Interview with Mary Connealy

Mary Connealy is an author, journalist and a teacher. She releases three books with Barbour this year, is a columnist

for the Lyons Mirror-Sun, and an occasional book reviewer for the Sioux City Journal.


She lives on a farm in Nebraska with her husband, Ivan and their four daughters, Joslyn, Wendy, Shelly and Katy.


http://www.maryconnealy.com/


http://www.mconnealy.blogspot.com/

What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

I have my first two books coming out in February! Petticoat Ranch and Golden Days. I'm so thrilled about both of them.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I must have had about the best ‘call’ a writer can have. Heartsong Presents gave me a contract at the 2005 ACFW Conference. So my ‘call’ was in front of 350 people. All writers, so many of them friends who were wonderful to me afterward, congratulating me. It was one of the sweetest moments of my life.

As for the journey, it was a long one. I wrote for at least ten years before I got published. I like to think of it as laboring in mole-like anonymity. I’m not saying I was writing WELL all that time, but I was writing. I’ve got around fifteen finished novels. I still love all those stories, but I’ve gone back and read them and I can really tell I’ve gotten better. REALLY.

I’m a Nebraska farm wife who lives so far out in the wilderness we have to yell out the window to tell the coyotes to shut up so we can sleep. I was completely cut off from any writer’s community for a long time. I’d probably been writing two years or more before I heard of Romance Writer’s of America. It was another three or four before ACFW crossed my radar. All those years I finished books, wrote steadily and send in my masterpieces only to be rejected a long, long, long time later.

I had a lot of little thrills that kept me going. I placed third in a contest I found through RWA’s magazine. There was an actual cash prize of $5.00 for third place. Then it turned out I only tied for third place so I had to split the money. I got $2.50. You know what? I was still thrilled. I was writing secular fiction at first, there was hardly such a thing as Christian fiction. Targeting Silhouette’s sweet romances and I got a request for a full manuscript. Ultimately it was rejected but it was all little bits of success.

About five years into my ten year journey I remember saying to my husband, Ivan, that I felt like I needed to get serious about getting published. I started attending a writer’s group, an RWA chapter, in Omaha once a month. An hour plus drive. I took some day-long seminars. I started entering a lot more contests, certainly not always placing, but I managed to place in eleven contests with five different books in those five years.

Then I discovered ACFW. I joined before I was even on-line at home. Trying to keep up with fifty to one hundred emails a day, when I could only check my email once a week at the library, was tricky.

But I found out about the conference and the Noble Theme contest. I managed to be a double finalist, I applied for and was granted a scholarship and, using every ounce of courage – that’s absolutely true – I got on a plane for the first time in my life. I traveled without my husband for the first time in my life.

Yikes, I’m getting chills just typing this. I was so scared. But I’d joined a critique group and was rooming with one of them, Suzanne Smykla Osborne and knew another one well, Christy Barritt, and was counting on them to keep me alive.

Wow, this is answer is too long.

Anyway, I won the contest and also placed third and I got a lot of requests from editors and met so many lovely, kind Christian people, including Cathy Marie Hake. Cathy asked, after the Noble Theme win, if she could read my book. I sent it to her and she became a mentor to me and pitched a three book series to Heartsong, where she was one of their top authors, and pitched me to write book two.

Nothing was guaranteed of course. At the next year’s conference, Tracie Peterson called out my name, offering me a contract. Kathleen Y’Barbo is writing Book Three. I can’t believe I’ve fallen in with such talented, successful writers. What a blessing.

They say in writing it’s all who you know. And that sounds bad, disdainful almost, like, ‘well sure you can get published if you have connections.’ But what’s lost in there is how many chances there are to GET TO KNOW someone. So get out there and make connection, get to know someone, and write a good book so when you DO get to know someone, you’re ready.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication?

I had an agent for a year that I regret teaming with. Not evil, just not good. That left me floundering for a while because I assumed he/she'd submitted everything I had everywhere. So didn’t that mean I was done? All the books I’d written had been rejected by everyone. That threw me for a while and I spent about a year just writing, trying to figure out what to do next, before I started submitting, agent hunting, and entering contests again.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?


Read and write.

That’s it.

The reading is the textbook. The writing is the homework. That’s your assignment. Read and write.

Somewhat shorter than the first answer, huh?

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

Having one POV per scene is old school.

I remember someone telling me that a couple of years ago. I think I’d judged her entry in a contest and I pointed out Point of View errors and when she ‘thanked’ me she told me I was off base with all those POV corrections. Well, she was unpublished, I was unpublished. What did I know? But I was sure I had this one right.

She said one POV per scene is old school. I wrote her back and said, “If you’re Nora Roberts you can head hop all you want. Guess what? You’re not Nora. Learn POV.”

Well, maybe I was a little more polite than that, but I did try and correct her. And I don’t believe I’ve heard from her again.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

You know, I think I had to do it the way I did. I think I needed those years of writing alone to learn. I think I needed that first agent to learn to trust myself more. Honestly, I think every step of the journey was necessary. I was NOT one of those perfect few, turning out heartbreaking works of staggering genius from day one. Even my books from five years ago—the point at which I decided I was ready to get really serious—need so much work when I reread them now.

The one thing I think I’ve always done is told a pretty good story. I still love the stories I told. I just did it with too much back story, too little scene settings, too many adverbs and ‘was’s, too few senses, too many talking heads. Man, oh man, there is so much to learn even if the story is good. I needed the time to learn.

