I was ten and hadn't yet discovered historical romances, but it's recognizably mine. It's about an American teenager who has a plane land on her house killing her parents...so of course she moves to England and has all sorts of romantic adventures... Half way through the story she's beaten up by her boyfriend who I think she found going back in time and ends up in love with the older English doctor who helps her. It must have made sense to me at the time. It's written in pencil in a little black diary book and has no paragraphs or punctuation beyond the occasional period. I worked on it for a year or two, but it was never finished. Looking back what I find really odd is how I was quite open about the fact I was trying to write a book. I'd take it to school and work on in my free time. I'd already decided I wanted to be "an author" when I grew up and was quite vocal about it. I was an obnoxious child (I'm now an even more obnoxious adult).
2) As I was doing research for this interview I found a few interesting tidbit's on the internet.
First among these was a comment you made to a British News Article. In your comment you said:
"As someone who also writes romance fiction I think fairy tales are important, they give hope. It's the unrealistic expectations bombarding men and women from all media sources that do far more damage than the odd romance novel. "
First among these was a comment you made to a British News Article. In your comment you said:
"As someone who also writes romance fiction I think fairy tales are important, they give hope. It's the unrealistic expectations bombarding men and women from all media sources that do far more damage than the odd romance novel.
One reviewist on Good Read's said that of you and your novels "Cari Hislop's online short romances are pretty hysterical. Hislop scores points in my book for breaking away from the conventional - her heroines range from the obese to those with literal bad-luck and her heroes from the self-centred to the nearly deaf."
How would you say that writing stories has influenced your personal relationships? Do you find inspiration from your own life or is it all pure imagination? What does inspire you?
My writing has totally affected my personal relationships. My characters have taught me how to empathize, love and value people who before I would have written off or tried to avoid. I know my characters are often "unconventional" but I don't create them that way. They usually step onto my mental stage fully formed. My heroine in A Companion for Life is really overweight, but I didn't plan it that way. When I saw the opening scene, a dinner party, there she was...fat with orange frizzy hair, hunched over and terrified of being noticed. I only found out why she was frightened as the chapter unfolded. As a writer, I'm a ghost who possesses the characters. I feel what they feel and see from their point of view, but if I try to take over and force them to do something they don't want to do they go into convulsions and the story stops until I step back and let them get on with their lives.
Where do the stories come from? My stories are generally character driven. Sometimes characters who appear in other character's stories demand their own story. You see this with my Smirke family. In my story Lucky in Love, the bad guy, the Duke of Strathmore stepped onto the page fully formed and demanded his own story. Where did Lucky in Love come from? A scene from the story popped into my head and I could see this proper gentleman being a disgusting pig to win a wager that he could ask this old maid to marry him and be turned down. I think that time I was thinking about story plots, but sometimes I can be doing other things and these freaky technicolour visions of characters in stories will burst into my head. Where do they come from? Heaven knows! The free, "Introducing Smirke", is part of one rewritten from John Smirke's perspective. I think at the end of the day I just love, love stories. I love reading about real love stories. I love listening to people talk about their relationships...how they met and fell in love. I can't imagine ever getting bored with romance.
3) What gave you the idea of publishing your books completely electronically? E-Books are really popular right now, but you have been writing online for several years now, what gave you the idea? Have you ever regretted this decision?
In 2007 my husband had the idea to sell my stories on line. I'd finished several books and I was trying to force myself to start the process of finding an agent, but I knew that even if they agreed to represent me they'd probably read my stories and tell me I couldn't have a hero who was a blatant misogynistic pig (The Curse of Love) or that certain publishing companies wouldn't publish unless I took out this violent scene or those rude innuendos. And then there was the fact that if I published the traditional way my stories would only be in paperback for six months to a year and then they'd collect dust in the great publisher's warehouse in the sky. Selling on line was the perfect answer; I'd retain complete ownership, the stories would be unaltered except by me and they would be accessible to read for the rest of my life and beyond (if my heirs can be bothered). My husband's a computer programmer so he made me a website and I was in business.
4) Have you found a spike in sales recently? If so what do you attribute this to?
