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.)

——————

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!

—————————————

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!

• Filed under blogs we read, creativity, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, interviews | 33 Responses

Retail Therapy: Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland

Set in seventeenth century France, Mistress of the Sun is an opulent treasure of a historical novel. In it, author Sandra Gulland pulls off a difficult balancing act: The novel is both impeccably researched and gorgeously written. (As a long time reader of the genre, they usually strike me as being tipped one way or the other. Not so here.)

Mistress of the Sun is the story of Louise de la Vallière, nicknamed Petite because of her diminutive size. However, what Petite lacks in physical stature, she makes up in spirit—Petite was noted in history for her skills as a courageous horsewoman. On top of that, she’s also mistress to Louis XIV, which requires a different sort of courage.

Think it’s easy being mistress to the Sun King? Think again. Petite enters the court of Louis an innocent teenager, but succumbs to royal love-at-first-sight after the couple meets cute in a park. Initially they hide their affair through complicated disguises and discrete assignations. But Petite’s love for Louis forces her to make (to my mind) unimaginable sacrifices that go way beyond her personal moral code—hiding pregnancies under tightly-bound corsets, giving away their children to be raised by others. Even her mother disowns her.

Eventually Louis takes his romance with Petite public, which leads to a suspenseful “third act” that presents all sorts of questions about superstition, religion, and consequences. The court of the Sun King is a complicated place of ever-shifting alliances, where little is as it seems, especially to the pure-hearted Petite. Ultimately, Petite is forced to make a heartrending choice that will determine the remainder of her life. The denouement of this choice is presented in a tear-inducing coda that I adored (and won’t give away here).

Lest you think this is yet another voluptuously detailed romance, there’s a lot of nuance and dry wit here too. Gulland is a master of observation, and at defusing the ridiculousness of royalty. I found myself laughing out loud at some of her passages:

The King scanned the room with his eyes, his expression masklike. With calm dignity, he received the passionate adulation. A woman at the back slumped to the floor and was efficiently whisked out of the room. (Petite gathered that swooning happened rather often.)”

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 into becoming the larger-than-life Sun King we recognize from history; and how this affected his relations with those he loved and was loved by in return, such as Petite. We are fortunate to share in this adulation. Highly recommended!

illustration: “Louis XIV with Louise de la Valliére in the Bois de Vincennes” by Jean Frederic Schall.

————————-

Author Sandra Gulland will be interviewed here about her experiences writing Mistress of the Sun in tomorrow’s Creativity Friday. On top of that, we’ll be giving away a copy of Mistress of the Sun. Details will be posted here tomorrow! However, if you can’t wait, you can buy it here from Amazon.

• Filed under retail therapy, reviews + press | One Response

Publishing Monday: the editing process

This week on this blog is going to be special! Sandra Gulland, author of the bestselling Josephine B. trilogy will be interviewed on Friday about the process of writing her newest novel, Mistress of the Sun. On top of that, we’ll be giving away a copy of Mistress of the Sun to one lucky blog commenter! For the creatively inclined, Sandra has a wonderful blog where she writes about her writing process—highly recommended.

My last Creativity Friday post covered what I call 4 am epiphanies—those sudden “roadmap for the soul” realizations that wake you up in the middle of the night. I wrote about a recent one I had. (For a view of another artist-author’s epiphanies, jump over to Joanna Colbert’s Gaian Tarot blog.) Though I wasn’t very specific with my details, a good portion of my recent epiphanies have to do with my current book proposal-under-development. Which, for those of you who follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, know that I sent the first draft of to my literary agent right before I left on vacation.

That brings me to my subject for today, which is oh-so-important: the editing process.

Just about all book proposals need to be edited before they’re sent out into the publishing world. And mine was no different—soon after my return from vacation, I heard back from my agent about the next steps for my book proposal. At this early stage of the game, what needs to be done is more akin to shaping a sculpture than line edits. I’ve got my work ahead of me!

So here’s what I’m working on now:

1. Lots of research. And this is on top of all the research I’ve already completed.

2. Interviewing experts to support my book’s premise. In other words, research isn’t enough: I need fresh material. In a serendipitious stroke of fate, I’ve already received leads and am following up already.

3. And more writing and editing, writing and editing. Yup, even after all the work I’ve already done!

So I’m torn between exhaustion and exhilaration. Exhaustion, because I work very hard on my book proposals; exhilaration, because the direction the book will be traveling to is a place I was intimidated to visit—until my agent intervened in the best possible way.

It’s going to be a lot of work, though I’m fortunate to have the book’s skeleton in place. But, in this somewhat hostile publishing climate, it’s best to have as strong a book proposal as possible. And I’ve been in the biz long enough to know that this is part of the process for creating a book.

In closing, I leave you another author’s experience of the editing process. This ersatz music video was created by author Lara Zielin, whose YA novel debut will be published this August from Putnam. It’s very funny. In it, she writes. She sings. She frolics in meadows and in the rain.

(Hmmm, for my next book video maybe I need a meadow? And some weather action?)

Lara’s video comes by way of agent Kristin Nelson’s Pub Rants, one of my favorite publishing blogs. Oh, and don’t forget: Mistress of the Sun interview and giveaway this Friday! It’s going to be good.

• Filed under be-mused, blogs we read, giveaways and raffles, publishing | One Response

Creativity Friday: 4 am epiphanies

I’ve been back from vacation in California for just over two weeks. You’d think by now that I’d be back into the swing of things, but I really don’t feel this way. I’m still scrambling to catch up on everything on my ever-growing “To Do” list. (Which begs the question: Does anyone have a never-growing “To Do” list? Is this even possible? Hmmm.)

