Carol Mason interview

This interview with Carol Mason, author of The Secrets of Married Women, was first published in September 2007.

Where were you born and raised?

Sunderland, in the north east of England. Although I now live in Canada - but Sunderland will always be my home.

What was it that first got you into writing and when did you start writing?

While I was doing my degree, a friend started writing Mills & Boon's. I thought that seemed easy. I decided to give it a go myself. Boy was I wrong! Two books later and I still was not published. So I got a job as a writer for an advertising agency, and it was satisfying for a few years. But the urge to write a novel kept pulling at me. So I packed in my job and set about the task. I wrote 3 books that didn't get me published but did get me closer and closer to my dream. I decided to give it one more go before packing it in. So I wrote The Secrets of Married Women and FINALLY, YIPPEE! I made it (out in December 07 by Hodder).

Which writers have influenced you the most?

Pretty well all the obvious classics like Jane Austen, the Brontes, but also Rosie Thomas, Anita Shreve, Tony Parsons, Jonathan Tropper, to name a few that spring to mind.

What kind of things do you write?

Women's fiction - chick-lit with depth. Real life scenarios that all women can relate to, with lots of laughs and sadness, reflecting the emotional rollercoaster we are all on in this life. I'm not interested in the chick lit themes of young women partying hard and desperate to meet Mr. Right. I'm more interested in these women when they've grown up a bit and realised that there's more to life than meeting the right guy, even though, in the most complex of individuals the need to bond and be loved is still a ruling one.

What are you working on now?

I've just finished my second novel, which won't be out until '08, and now I'm about to start a third.

What is your writing day like?

I write from about 10 until 4, taking the odd break for lunch and a phone call or two with a friend or my mother, as writing is very lonely. Then I break and make dinner, have a glass of wine, and get back to work again for a couple of hours in the early evening.

What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?

I get to create whole worlds of people who do things that are far more exciting than I ever do. And I get to stay home and do it, and work on my own schedule, pretty much. As long as my agent and publisher like the book, they leave me to it. Nobody is breathing down my neck like they used to be when I worked in the advertising agency.

What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?

I don't really find anything frustrating about writing. Sometimes it's a bit nagging when I know I've got a character who is ALMOST working but not quite, and I don't know what the missing piece is. I usually have to finish the book and even finish editing it before it dawns on me what the problem is. Then I frantically go back through the book trying to fix him/her. But as far as frustrations go, that's a minor one!

What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your audience?

My book isn't out until December of this year, (07) so I've not really had much audience feedback, other than the odd thing I've found on the Net. I liked reading that my work did for Newcastle what Marian Keyes does for Ireland. Any review that puts my name in the same sentence as Marian's can't be bad!

Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first priority to satisfy your own creativity?

I try to write what I'd like to read - so in some ways the audience is me and people like me. You have to do to that with fiction if you want it to be successful. It's not enough to say you write for yourself and your own creativity. Not if you want to be published in today's tough climate. Writing is a business, with a demographic, and you have to remember that, but it's fun writing with people in mind. I always ask myself, okay, is a thirty-eight-year-old modern married woman really likely to understand/relate to this..? And if the answer is no, then I get rid of whatever it is I've written. It would be very hard - for me, anyway - to write a good novel that would appeal to women in their thirties and a woman in her seventies. But I do believe I can write successfully about all the issues that matter to women my age, with my dilemmas, my expectations, etc.

Do you have a homepage? Do you have any short stories or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):

No home page yet. Must get onto that. Nothing published on line. Although I have an article coming out in the December issue of Red Magazine.