What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

An evil, evil question and you deserve to have this interview go on too long if you’re going to ask me that.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is my favorite.

Second is: A Lantern in her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldridge. I don’t read it very often though, because I just can’t stand to cry that hard. If anyone who reads this is familiar with this book, email me. I’d love to see if this crying thing is personal, or possibly some undiagnosed mental illness. Does this book have the same affect on anyone else?

Okay, enough with the classics. What I love now is romantic comedy suspense. I just love that style of book. I love fast dialogue, sharp comedy and if someone’s trying to kill them while they’re sassing each other and falling in love, then I’m happy.

Julie Garwood and Susan Elizabeth Phillips are my favorite. Of course they’re secular but they’re so talented, and so funny.

In Christian fiction I read widely and in all genres. I love everything Rene Gutteridge touches. Her suspense is excellent but her comedy Boo series is unbelievably funny. She just stands alone with that hilarious manic madness in Boo.

I would trust Angela Hunt with anything.

I’m a big Terri Blackstock fan and Dee Henderson. I think Wanda Dyson is fantastic.

I read everything Susan May Warren writes. I especially loved her Deep Haven series.
I could go on forever.

No one would recognize it but I have tried to emulate…brace yourself, it’s off the wall…Clive Cussler in my writing. I think he’s the best at action and keeping you hooked. No one does it better, except maybe early Mary Higgins Clark. I used to close one of her books and just stare at it and think, “How did she do that? How did she strap me into a rollercoaster inside a book?”

Okay, I’ll stop. I’ll want to write back tomorrow and add ten more. What was I THINKING to leave (fill in the blank with ten authors’ names) off my list?

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

I am as proud of Petticoat Ranch as anything I’ve done. For me writing always starts with story. Characters always come next. Sometimes I write for three chapters before I know my characters well enough to fall in love with them, at which point I usually throw most of the first three chapters.

The trouble with writing sequels—which I’ve done for Petticoat Ranch—is, with sequels, you almost have to start with characters, because bringing along characters from the first book is what it’s all about. So I struggle because the story isn’t there and I’m trying to force it. But that’s part of the process too. I write for a while, with a story idea fairly undeveloped, then I finally latch onto the story and I usually throw out the early chapters, go back, dive into the story first with the characters along for the ride. That’s when it works for me.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I’m a full time GED Instructor. My job is fairly uneven as far as how busy I am. Some days I am sitting in the class room alone, or with two or three students, quietly studying. Some days I never have a second of downtime, I can’t even step out for ten minutes for lunch.

Because of this erratic work load, writing during the day isn’t productive. In the evening, I’m either reading or writing. I’m an insomniac so I stay up late at night and can get a lot done.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

Okay, another bratty question. How am I going to pick, huh?

I’d have Julie Garwood’s flair for humorous conflict

Susan Elizabeth’s glorious dialogue

Angela Hunt’s creative courage

Clive Cussler’s sense of a painting on a huge canvas.

Mary Higgin’s Clark’s pacing.

Not asking for much there.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

I’d love to publish every book I’ve already written. I’d love to have a career. I’d love to know I made people laugh out loud while I gave them a faith message that honored God.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

I just love to write. It’s hard to explain but as I sit here typing the answer to this question, I’m enjoying myself. I make myself laugh. I love sassy dialogue. I love it if I can make myself misty with some sentiment or other. I like playing with words. How do I make this action scene fast paced? How to I keep myself entertained while I write? I am sure, whether I’d have ever gotten published or not, I would have never quit writing. It’s just pure fun for me. I know nothing about writer’s block. I like that first rush of creation. I love writing a blurb that tries to catch the whole book in one sentence. I love editing and revising. I love reading some new article and thinking, ‘This would make a great premise for a new book.’ I just love every step of the process.

Writing is a funny thing for me. I almost never know what I’m going to write before I start clicking on the keys.

When I sat down to write 90,000 word Petticoat Ranch all I had in my head was ‘Vigilantes.’ That’s it. One word. I know how to outline a book before I write it. And I do it. It’s okay, but it’s not my natural inclination.

That isn’t answering your question.

My favorite part? Humor, making a line click, cutting, moving words around so the punch line comes at the right moment with the right number of syllables, the set up is good, the pacing is right.

Least favorite? Fear. Lots of fear in writing. I once said, and it got quoted somewhere, “Take all your rejection letters and wad them up with glue and turn them into papier mache and cover yourself with them, because you need a thick hide to survive as a writer.” That’s true. I’ve taken so many hits, so many rejections, just like every other author, both published and unpublished. If you can’t handle that, then get out NOW. Because that’s all there is, often for years, if you want to get published.

And fear of traveling alone, and of meeting strangers, and of talking in front of people. Fear, wow there’s a lot of that.

There’s a reason I sit behind a computer and type you know! I’m happy here! I’m fairly bright and humorous and spunky here, at least I think I am and since there’s no one else here…then I get the only vote, right?

Parting words?

Sorry it’s so long. By the way, I’m a compulsive apologizer…and I’m really sorry about that. (Oh, come on, that’s funny! Even if you have heard it a hundred times before)
‘Too Long’ must happen all the time when you’re dealing with writers, so you should have expected it.

I hope you can fit it. What am I talking about? I hope you can stay awake through it.
God bless you for wanting to talk to me. No doubt, now that you’ve read it, you will claim it was a mix-up in the head office and you don’t have an open date, but I had fun writing these answers anyway.