can't see my computer screen very well - a perfect excuse to go and do absolutely anything except write! I tend to write about five hours during the day, if I can - four or five days a week. Then after dinner, I will come back up and re-read what I've written and try to hone it, putting in a couple more hours. It's amazing how much more productive I am with a glass of wine at my side! Also, mysteriously, around 4pm I tend to come alive creatively. I can have done nothing productive all day, the 4pm hits and I am a dynamo for about an hour - often completing my daily word-count goal of 1000 in that short time. Of course, every time I boast about being a dynamo and writing up a storm, I then have about 2 weeks of staring at the wall in a trance. So I still can't seem to get a book written within my ideal timeline of about six months. Not yet. Will go on trying and hoping.
BB: How important is the relationship between the women in your novels?
CM: Well, my first book, The Secrets of Married Women, is about three friends and how one friend's confession of infidelity has a rather strange spin-off effect on the lives of the other two. My second, Send Me A Lover, is very much a mother-daughter story. I like to explore women's relationships for what they are, not the way they are often seen in any women's fiction novel that has a light/escapist cover (usually candy colours showing shoes, legs, bunny slippers!). In these books friends are mainly vehicles to the main character's social life - we drink with them, share confidences, shop, etc..... But what about all the darker layers to real friendships? The small and seemingly harmless betrayals, jealousies, secrets told or not told, disappointments? The ways we judge friends, or feel we are judged by them? Female friendships can often be as profound, in good and bad ways, as the most intense of male-female romances. All the levels on which we are truly known and uncovered by another human being make for fascinating fodder for a novel.
BB: Do you have a favourite literary heroine?
CM: Jane Eyre. Dolores Price (She's Come Undone).
BB: Who are your favourite writers? Who inspires you?
CM: I love Jonathan Tropper, and Tony Parsons. They write very well-
written commercial books that explore the complex emotions we feel
when we love someone. Both writers do "heart" very very well, and I
always laugh and cry with them. And for guys, they're both pretty
fearless about showing their 'softer' side ( I won't call it a
feminine side because I find that label extremely off-putting!) I
also love Anita Shreve because I always get engrossed in her books;
she carries me away. Also Rosie Thomas - especially her earlier books
just draw me in and won't let me go.
BB: Part of your website includes advice to aspiring writers. Where did
you find support when you made your decision to write, and then later
sell your first novel?
CM: Personally I am not into writers/critique groups. Feedback is
overrated! Sometimes you have to go with your own instincts and if you
get 10 people in a room and 10 different opinions, how quickly you
will start second-guessing yours! Plus if you 10 people trash your
idea/writing/transcript, it might seem like a pretty convincing reason
to give up, but it really really is NOT necessarily indicative of how
your target market would react. It's a different thing if you know
someone who reads what you read, loves what you love, and can read
yours and honestly and intelligently tell you where they think yours
isn't quite measuring up. But that's quite rare to find. I just
decided to go with what I believe is right and do it.
Based of course on my best, educated opinion -- if you want to write to be published (not just write for fun or for personal gratification) you must know what is being written in your genre/area, you must read it, analyze it, try to find why a certain writer is your favourite, try to learn from those you believe are the best at what they're doing. That is far more constructive than sitting around and listening to a bunch of diverse egos/opinions getting their chance to play critic. Of course, you will still doubt yourself, no matter what you do. That's the downfall of the creative personality. And when that happens it helps to have someone prod you on to believe again! My husband always kept me going when I was getting glum. It truly helps to have someone else in the world who believes in you. Another inspiring thing to do is to go and see a writer speak at a festival. Very often they will tell you their publishing horror stories that will comfort you greatly if you have had countless rejections of your own. I must have been rejected by about 100 literary agents in England the USA, and it truly was a stomach-turning experience, yet targeting my book to the right home, being professional and listening to whatever advice is given (plus a dash of good luck) and always working on improving the book (rather than sitting around moping or waiting for them to get back to you) worked for me in the end. In the end though, no amount of support counts if you don't believe you can and you will do it. You really are your own worst enemy or your own best friend when it comes to working in pure isolation and striving for a seemingly unreachable goal.
BB: What’s the best response you’ve had from a reader?
CM: There was a woman who wrote to me about Secrets of Married Women and she said that she had felt exactly the way Jill, the main character felt regarding her marriage, and that she too had been tempted to have an affair. But my book made her reconsider and made her decide not to give up so soon - and she said that was the best decision she ever made. So that was lovely to read. Another said Send Me A Lover made her realise that, after losing her long-time partner to cancer, there was a brighter side waiting for her once she worked through her grief.
The Love Market has just been released in Canada. The Secrets of Married Women and Send Me a Lover are available to borrow now at Toronto Public Library
