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Barbara,
your new book coming out next month is called Their Doorstep
Baby. Could you tell us a little about it? How did it come
about?
This
book began when my editor asked me to contribute to a miniseries
called Maybe Baby focusing on a strong emotional
situation for women: pregnancy, infertility, having or adopting
a baby. I had already written a baby book and really enjoyed
exploring the emotions triggered by an unexpected pregnancy and
so I approached this new challenge quite happily. The starting
idea came quickly. I wanted to write about sisters - a married
older sister, heartbroken by her problem of infertility and a
younger (wild child) sister offering to have a baby for her.
But
of course, I was also writing a romance, so I knew that the
relationship between Claire and Adam (the husband and wife)
would still hold centre stage. It was very different and
exciting to be starting a romance with a couple who have already
been married for eight years.
Yes,
absolutely. I've never read a so-called "sweet"
romance which deals so powerfully with an issue and yet centres
it so beautifully in a relationship. When I first realised
this was "an infertility" book, I must admit I had
expectations of where the story would go. It's by no means the
first time I've read a romance where infertility is the main
source of conflict. However I soon realised that you'd taken a
very different angle. The opening is one of the most dramatic
and intense beginnings to a M&B "sweet" romance
I've ever read.
I
can thank my editor Jo Craig for that. Originally this scene
took place in about chapter three, but because my heroine Claire
does something rather startling, Jo felt she might lose reader
sympathy. So at Jo's suggestion, I moved the scene to the front
of the story and signalled to readers that Claire's behaviour is
out of character, but if they read on they will understand why.
I'm so glad to hear that you think it works.
I've
read almost all your books and it seems to me that with each new
book, you stretch and grow a little more as a writer. Would you
agree with that? Do you set yourself challenges with each new
book?
Wow!
Thanks, Anne. I feel as if I'm learning so much about writing
all the time, but I'm never sure if it shows. Yes, I do keep
challenging myself and to a certain extent I think it has meant
that I'm still finding out what my true voice is and what kind
of story I write best. I'm beginning to understand that very
emotional stories suit me. (I'm a huge fan of LaVyrle Spencer. I
love the way she gives her characters incredible emotional
dilemmas, problems that appear to be impossible to resolve.)
With each book, I experiment... with levels of emotional
intensity ...or the impact of setting... or a particular type of
character... I love the challenge of trying to lift the bar all
the time and would hate to feel I was getting stale.
Writing
for the Tender/Harlequin Romance line gives lots of
opportunities to experiment. Samantha Bell, senior editor in
charge of the line, encourages us to explore all kinds of
themes, relationship scenarios and aspirations of women at all
stages of their life - digging deep into the emotions, moving
readers, yet also offering a positive and feel-good reading
experience.
Were
you aware when you were writing Their Doorstep Baby that
you were "pushing the envelope"?
I
imagine that for every writer there are certain books that feel
more special than others and very soon after I started writing Their
Doorstep Baby, I knew that this book was challenging me to
"grow up" as a writer. When the books starts, my hero
and heroine have been married for many years and that's a whole
new ball game for a category romance writer who's only written
regular boy-meets-girl stories. But at the same time, I was so
involved with my characters that they were more or less writing
the story for me. It was as if they were taking me to a new
level rather than the other way around.
You
made the romance feel very fresh and alive nevertheless. It
struck me that the love you were portraying was a richer, more
mature love - a love under severely challenging circumstances
which a newer relationship perhaps couldn't bear.
Most
definitely. Claire and Adam's love had been building throughout
their marriage. And because they live in the isolated outback,
they'd become business partners and very good friends as well as
lovers. Adam had learned to shield Claire from her family's
apparent lack of concern about her problems and the sheer
intimacy of the infertility issue meant they were examining
their marriage at a very deep emotional level.
You
write so convincingly of the anguish of infertility, I'm sure
readers will be wondering whether you write from personal
experience.
Actually,
I might not seem to be a very suitable person to be writing
about infertility. I have four children and when I was younger,
I was very "into" natural childbirth and
breastfeeding. I used to counsel other women on these matters.
In fact, the husband of one of my friends claimed that women
could get pregnant just talking to me on the telephone!
But
I think this keen interest helped, too. I've seen so many
examples of the joy that parenthood brings to many men and
women, that I can also imagine the terrible pain for those
couples, who really want children, but are denied this
happiness.
