Author Interview of Mary Moore with a Giveaway

» Posted on Jan 15, 2015 in Blog | Comments Off on Author Interview of Mary Moore with a Giveaway

This week I’m hosting Louise M. Gouge with Cowboy Seeks a Bride (US only) and Mary Moore with Accidental Fiancee. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Jan. 18th) evening.

CoverAuthor Interview of Mary Moore:

Mary, tell us a little about yourself, and how and why you initially became a writer.

I’m 55 years old and have been married to my husband, Craig, for 27 years. A few years ago, we left the DC area where we had both grown up and moved to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in southwest Virginia. We’ve had some struggles since moving here, but God’s been slowly revealing the reasons He brought us to this place at the time that He did, and that has been a real blessing.

I’ve told this story on some blogs I did when the book first came out, so I hope I’m not boring people, but I never initially set out to be a writer…I’m a reader! What I did was come up with some premise that I thought was really different and would write stories around them, but they were only for me. I guess as is always the case, one or two of my close friends wanted to read them, and once they did they tried to talk me into getting them published. Of course they would, they were my best friends! I tried half-heartedly, but I had no idea even how to go about it, so it failed miserably. That was 15 years ago and I packed them away in a box until I found them again after moving here.

Reflecting back, what do you see as most significant to your publication journey?

There are a ton of forces behind the publication journey, but two especially significant ones. The first is my sister-in-law, Carol. She has been a supporter of mine since the first story. She is the only person who has read all of my stories, and for fifteen years she has been encouraging me to go for it. Through Carol, God did His first miracle toward publication. We were at a women’s retreat and Carol found out there was a published author at our breakfast table.   The poor woman graciously spent her whole breakfast encouraging me, giving me helpful websites to visit, and told me about the ACFW! That was the beginning of the journey.

The second event was God changing my heart. I thought I could infuse my stories with some of the struggles I’ve faced. In doing so I realized I wanted it to be a ministry. I wanted to write stories that might touch hearts at the point they are or have been in their lives. I truly believe they were never meant to be published fifteen years ago. And I needed that time to mature in the Lord. I had to get to the point in my life where God could use them for that.

What’s your biggest challenge in balancing writing time with your other responsibilities, especially considering your recent battle against breast cancer? I know you’re not the only one who’s struggled to pursue writing dreams in the midst of health issues.

Looking back now it’s amazing that God used the stories in the midst of the cancer experience. I don’t even remember boxing up the manuscripts when we moved to Virginia, but my husband found them in the attic when I was going through chemo and they became cathartic. I wrote when I felt good, still never thinking about publication.

This was my first publication, so I mostly dropped the balls in my juggling act! I thought the hard part was writing the book! The schedule of edits and re-edits as well as other writing related deadlines were a little overwhelming this past year. I joined the ACFW to learn as much as I could from the published and non-published authors on the ACFW loop. It wasn’t until I found myself joining the Beau Monde loop and the HisWriters loop and the LI Authors loop that I sat back and looked at the amazing amount of time that took. I don’t have any regrets about that because I think I learned so much valuable information. But when you add in a family, a part-time job, and church ministries you realize you just can’t do it all. Now that I’ve been through the entire process, I hope I will be more prepared and organized, and I can choose the groups that are pertinent to my writing should I be blessed with more published works.

And do these experiences now play into your writing and affect your storytelling?

The lessons I learned in my personal life through the Cancer and Lupus have affected my writing for sure. I think I can make characters that more readers can relate to. I think I had to go through those things to mature as a person and a Christian.

The writing-related groups I already mentioned will be a strong part of my next story. Those writers have so much experience and knowledge that they freely share; it is amazing. I have already begun using the things I am learning from them.

What do you consider the greatest moment of your writing/publishing career?

Wow, that is a very hard question! As I mentioned earlier, the moment I realized that I wanted my writing to be a ministry for God’s glory, changed my focus and writing completely. The obvious answer is getting word that a publisher is actually interested, and that was a great moment. But, I think that right up there with that was the day my agent, Jenni Burke, signed me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in doors by myself, so when Jenni showed interest then signed me, I thought something might actually happen…and it did!

Who/What spurs you to write? Where do your story and character ideas come from?

The original reason I started to write was because I didn’t have anything at hand to read, or what I had was too predictable. I thought I could write my own story and it would be the same as reading a book, only having to come up with my own next page. That still keeps me interested in writing today. I want to write something unique. I write Regencies and that period of history is arguably only 10-15 years long. Sometimes you are going to get stories that feel like you’ve already read because the genre is small in time and in the people that are written about. I love the period and I want to write Regencies, but I like to try to come up with premises and characters that are just a little bit different but totally entrenched in the genre.

What do you think makes your style of storytelling unique?

I guess that would be what I talked about in the last question. I want to be sure Regency readers get their “fix” and I want a new generation of Regency lovers to latch on to my stories. But, I want to make the stories and characters just different enough to keep readers from being able to put it down!

Finish this question. The one thing I love most about writing is …

The feed back you get from someone who was touched by the book. The people who mention specific parts of the book and how it affected them in a personal way…I love that, it shows me they really read the book and God was able to work through it!

Any parting words of wisdom for new writers?

Only the one word everyone hates to hear, about anything, patience! Mine has been a fifteen year journey. The author that I mentioned before at the women’s retreat was rejected 87 times before her first book was picked up! And the one she had just finished was a very high profile book…once she found her niche she was still getting published. I don’t know if I could handle being rejected 87 times, but the importance behind that is to keep writing, improving your writing, join organizations like the ACFW where you can learn so much about writing and the industry of publishing.