Interview Roberta Olsen Major

by

Megan Hart

 1. In your new release, PIECRUST PROMISES, your heroine is turning 40. What did you enjoy most about writing a mature heroine? How was Nellie's story different than if she'd been turning 20, instead, or even 30?

I have to laugh at your phrase "mature heroine", simply because Nellie Farmer, for all she's just turned 40, still has an awful lot of maturing to do. She's the biggest busybody in town. She's always sticking her nose into everybody's business. She couldn't bridle her tongue if her life depended on it--and she never met a pie that she didn't like. Plus, she's been carrying around a grudge for half a lifetime that, through the course of the story, she is going to have to face up to one way or another. The thing I most enjoyed about telling Nellie's story is that, even at 40, she has opportunities to learn, to grow, and yes, to find love. And these opportunities are richer for her being past that first blush of youth. The story would have been completely different if she were younger. In fact, I can't imagine it. It takes a decade or two of extra seasoning before you can see the humor in things that, when fresh, were too painful to face.

2. You've been with Wings since its launch in 2001, with several YA books published in addition to your historical fiction. Do you write your YA novels differently than you do your books for adult readers, or is the process the same?

The process is the same: I think, I write, I set aside for awhile, and then I revise, revise, revise. With my YA fairy tale series, however, I also read an early draft aloud to my kids and they tell me where I have gone wrong. My youngest is especially good at this.

While the historicals take a bigger measure of advance research, I also spend time in researching a bit for the YA books.

3. How much research do you do when writing your historical fiction?

I did a huge boatload of research before I wrote BOUND, and another healthy dose before I started TIES, but by then I knew the era--and the fictionalized town of Williams Trace--quite well, so I only had a few questions I needed to have answered before I dived into PIECRUST PROMISES.

On the other hand, in the historicals that I have co-written with my writing partner, Sara Olds, each volume of the LETTERS FROM THE ATTIC series has tackled a new era and a different geographical location, so they have all required a lot of reading, note-taking and time-consuming research.

4. Is there one era you prefer over others, when writing?

I'm most at home in pre-Civil War Texas, but I enjoy researching other places and times as well.

5. What kinds of books or movies do you read/watch to inspire your own writing?

Penelope Williamson's HEART OF THE WEST is the best "Western romance" I have ever read. It was after I finished it that I realized I really could write about the time and place I was most drawn to, even though it wasn't Regency England.

My reading tastes are very eclectic. I think variety is good, though I don't know that I read or watch anything in particular to "inspire" my writing. The stories are in me--and they don't need a whole lot of encouragement to work their way out! One thing pretty much leads to another.

6. Do you have any writing rituals which you never fail to perform?

Nope. Except that I don't go back and tinker much until I've finished the whole first draft. I don't like music on while I'm working. I don't dress in particular clothes or keep a bottle of something special within easy reach. I just write when I can--usually in short bursts between the events of life--and then I mull things over as I go about my inescapable daily routines until I can carve out another hour or two at my computer.

7. If you could transport yourself into any one of your books as its heroine, which book would you choose, and why?

As its heroine? That's hard. I'm not the heroine type. Though, come to think of it, not a lot of my heroines are the heroine type either! :) I think, if it were a play, I'd have the most fun casting myself as Nellie in PIECRUST PROMISES. She's funny, she's capable, and she doesn't suffer fools gladly. But as for living the lives of any of my Texas characters, I'd have to pass. Getting along in the 1850s was an awful lot of work and grief--and I'd really miss my computer.

8. Many authors have a "drawer book," one they wrote which is just not going to make the grade. Maybe it's a book they wrote before they knew the ropes, or one which simply didn't work. Do you have any drawer books, and do you think you could ever salvage them?

I actually have three partials that I still pull out every once in awhile to take another look at. One is a Star Trek knock-off, so that one is W-A-Y beyond resuscitation! (I was much younger then. :) One is a quasi-futuristic "epic" that begins on earth and then departs for outer space. And one is a contemporary governess story. (Believe me when I say that contemporary romance is not my forte!) All in all, I think all three are best left in the drawer to moulder away....

9. What's the one book you wish you'd written instead of its author?

Oh, there are dozens--all of them children's books! SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL by Patricia MacLachlan is a perfect book with not a single unnecessary word or wasted phrase. Dr. Seuss's HORTON HATCHES THE EGG. Janet Stevens' THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON. ELLA ENCHANTED by Gail Carson Levine. HOW MURRAY SAVED CHRISTMAS, a hilarious story in poem with not one clunky rhyme (which is harder to do than most people realize). The Harry Potter books--not because J.K. Rowling is fabulously wealthy from them (though that's a nice perk) but because she got kids excited about reading.

I can't think of a single "adult" book that I wish I'd written--but I could sit here and list books for young readers for hours and not run out of titles.

10. What's your favorite inspirational quote? Perhaps one that motivates you to write, or maybe it's not even writing related.

Well, it isn't necessarily inspirational, but I like the following quote about writing because it is so true it hurts--even as you laugh:

"Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing."

--Margaret Chittenden, writer