Caroline Anderson
In Caroline Anderson's career she has written over eighty novels and is a well known scribe of romance novels Mills & Boon.
- Could you tell our readers what it’s like to be a Mills&Boon writer?
Lonely, hard-working. I think it’s a sort of thing you shouldn’t do unless you can’t help yourself because when you are writing a book you become completely involved into the world of your characters to the point that your own family ceases to exist and sometimes they will point this out.
- Does that also mean that you have to produce a certain number of books every year?
Yes, because your publisher has a schedule and they have to guarantee their production. Because they produce so many books in each line they need to know exact number of authors contributing to these lines.
Sometimes you get a call asking if you could submit a book earlier, sometimes you are asked to do a Christmas book, a Valentine’s Day book or Mother’s Day book but I generally write four books a year.
- You have written many medical romance novels. How did you become interested in this genre?
Well, I wanted to write romances for a start because I like happy endings. There are times in woman’s life when you need something light. We need to read books that don’t leave you absolutely sad once you finish. And I wanted to write such books because I wanted to be left at the end of a book with happy feelings.
Also I was a nurse very briefly when I left school and I worked in one way or another in medical field for a few years. My mother has been a nurse, I had been a nurse and my children had some accidents and ended up in hospital.
But it didn’t occur to me until I visited a Mills&Boon meeting where they were trying to encourage new authors in a little venue in Ipswich where I lived. There was a medical author there and a Mills&Boon editor who’d come to talk to this group.
And I was absolutely fascinated because it occurred to me that I can write medical romances. I’ve had a couple of rejections: they kept telling me that I had plenty of secondary characters but I had a theme, which, I knew, would fit very well within the framework. Now I write for other lines apart from medical and my latest Christmas book does not fit into medical line.
- Would you say that medical background helps you to write now?
Caroline Anderson: It’s a long time since I did my nursing but yes, absolutely. Because i understand now what it’s like as person having had children in hospital and I know what it’s like from a patient’s side but I also know what it’s like from the other side pressures, responsibilities and frustration when you know you can’t help somebody.
- How do you actually create your plots? Do you take them from real-life situation?
Well I create, if you like, situations that could occur in real life but I don’t ever look at a family for example and think: 'I could write their story'. Obviously I might get ideas from real life but I would never take a real life situation and just reproduce it.
- Being a successful writer with over 80 books published, what kind of literature do you read yourself?
Well I read a lot of romances; some writers are frightened to read them because their voice and style might be affected. I don’t worry about that at all. There are many books in this genre but essentially every book is different and I enjoy them.
I think you have to do what you enjoy. You have to enjoy reading in order to be able to write them. But apart from that I like autobiographies and thrillers and crime books. I love funny books as well.
- And what about your family? Do they read your books?
My husband has read the first and the fourth. He thought the first was quite good, but he didn’t like the fourth that much and he hasn’t read others. So I told him: 'When you retire I’m going to sit you down in front of 80 and something books, it’ll probably be a hundred by then, and make you read them all. And then you can comment.'
My children are both girls and they do from time to time read them.
- What skills does an individual need to become a writer?
I think you have to have a good command of English language. And if you don’t, I don’t think you can write. Whatever language you are writing, you have to find exact words because even a single adjective can totally change the situation.
Also you need to have a skill; you might call it a gift. It means that you have to love to tell stories and have to love words and enjoy being completely involved in complexities and little details.
- Do you have a favourite novel among your own?
My first was special just because it was my first one. It changes actually all the time. I wrote one for Valentine’s Day which was about a couple that ended up having twin babies which were completely unplanned and that was a lovely book to write and it was very popular in America.
Each one I hate as I finish it because you have to go back and edit and proofread it, so you start thinking: 'why did you write that?'
- Do you have any particular process of writing?
Always late. And I’m very character-driven when I’m writing. I am very interested in creating characters and thinking what could happen to them. It is similar to having a remote control in your hand.
- What are your future plans? Have you ever considered your book being adapted for TV?
I’d be thrilled if a TV company rang and told me: 'we are interested in making your book into a little film'. Yes, it would be wonderful.
It is something I have to regard as a job and you are paid to do it. On the other hand, I don’t think you could do it only for money; you have to do it because you have to do it. And the fact that you get paid is just a bonus really.
FemaleFirst Zair Kashek
In Caroline Anderson's career she has written over eighty novels and is a well known scribe of romance novels Mills & Boon.
- Could you tell our readers what it’s like to be a Mills&Boon writer?
Lonely, hard-working. I think it’s a sort of thing you shouldn’t do unless you can’t help yourself because when you are writing a book you become completely involved into the world of your characters to the point that your own family ceases to exist and sometimes they will point this out.
- Does that also mean that you have to produce a certain number of books every year?
Yes, because your publisher has a schedule and they have to guarantee their production. Because they produce so many books in each line they need to know exact number of authors contributing to these lines.
Sometimes you get a call asking if you could submit a book earlier, sometimes you are asked to do a Christmas book, a Valentine’s Day book or Mother’s Day book but I generally write four books a year.
- You have written many medical romance novels. How did you become interested in this genre?
Well, I wanted to write romances for a start because I like happy endings. There are times in woman’s life when you need something light. We need to read books that don’t leave you absolutely sad once you finish. And I wanted to write such books because I wanted to be left at the end of a book with happy feelings.
Also I was a nurse very briefly when I left school and I worked in one way or another in medical field for a few years. My mother has been a nurse, I had been a nurse and my children had some accidents and ended up in hospital.
But it didn’t occur to me until I visited a Mills&Boon meeting where they were trying to encourage new authors in a little venue in Ipswich where I lived. There was a medical author there and a Mills&Boon editor who’d come to talk to this group.
And I was absolutely fascinated because it occurred to me that I can write medical romances. I’ve had a couple of rejections: they kept telling me that I had plenty of secondary characters but I had a theme, which, I knew, would fit very well within the framework. Now I write for other lines apart from medical and my latest Christmas book does not fit into medical line.
- Would you say that medical background helps you to write now?
Caroline Anderson: It’s a long time since I did my nursing but yes, absolutely. Because i understand now what it’s like as person having had children in hospital and I know what it’s like from a patient’s side but I also know what it’s like from the other side pressures, responsibilities and frustration when you know you can’t help somebody.
- How do you actually create your plots? Do you take them from real-life situation?
Well I create, if you like, situations that could occur in real life but I don’t ever look at a family for example and think: 'I could write their story'. Obviously I might get ideas from real life but I would never take a real life situation and just reproduce it.
- Being a successful writer with over 80 books published, what kind of literature do you read yourself?
Well I read a lot of romances; some writers are frightened to read them because their voice and style might be affected. I don’t worry about that at all. There are many books in this genre but essentially every book is different and I enjoy them.
I think you have to do what you enjoy. You have to enjoy reading in order to be able to write them. But apart from that I like autobiographies and thrillers and crime books. I love funny books as well.
- And what about your family? Do they read your books?
My husband has read the first and the fourth. He thought the first was quite good, but he didn’t like the fourth that much and he hasn’t read others. So I told him: 'When you retire I’m going to sit you down in front of 80 and something books, it’ll probably be a hundred by then, and make you read them all. And then you can comment.'
My children are both girls and they do from time to time read them.
- What skills does an individual need to become a writer?
I think you have to have a good command of English language. And if you don’t, I don’t think you can write. Whatever language you are writing, you have to find exact words because even a single adjective can totally change the situation.