Today, we will meet a gifted author by the name of Maggie Mooha
Author Spotlight: Maggie Mooha
Thank you for joining us. Please tell me a little about yourself.
I just retired after 40 years in the classroom. I know… yikes! I taught music for most of my career and in a variety of places. I’ve lived in England, Tanzania and the Philippines and traveled quite extensively. I think seeing a lot of the world helped me in my writing… being able to see other people’s perspectives.
Could you let us in on what you’re working on now? The book I just finished is called Mr. Darcy and the Suffragette. I set the original Pride and Prejudice story in the Edwardian rather than the Regency period. I had to think of what Elizabeth Bennet might be up to in 1910. She’d be in the Votes for Women movement for sure. It’s kind of a “Pride and Prejudice meets Mr. Selfridge meets Titanic” story.
Which of your stories is your favorite? So far, I like my third book the best, In the Eye of the Beholder, because it’s the first one I’ve written with completely original characters. Of course, since I write historical romance, there are real people from the period in the story such as Florence Nightingale, and the men who served in the Light Brigade.
What’s your inspiration? I think my inspiration in writing the P&P variations is reading some of the work other people have written. I then to veer off quite a bit from the drawing room drama into more of the historical events and social issues of the time. Some people find that a bit disconcerting, but a little dose of reality never hurt anyone, right? I’m a real history buff, and love doing the research for each book. I’ve really learned a lot.
How and when did you begin writing? Actually, I started by writing screenplays. I had a really good mentor, Madeline DiMaggio, who has written a lot of episodes for TV. I would send her my work and she would evaluate it page by page. She taught me how to stay on the path of the storyline. If it doesn’t further the story, get rid of it. That sort of thing was hard for me at the beginning, but I’m better at it now.
What is one of your favorite books by another author? I have two favorite books. The first one is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, a largely unsung genius of the Harlem Renaissance and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. The stories are sometime tough to read, especially Lolita, but the writing in both books is magnificent. Hurston’s prose is practically poetry.
Have you considered writing in other genres? Oh, sure. I’ve written a teleplay for The X-Files, and a Star Trek novel - both unproduced/ unpublished. I got an agent for the Star Trek book, but when she brought it to the powers that be, they told her they wouldn’t take anything from an author that they weren’t already publishing. That was discouraging.
What is your writing process? Do you need silence or music? I write best in the morning, and I must have absolute silence. I think the only people who can’t have music playing all the time are musicians. We tend to listen and then get distracted. I don’t even like it at parties. I can’t concentrate on what people are saying.
How long does it usually take you to write a book? The first book, Elizabeth in the New World, took me more than four years. Granted, I was only working on it during summer breaks from school, but I thought and rethought that one. Now, I have been publishing one per year, but hope to shorten that in the future.
Have you ever had Writer’s Block? I’ve been stuck in the middle of writing a book, but I’ve never been without an idea. Some of them were really terrible. Sometimes, the really terrible idea will lead to something that works. I just have to keep writing. I think I take out as much prose as I put in. I go down a lot of blind alleys before the book comes out right.
Do you have pets? I have a dog named Roxy. She’s 13. She lays down on the floor right behind me when I’m writing. That dog is on her own internal schedule. She gets me up to walk her during the day and that has helped me clear out the cobwebs when I’m writing.
What is your favorite part of writing? My favorite part of writing is rewriting. Doing the first draft is hard, hard work. Slogging. Once it’s done, though, I love playing with it. As Gertrude Stein once said, “I love having written.”
Thank you for taking part in my Author Spotlight on my blog.
Please check out Maggie's books: Amazon Author Page
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