Did
you research the issue any further than that?
Yes,
I did research the topic, paying particular attention to the
psychological impact of infertility rather than the medical
procedures (which are decidedly unromantic!) and I have a good
writing friend who has never been able to have children and who
was happy to read my manuscript and give me valuable feedback.
There is a scene in the book where Claire is going through a box
of baby things that she has collected over the years while she
hopes to fall pregnant and my friend said she broke down while
reading that part. It reminded her so much of exactly how she
had felt and behaved.
I
was sobbing away at 2 am, myself! The story could so easily have
become an "issue" book, and yet it never did.
How did you manage that?
I
was always very conscious that the romance still had to be
central. I was lucky that Claire and Adam's love was very real
for me. I wanted to show very early in the book how emotionally
intense and sensual their relationship was, so that when later
events threaten to destroy their marriage, the reader is very
aware of how devastating this is for both of them.
Your
Adam is a wonderful hero -- strong and passionate and
supportive. Are your heroes purely products of your
imagination, or are they based in any way on real-life heroes?
What
I enjoyed most about Adam was that I able to show him in a
powerfully sexual role right from the start. However, one thing
that I think shapes the deeper qualities of my heroes (apart
from the gorgeous, passionate sexiness, which is a given in a
romance) is that I never had a brother, so as a child I used to
imagine a lovely older brother, who stood up for me in the
school yard, who introduced me to his dishy mates, who gently
teased me or cheered me up and was generally my idol... and at
some Jungian level, I think every one of my heroes has a little
of him in them.
The
outback might not seem the obvious setting for a story of this
kind. You are well known here and overseas for your wonderful
outback settings, but your last few books have been more urban.
Was there any particular reason for returning to the outback for
this story?
My
editor asked me to go back to an outback setting for this story
and after my last two books which weren't in the outback, I was
surprised to find that it felt like coming home to be writing
about the bush again. I'm beginning to feel as if the outback is
my natural writing environment . For some reason I can't put my
finger on, my outback characters feel especially real and
individual to me. I guess it might be because I genuinely love
the Australian bush and I'm fascinated by the unique challenges
that come with living in remote places.
So
what's coming up in the future for Barbara Hannay?
My
next book A Bride at Birralee (Jan/Feb 2003) is another
outback book which plunges Stella and Callum into an intensely
emotional situation that results in a marriage of convenience.
(I outlined this scenario in my article about emotional punch in
the March 2002 edition of Hearts Talk) This book brought another
new challenge - my first marriage of convenience ... and I loved
it! I'm so lucky to have this job!
Yep,
it's a great job, no argument from me, though it's not without
its difficulties. One of the difficulties you in particular
face, Barbara, is the great distance you live from other
writers. You once explained to some overseas writers that the
distance you live from your state capital city (and the nearest
other Harlequin Mills and Boon author) is the same distance as
London to Moscow . I know there are a lot of isolated writers
out there -- do you have any advice to offer them?
I
do get lonely at times and long for a face to face chat with a
fellow writer, but email is a lifesaver and there are many
wonderful online writing loops. ROMAUS is one of the best! I've
found the information shared and the support of writing friends
via email has been invaluable. I'd also urge isolated writers to
go to conferences. It can be expensive, but I always come away
from them feeling re-inspired and reconnected to the wider
writing world.
But
I'd like to point out that there can be advantages in being
isolated, too. Before I was published, I had no idea how many
other aspiring writers there were out there. If I'd known too
much about the competition, I might have given up too soon. I'd
sold two books before I attended my first conference. Sometimes
you can hear too much gossip about this industry and then your
insecurities over-react. Alone, you might stand a better chance of
believing in yourself - no matter what! (And after all, that's
the secret to success.)
Find out more about Barbara on her website at
www.barbarahannay.com
Previous
interviews: The Wedding
Dare Mar 2002
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I've
loved every one of Barbara Hannay's books, ever since her first
one came out 3 years ago. I started reading her latest book, Their
Doorstep Baby, late one night and couldn't put it down. Not
only did it deliver the trademark Hannay wonderful read, it was
also something new -- something of a genre-bender, very powerful
and involving . I kept thinking "tour de force" as I
read it.