Interview: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers 2006 Writer of the Year

RMFW: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
Carol: Sometime in the mid-90s, when I realized that this peculiar hobby I had taken up at the urging of a friend a few years earlier had grown into an obsession. Gardening, piano playing, needlework, puzzles - every other activity had faded away, and I was writing every minute I wasn’t at work, making contact with my ever-patient family, or in the shower. I couldn’t believe it.

RMFW: How did you first get published? (Tell us about the call)
Carol: I am a writers’ conference success story. At Colorado Gold in 1998 I read the opening of Song of the Beast for an editor from Bantam. She asked to see the whole manuscript. At the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in the spring of 1999, having not yet heard from Bantam, I read the opening of Transformation for an editor from Penguin Putnam. She asked to see the whole manuscript as soon as it was finished. With two editors interested in two manuscripts, I was able to entice a reputable agent to read my work, and she agreed to represent me. When I completed Transformation, I sent her the manuscript. She immediately forwarded it to Penguin. Five days later she called and said, "It usually doesn’t happen this fast…"

RMFW: What is your writing day like?
Carol: After eating my Cheerios and reading the newspaper in the morning, I make a cup of tea and boot up the laptop. I work beside windows -preferably open - with a view. If the house is full of distractions, I have been known to work at a local bakery with bottomless cups of tea and lots of outlets. I try not to spend too much morning time with email and newsgroups and the like, but will check for anything time critical. Then I work - writing, editing, or research as the project demands. All day. If I’m fully into writing, I always start out reading what I wrote the day before to prime the pump, so to speak. I don’t set page or wordcount goals. I would go crazy, as I am not a fast writer. Some days I write half a chapter. Some days I produce a paragraph.

RMFW: Do you participate in critique and/or have a writing buddy?
Carol: Both. A good friend is responsible for starting me on this writing journey and has stayed with me every step of the way. She literally shoved me into the editor pitch session where I sold Transformation. She has always been the person who listens to how the story is shaping - or isn’t - and asks me perceptive questions, insisting I know how to get around thorny problems, even when I can’t see it. The two of us formed a Fort Collins multi-genre critique group after our first writers conference in 1998. This group - wonderful writers all - has read every word of my books, and I credit them with helping me make that leap from unpublished to published. Critiquing their work has been a marvelous learning experience, just as valuable as hearing the critique of my own work. Our best times are our writers’ weekends in Estes Park. We rent a cabin, haul up wine, food, books, and laptops, then eat, drink, and write for three days straight away from phones and laundry and mail. A couple of years ago, I felt the need for some fresh perspectives, and joined a Denver-based fantasy/sf critique group. They have been marvelous, as well. As with the other group, they don’t rewrite my work or solve its problems, but rather help me look at my own work with new eyes.

RMFW: I know you volunteer for RMFW in several capacities, one being working with young writers you've met through the organization. Can you tell us why you chose that activity and what you get from mentoring?
Carol: Perhaps it’s because I come from a family where teaching is in the blood. Perhaps it’s because I am still so excited to be involved in this profession and just can’t get enough of talking about it. But I think it is because I spent most of my life loving books, while believing that I could never possibly create a whole story (much less one that spanned three or four books!) I think it is so marvelous when a young person already has that fire of creation burning, that fire of belief and imagination. I want to help them clear away the other obstacles that might stand between them and realizing the delight of sharing their stories.

RMFW: The WOTY is based on several criteria, one having to do with significant professional achievement. Your career has really taken off in the past couple of years. How does it feel when your work is finally being recognized?
Carol: Publishing is a strange business. After working in engineering, where performance, success, and achievement are so closely measured, it feels a bit scary to see your progress evaluated (and your future determined) by a set of inaccurate numbers sent to you twice a year. Good reviews are gratifying, but scattered and subjective. And I’ve seen mega-bestselling authors sitting at a signing table alone. In general, an author must take satisfaction in the creative work itself, and enjoy the occasional pleasure of hearing from that woman who said Seri’s grief and recovery helped her through a terrible time in her life or from the Navy guy who said the rai-kirah series was passed around through every hand on the submarine and was the main topic of discussion between exercises for the entire six-month deployment. That leaves a lot of days when the writing comes hard and it becomes very easy to doubt oneself. Thus when something comes along like the Geffen Award, where the entire membership of the Israeli science fiction convention votes my book as the best fantasy of the year, or the Colorado Book Award, where my book is judged worthy to stand beside the best works from our region, it is a very welcome validation.

RMFW: What are your goals and aspirations? I guess what I'm wondering is if you have a plan.
Carol: I hope to keep writing stories that readers find intelligent, stimulating, and worthy of keeping on their bookshelves for a reread. I would love to hear more people say, "I never read fantasy until I read your books. Now I understand that it is not just pulp or amusement for children, but is the grand canvas on which every human story can be articulated in marvelous ways." And, of course, the NYT bestseller list or a World Fantasy Award would be very nice.

RMFW: Advice for aspiring writers?
Carol: Of course!

  1. Read, read, read.  Read outside your chosen genre.  Read classics.  Read good literature.  Read good writing.
  2. Learn the craft.  Learn grammar.  Learn writing.  Learn about point of view and maid-and-butler dialogue and run-on sentences and said-bookisms. Ask yourself what is it about such-and-such a writer's characters that makes them seem like real people.
  3. Write.  Rewrite.  Write more.  Write a million words before you think about getting published.  Learn to accept critique.  Find critiquers who are
    • readers of many books
    • writers of your own or slightly above your level
    • striving to be honest in their reactions to your work, rather than either being merely supportive or trying to transform your work into theirs.  Learn what to do with critique (critiques are lists of symptoms, not diseases or cures). Rewrite yet again.

RMFW: Advice for professional writers - one thing that you think a professional writer should do to help push their career.
Carol: Keep reading. Keep learning. Keep writing. Keep listening. Write what you love.

Carol's Bio

Carol Berg was a shy software engineer who discovered her true professional family when she walked into her first writers' conference. Thanks to the support of critique partners, contest judges, conference volunteers, and fellow writers, Carol transformed her hobby of writing epic fantasy novels into a full time writing career. Her books have won the Colorado Book Award for genre fiction (Song of the Beast), the Prism Award for best romantic fantasy (Daughter of Ancients) and the Geffen Award for Best Fantasy in Translation (Transformation), and have finaled for the Compton Crook Award, the Barnes & Noble Maiden Voyage Award, and the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award. Her novels have been translated into six languages.

Carol participates in two critique groups, volunteers at the Colorado Gold Writers Conference, and mentors young writers she's met through RMFW, the Poudre R-1 International Baccalaureate program, and writers' workshops. She has presented writing workshops at Colorado Gold, RMFW monthly program, Metro State, CU Denver, Pikes Peak Writers Conference, Colorado Writers Workshop, World Science Fiction Convention, World Fantasy Convention, Opus Fantasy Arts Festival, and other science fiction conventions in the US and Canada. She was a guest faculty member at the 2006 Surrey International Writers Conference in British Columbia, guest of honor at the 2007 ICon Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Roleplaying Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel, and will be a keynote speaker at the 2008 Pikes Peak Writers Conference. Carol's tenth novel, Breath and Bone, will be released in January 2008.

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