Six months ago there was a perceptible drop for a few months when the banks were threatening to implode and take the world economy with them, but the numbers are up again. When I started back in 2007 I assumed most of my readers would be American, but I think they make up only about half. The rest come from all over the world.
Six months ago there was a perceptible drop for a few months when the banks were threatening to implode and take the world economy with them, but the numbers are up again. When I started back in 2007 I assumed most of my readers would be American, but I think they make up only about half. The rest come from all over the world.
5) What type of music do you enjoy?
I tend to have phases where I'll listen something to death and then not listen to it for a year or two and then listen it to death again though there are exceptions. The other day I just bought the best of David Bowie after watching Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, but before that I bought some Pink Floyd and U2 and Elton John. Today I'm listening to old easy listening music from the early 80's. I'm feeling a bit poorly today so it's favorite songs from when I was about nine to eleven. I find them soothing...probably because I had them on in the background while reading or daydreaming.
6) Do you listen to music when you write?
It depends. Sometimes I need silence so I can hear the characters, but sometimes I find music helps me sink into the characters. If I'm listening to music it has to be a song that I can play on an eternal loop without too obvious an end or beginning or it interrupts the flow. It also has to be so familiar that I don't try to listen and sing along.
7) I am strongly affected by music and the mood it creates inside me, so I avoid it when I am writing. Do you think music alters the style of your stories?
For me music is normally a wall of sound that blocks out distractions, but there have been a few instances where I've listened to specific songs while working on important scenes and the song has been folded into the story. A Companion for Life has a lot of important scenes written to Richard Marx's Falling. The song perfectly captures the sense of falling autumn leaves that are an important part of the hero and heroine's mutual past.
8) Are there any songs that bring to mind a certain book for you? Are there any books that bring to mind a song?
I find listening to songs from my childhood often brings to mind certain books. Just yesterday I bought "Just the Two of Us" by Grover Washington Jr...I love this song...to me it's Edgar Eagre and Andre Norton's magic books. It's summer vacation spent lost in stories that took me far away. I hadn't heard it for decades, but when I came across it I had to have a copy. It's a soothing song...a soft jazz-pop. Probably one of the songs that made me want to play the saxophone (which didn't happen because my mother decided I was going to play the flute and I'm glad she did - I now love flute music). I didn't used to find songs for stories, but a few years ago I heard U2's "Vertico" and it was John Smirke's song! And then I heard Sarah Mclachland's "Angel" and I was entranced. It was like someone had written a song from the point of view of my hero Geoffrey, Duke of Lindhurst from Redeeming a Rake (He calls his heroine Angel/Sunshine.) Since then I've started consiously listening for songs for characters and I suspect that when I read more fiction (writing full time I normally crave non-fiction to read) that I'll be listening for songs for characters I love.
9) What is a book you would recommend to our readers?
-Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (It's taken me twenty years and three readings to understand this weird story. It's hard to like any of the characters, but it pulls you on through all seven hundred pages like a steam locomotion full of coal and sweaty manpower. I don't necessarily agree with her politics, but she disects human nature with a surgeon's scalpel. I love it.
-The Lais of Marie de France (These are very short stories originally in poem form that were meant to be verbally recited. Some were written some were compiled by a medieval woman of the English court named Marie. They're almost medieval fairy tales, but at the same time snapshots of Medieval life. Priceless!
-The Love Letters of Robert Browning & Elizabeth Barrett edited by V.E. Stack (If you love real love stories...this one is hard to beat. The two were poets who admired each other's work before they met. She had a psycho father from hell who didn't want any of his numerous grown children to marry. The letters read like a made up story, but they're real!
10) For our Friday Wish List
what is one book on your list that you have not yet bought but wish you had?
A book I haven't yet bought but MUST own soon... King John by W. L. Warren. I've started a one woman King John fan club, but I don't
yet own the manual.
11) Anything else you'd like to add, or feel I missed?
I find it fascinating that music associated with stories imbues the music and the story with a haunting power they might not otherwise have had. I've been watching a certain tv program with a brilliant soundtrack...songs
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