Creativity Friday: Interview and book giveaway with Sandra Gulland, author of Mistress of the Sun

This Creativity Friday, I am fortunate to have Sandra Gulland as my guest. Sandra is the internationally acclaimed author of the Joséphine B. trilogy, which has sold over a million copies worldwide and been translated into thirteen languages. Her new novel, Mistress of the Sun (Touchstone/Simon and Schuster) was just released in paperback and has already hit the Canadian bestseller lists; it is the focus for my interview today.

As I wrote in my review yesterday, Mistress of the Sun is an opulent treasure of a historical novel. Set in seventeenth century France, Mistress of the Sun is the story of Louise de la Vallière, nicknamed Petite, who is swept into a secret, decade-long affair with Sun King Louis XIV.

In this interview, Sandra generously shares with us her experience writing Mistress of the Sun—an intensive process that took her eight years of research, travel, writing, and editing. It’s an inspiring look inside a writer’s creative process—a real treasure trove for anyone who’s interested in what’s really involved in writing a novel set in a long-ago time. Not only that, but we’re giving away a copy of Mistress of the Sun to one lucky blog commentor. (Details at the end of this post. However, if you can’t wait, you can buy it here from Amazon.)

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Kris Waldherr: One of the things which struck me about Mistress of the Sun was that you pulled off a difficult balancing act: The novel is both impeccably researched and gorgeously written. (Usually historical novels strike me as being tipped one way or the other.) Of researching and writing, which do prefer? And why?

Sandra Gulland: Oh, a difficult question! I love research — love getting lost in it, either in a wandering way, like a child in a toy store, or in a obsessive, focused hunt for information. But I love the writing — the fictional re-creation — even more, I think. Were it simply the research, I could write non-fiction, but it’s “the bringing to life” part of writing a novel that’s the main focus for me, and the reason for my passion for research.

KW: Related question: What is your research process like? Do you research as you write your novel? Or do you do the bulk of it beforehand? How did your research affect your plot choices for Mistress of the Sun?

SG: I try to be systematic about my research, but invariably I fail. I search out books, and buy in great numbers. Right now, because my husband and I are in a city, I’m making exhaustive use of the library system; soon I’m going to be deluged with all the books I’ve requested. (Some of these, I’m sure, I will decide to buy, so that I can freely mark them up.)

I did a great deal of research before writing Mistress of the Sun, but I also researched during and between drafts. Often I don’t know what I need to know until I’m deeply into a novel.

I didn’t run into too many surprises researching Louise’s story: her biographers have done a respectable job, so I had a good foundation. (This was not the case with Josephine.) Often research provides the answer to a problem. I was disturbed by the way Louise’s good friend Nicole simply disappeared from her life, for example. Fiction requires a certain degree of “wrapping-up” and life doesn’t always comply. Therefore I was both astonished and pleased to discover, in a footnote in the Bastille Archives, that Nicole ended up in Louise’s convent. (Learn more about Sandra’s research methods here.)

KW: I read that you discovered Louise de la Valliere, the heroine of The Mistress of the Sun, while researching Josephine Bonaparte for your Josephine B. trilogy. Can you describe the “aha” moment that
introduced you to Louise?

It was an intense “aha” that led almost immediately to writing a feverish short story (a story that ultimately became Mistress of the Sun). What I remember most clearly was finishing that story: my husband’s company was having a sales conference, and, since we lived in the country, some of the reps were staying with us. I remember emerging from my office shaken, and in tears, having just come to the end of the story — and was quite taken aback to discover men in our kitchen sipping herbal tea. As if a murder hadn’t just happened!

KW: In Mistress of the Sun, I loved how you developed the character of Sun King Louis XIV, who becomes Louise’s lover. Louis is a tricky, complex man, with many personal contradictions. Though Mistress of the Sun is primarily the story of Louise’s life as this king’s mistress, it’s also a recounting of how Louis shaped his mythos, as it were, into becoming the larger-than-life Sun King we recognize from history, and how this affected his relations with those he loved. What was involved in writing his character arc? Did you find yourself falling in and out of love with Louis as you wrote about him?

