Lucky 13 Interview With Carol Carman

1 - Can you start by telling us a little about your current book?

My latest book is called Twicetime and it's a humorous fantasy which takes elements of Frankenstein and puts them into a new comic setting. To give you a flavour of the book, try this:

Building a bodyguard to kill your aristocratic niece’s vengeful ex-husband should be easy for a witch. All you need is the right body and the right magic, and soon you have a mindless killer to do your bidding. Of course, it all depends on what the butler brings back from the cemetery…

The aristocracy and the workers rub shoulders with the resurrected in a battle for life, love and supremacy, not to mention a castle and a fortune. But it’s also very much a story about relationships; some characters want to get into one, some want to get out of one and others have no choice about theirs. As the story unfolds, people find out who they really are and what they really want – and how far they’re prepared to go to get it.

2 - Plotter or pantser?

Both, to tell the truth. I have an idea of where the story starts, who the main characters are, roughly what they're going to do and where I'd like it to end, but within that loose framework everything's up for grabs, really.

3 - Savoury or sweet?

Definitely savoury. I think it's because my mum thought that if you weren't eating three square meals a day you were sickening for something! She was a marvellous 'plain' cook - roast dinners, pies, grills - and every Sunday afternoon she'd stand and bake cakes, buns, scones, sausage rolls, pasties, the lot. She also made so many Christmas cakes every year she used to mix the ingredients together in our old baby bath!

4 - Three books to a desert island?

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.

Although it was Mort that first got me into Pratchett, it's got to be a Sam Vimes novel so why not start at the beginning?

The Story of English by Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil and William Cran.

I'm fascinated by the history of the English language, and I know I could read this again and again (because I have done) and find something new in it every time (usually something I'd forgotten!).

Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

I could travel round Europe without leaving my desert island while being thoroughly amused by the dry wit of Bill Bryson.

If it’s three novels you’re after, then Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, The Antipope by Robert Rankin and The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

5 - Star Wars or Star Trek

It'd have to be Star Trek, if only because a) I watched the originals when I was a child; b) it's funnier (often unintentionally); c) it's evolved well over the years; d) if it hadn't been for a woman, Lucille Ball, it wouldn't have been made at all.

6- If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Unselfishly – to eradicate world poverty and make everybody from the lowest to the highest realise that if we all worked together we’d all be better off.

Selfishly – to clone myself so that one of me could do all the admin of life (shopping, cooking, cleaning, actual admin, etc.) while the other one of me could just sit there writing.

7 – Music or Silence when writing?

Silence or listening to my husband playing his acoustic guitar – as long as it’s nothing I could sing along to because that’s all I’d do.

8 – If you could live anywhere in the world, and take everything that you love with you, where would you choose?

It’s a very close-run thing between York and somewhere on the coast of Italy, but Italy wins.

9 - Your favourite karaoke song?

Karaoke’s not for me, I’m afraid, but a song I can’t resist joining in with is Billy Joel’s Until The Night. It’s one of the few songs that I still have to play twice in succession because it’s so good, the others being Distant Summers by Chris Rea and You Won’t Be There by the Alan Parsons Project.

10 – One piece of advice to an aspiring writer?

Be prepared to do what you have to do to get the level of success you want, and be prepared for rejections along the way.

11 – You win £1 million, but you must give half to charity. Which charity do you chose, and what do you do with the rest of the money?

Charity: Cancer Research Campaign. Too many of my family – myself included – have had cancer.

Rest of the money:

Unselfishly – split the money between our nieces and nephews.

Selfishly – have an indoor swimming pool built on to the house. I’ve always wanted one.

12 – Horror films, yes or no? If so, any favourites?

No.

13 – What are you currently working on?

Current projects are: a) a collection of short stories, all involving the flip side of fairy tales; b) the next novel in my series of comedy fantasy books; c) working with a cartoonist friend on a novel about a Christmas-influenced dystopian society!