Interview with Caroline Barnard-Smith

http://carolinebarnardsmith.co.uk

Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

It feels like I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. I was about five or six when I wrote my first manuscript – a plagiarized version of Grease (my favorite movie at the time), badly typed on my mum’s electric type writer and barely filling one side of A4. Needless to say, it took many more years of practice before I finally wrote a story that was good enough to be published.

Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?

I became an On Writing devotee (Stephen King’s book about the craft of writing) at university and followed the excellent advice about trying to get short stories published before branching out with a full-fledged novel. My first published story (a dark vampire tale set in sunny Spain called Alessandro’s Legacy) found a home in the pages of small press magazine, Hungur. After years of wanting to see my name in print, I think that getting that first acceptance was even more exciting than finding out my novel was going to be published (if that’s possible!)

My first novel, Dunraven Road, took me over three years to complete in-between a variety of boredom-intense office jobs. I did a ridiculous amount of research on which publishing route to try and after looking at agents, publishing houses, ebook publishers and even print on demand companies, decided to submit my novel to Immanion Press. They appealed to me because they’re dedicated to keeping the books they publish in print, unlike most of the large publishing houses who can pull a novel from the shelves in a couple of weeks if they feel it’s underperforming. Luckily for me, Immanion liked my work and agreed to publish it.

Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?

Dunraven Road could be called a dark, Gothic vampire story, but essentially it’s about a group of friends living in a small town. Their relationships with each other are complicated and often intense, only serving to fuel their addiction to a hallucinogenic drug called red. The group’s leader, a sadistic egomaniac called Zach, is obsessed with the idea of becoming a vampire – little does he know that real vampires have arrived in the town, intent on feasting upon the drug addled population.

One of the things I wanted to achieve with Dunraven Road was the creation of a truly monstrous vampire. I feel that too often, vampires in modern fiction are too slow to reach for their fangs. They want to be your confidante or your boyfriend. They don’t usually want to bite your neck and feast on your blood. The evil vampires in Dunraven Road are called The Ancient Order, a secret sect of vampires who delight in the taking of life and thrive on the chase. I’ve tried to make vampires scary again, the way they were in Bram Stoker’s imagination.

What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?

I have too many inspirations to name just one! Many writers have helped to shape my imagination. Stephen King showed me how really great dialogue should be written, Anne Rice excited me by delving deeper into the psyche of a vampire than anyone had done before and Poppy Z. Brite took my breath away with the sheer beauty with which she describes the most grotesque images. I’m also a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan. The Lord of the Rings truly transported me to Middle Earth and his descriptive passages are amazing.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Whedonverse (i.e. shows created by the mighty Joss Whedon) in general have also been huge inspirations, both in life and my writing. Whenever I’m feeling low, I take out my DVDs and listen to the wisdom of Buffy.

Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!

My family have been fantastic, particularly my husband and my parents. I dedicated Dunraven Road to my mum because she’s the poor woman who gets to read my work first and tell me if it’s terrible or not. She’ll go through entire manuscripts with a red pen, marking out all the sentences that need attention or the paragraphs that need some work. She’ll also nag me if she thinks I’m not writing often enough – which can be intensely annoying at the time but is actually just the kick up the behind a committed procrastinator like myself frequently needs.

One of the nicer surprises I had once the novel was published was discovering how excited my wider family were, even though we’re spread all across the UK. My sister in Bournemouth convinced many of her work colleagues to buy a copy and helped me design my website. Both of my grandmothers have read the book, as has my uncle (who told me some parts were so gross he needed a walk in his garden to calm down) and my cousin, Charley (who accosted her school librarian and demanded to know why they weren’t stocking it!) Then there’s my aunt in Kent who has recently had an operation on her eyes. She was so upset when she couldn’t read my book straight away, she ordered special glasses to speed up the healing process.

Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?

Pizza, definitely. Large, stuffed crust, extra cheese. It’s all about the cheese.

What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?

1) Hit the snooze button on my alarm clock.
2) Make a very large, very strong coffee.
3) Check my email/Twitter/Facebook – Try to tear myself away from email/Twitter/Facebook.

I’m hideous in the mornings. It takes me forever to wake up, stop procrastinating and knuckle down to tackle a decent amount of writing. I can write quite quickly once I get started, but for some reason the thought of starting is worse than actually doing it.

If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise me the most?

Probably the ridiculous amount of yarn. I taught myself to knit a few years ago in an effort to keep my hands busy and stop chewing my fingernails. My nails are as bad as ever, but I can knit a wicked pair of gloves to cover them up.

Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?

I’d be a nice, rich purple because it’s my favorite color. It’s not quite pink and not quite black, neither too girly nor too dark – just like me, in fact.

Who is your favorite cartoon character?

The king of propane: Hank Hill. He may not have the most exciting adventures, but he always makes me laugh (which is more than Family Guy’s been doing lately!)

Which cartoon character is most like you?

I’d like to think I’m like Futurama’s Leela. She’s intelligent, kicks ass and looks good in boots. Unfortunately, I’m probably more like Selma from The Simpsons.

If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in history, where and when would it be—and why?

After much contemplation, I think I’d have to choose the legendary kingdom of Camelot in the time of King Arthur. Wouldn’t you love to find out if the stories were true? If there really was a wizard called Merlin and a magical lady in the lake? Plus, there were a lot of very fit knights running around jousting and the fashions for women were out of this world. I’m just not sure if I could acclimatize to the lack of decent sanitation.

So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while you’re writing?

I always have music on when I’m writing. I often find it influences the mood of the current scene I’m working on or inspires me in some way. I’ve been listening to a lot of symphonic metal lately: dark, decadent bands with stunning vocalists like Sons of Seasons and Epica. I’ve also loved Placebo since I was a teenager – I don’t think they’ve ever produced a bad album.

Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last movie you saw at the theater?

Well, I’ve already mentioned my ongoing love affair with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (by the way, I’m definitely on Team Angel - I want Spike all to myself). At the moment I’m really enjoying True Blood (naturally!), Dexter and Californication, both of which are ridiculously addictive.

One of the movies I watch over and over is Interview with the Vampire (I can’t help it, Brad Pitt as a vampire just does something to me). I also love The Crow, the Blade trilogy and The Matrix. Strangely enough, I’m also addicted to chick flicks but I’ve yet to see anything that beats The Wedding Singer, My Best Friend’s Wedding or Muriel’s Wedding (hmm, they all seem to be about weddings for some reason…) See, I really am a ‘purple’.

You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?

Never forget the importance of dreams. If you never try, you’ll never get – It’s really as simple as that.

One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?

I’m currently working on a sort-of sequel to Dunraven Road called Jinn Nation. I say sort of sequel, because it’s designed to work as a standalone novel but it stars Dylan, one of Dunraven Road’s vampire characters. This is very much a global book – Dylan and his new friend, Christa, have trekked all over the United States and as I’m nearing the end of the novel, they’re branching out to Mexico, Hawaii and London. Let’s just say the research has been challenging. Did I say challenging? Obviously, I meant rewarding. Either way, it’s been a really fun book to write and is completely different in tone from the intense, often claustrophobic world of Dunraven Road.

Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!