SG: Louis is, at heart, a good person and a good king, but this combination can be challenging for any man. He was born and died on a stage, so he rarely let his emotions show, yet he was a very emotional man (he cried easily). This must have been difficult for him.

KW: I was fascinated to learn that you involved a book club during the eight years that you were writing Mistress of the Sun. What did they do specifically? Were there any dramatic rewrites which occurred after receiving their feedback?

Some of the changes I made were meaty: I cut one chapter, for example. Other changes were subtle. I dropped hints about the true character of a certain unmentionable person (no spoilers here!) so that what happens in the novel didn’t come as a complete surprise, for example, and, too, I allowed our Petite some vindication. These changes were significant, in my view.

KW: Mistress of the Sun is written in third person; your Josephine B. trilogy was written in first person. Which do you prefer? What was it like to switch to third person, after writing three books from Josephine’s point of view? How did writing in the third person free you? Or not?

SG: I find the third person point of view very challenging. It’s elastic and requires discipline (not my strong suit). I think the first person voice is much easier (if you can find that voice), both for the writer and the reader, but it was important to me as a writer to expand my pallet. Too, the voice had to be right for the story. It wouldn’t have worked in the first person.

KW: Your narrator’s “voice” in Mistress of the Sun is opulent, wise but also dryly witty. I found myself laughing out loud at some of your passages; for example, your descriptions of Louise’s new stepfather
are priceless. It seems to me that you’re using humor to pop any illusions the reader might have about the infallibility of royalty—they’re human like us, only more ridiculous at times. After writing four books in which the ruling classes are prominently featured, what’s your takeaway?

SG: I actually think of myself as a bit of a comic writer, in a Winnie-the-Pooh sort of way. I think I tend to poke fun at people of all classes (think of Clorine, Petite’s maid, for example), but I have to admit that it is delicious fun to aim at the royalty. They take themselves so seriously!

KW: I follow you on Twitter and also read your very inspiring writing blog. You’ve been mentioning outlining your new novel and submitting it to your agent. What’s involved with that? Any advice for aspiring novelists?

SG: Outlining my next novel has been an interesting experience for me. I’ve always had some kind of plan, but I’ve never thought it out in such detail before. (And too, I’ve always ignored the plan.) This time I’m sketching it out scene by scene, and thinking in scenes makes a big difference, I think. It remains to be seen if it helps.

KW: Finally, I’m very enticed by the hints you’ve posted about your new novel’s subject matter. Can you tell me more about what we can look forward to? Will this take another eight years to be published. (I hope not!)

SG: I hope not, too! (That’s one of the reasons I’m giving so much thought to the story before I begin to write.)

It’s a very exciting subject, but a challenging one to tackle. Claude des Oeillets, Madame de Montespan’s maid, is the heroine. That seems like a simple subject, does it not? Not so! She was raised by actors, and her mother was a dramatic star, mentored by the great playwright Pierre Corneille. So there’s all that wonderful theatrical world, which was so extremely rich at that time (Corneille, Molière, Racine). Claude was also the go-between between Madame de Montespan and Madame Voisin, the woman who was at the center of the Affair of the Poisons: again, a big subject. And too, she had a child by the King: another dramatic dimension.

A big story, for sure!

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As I mentioned above, Touchstone Books has generously given us a copy of Mistress of the Sun to raffle off here. To win it, simply leave a comment by midnight, May 21, 2009. For a bonus entry, include your answer to the following question:

Is there a king or queen from history you’d have an affair with? If so, who and why?

(As for myself, I know that I would not choose Henry VIII. Too dangerous! But Louis XIV might be a bit more appealing….)

Only one comment per person; book can only be shipped to U.S. mailing address. Winner will be chosen at random and announced here May 22 in our next Creativity Friday. Good luck to all!

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