Part of what’s affected me is my hand, which is better than it was last week, but still not at 100%. Repetitive stress injuries sometimes seem to take as long to heal as they did to create. So, while I’ve been in the studio, I’m trying to vary what I do: several hours of work, several hours of research reading. Frankly, I’ve learned this the hard way: Throughout my career as an artist, I’ve had periods where I’ve been unable to work because of repetitive stress injuries. The worst was right after I finished the first edition of The Book of Goddesses in 1995—I had pushed myself so hard to meet that deadline that I worked through a painful repetitive stress injury. Afterward, I was unable to paint for six months, and ended up having extensive physical therapy on my shoulders and arms. The upside was that, as a consequence, I began to focus on my writing—I could type, even if I couldn’t hold a paintbrush or pencil for too long.

Being physically out-of-sorts has affected my ability to plow through tasks as quickly as possible. But this forced slowing down has opened my eyes to other possibilities that I hadn’t noticed before for my work—possibilities that probably fall under the category of 4 am epiphanies.

“What’s a 4 am epiphany?” you might be wondering. They’re those moments when you wake up in the middle of the night from a sound sleep with sudden clarity. For some reason, they always seem to happen to me at 4 am; usually I’m unable to get back to sleep, because of the energy which these sudden realizations bring. I’m too excited and my mind is going at 100 miles a minute.

These epiphanies differ from inspiration strikes from the Muses; they’re usually more about bigger life issues, though they may lead to intense creativity. I think of them as being closer to what Julia Cameron calls “marching orders”; where we are revealed what our next step in our journey should be.

As for my latest epiphanies, Let’s just say that I’m being pushed toward a direction that I’m eager to go but have been afraid to do so. It’s terrifyingly intimidating, from a creative and business standpoint, though I am doing my best to marshall my resources. One reassurance: Once I had this epiphany, suddenly it seemed as though all sorts of helpful affirmations appeared where there were none before. Coincidence?

It’s too soon for me to detail what lies before me in specifics. Let’s say that the course I’ll be taking feels very organic, and will force me to grow as an artist and writer. If everything develops as I hope, it will be very exciting! And, of course, I’ll be sharing more information here when the time is right.

And how about you? What are your 4 am epiphanies?

• Filed under be-mused, creativity, publications, tarot and oracles | 2 Responses

Publishing Monday: The Kindle—brave new world?

Well, my hand is still bothering me—my thumb especially—though it’s definitely a bit better. Hence, my silence here for the past few days. I’m hoping that, if I continue to take it easy, eventually it will improve. I have a long history of hand-related repetitive stress injuries. My worst RSI occurred after I finished the first version of The Book of Goddesses; it took me six months to paint again, though I did use this period to delve more deeply into my writing. Fortunately, this injury doesn’t feel as bad as that one, but I know the lay of this land too well. It’s deeply distressing to have so much that I’d like to write on this blog, and be unable to do it. But better safe than sorry, and all that. Ah well!

Anyway, in personal publishing news, I’m now the proud owner of a KIndle 1.0 (thanks, Ed!). After much reluctance, I’m dipping my toes into this brave new world of digital publishing.

(To be clear, I’m differentiating this from my own web publishings—websites, e-books, videos. Somehow these feels different, since their originating form is digital. The idea behind the Kindle is to take a traditional format of a paper-bound book and transform it, possibly even replace it.)

My first reaction upon seeing the Kindle was that it seemed so small—more akin to a mass market paperback than a revolutionary e-book device. My second: Why isn’t it more attractive? Clearly Amazon has favored function over form in its design of the Kindle. I haven’t seen the 2.0 yet, so I can’t compare it. But I wish the Kindle was more seductive looking, less utilitarian in appearance. This is no sexy iPod or iPhone.

That written, I can tell the Kindle has been designed to make it as unobtrusive as possible—to melt into your hands, as it were. I like the rubbery back where, in one concession to design props, Amazon has done a bas relief of various alphabet forms through the ages, suggesting that the Kindle is the next step in a line of communication breakthroughs. Um, hubris much? Nonetheless, the rubbery back feels much nicer to hold than white plastic.

As for reading on the Kindle, well my jury is still out on that. The “paper” is a light grey, so you do need a good strong light to read. The type is easy to read, but it’s decidedly not the same as reading a fully designed book. For example, I hate the look of the running heads—could they get any more generic looking? As a test run, I downloaded a sample of Doomed Queens—yes, you can buy Doomed Queens for the Kindle—and it looks decidedly different. Most of the graphics are still there, but in limited shades of grey. The sidebars become another page, instead of a visual element offering a commentary on the main book text.

Bottom line: Though all the words from my book are present and accounted for, it’s a different experience. Period. If the Kindle was my primary means of sharing my books, it would definitely affect how I choose to structure a book. And not just visually.

It’s when it comes to instant gratification that the Kindle excels. Want to read a copy of the latest bestseller at 4 in the morning? It’s your’s, with the flick of a key. The Kindle has built in wireless and connects seamlessly to the Amazon website. Most Kindle editions are priced at about $10, about the same as a paperback. So no price advantage there, though you do get to save a few trees for Mama Gaia.

And that leads to my main take-away about the KIndle: It feels more like an extension of the Amazon.com website than a reading experience onto itself. It’s ridiculously easy to buy whatever you want—as long as there’s a Kindle edition available.

Another shocker to me: You can only fit about 200 to 300 books on the Kindle 1.0. To our book-obsessed household, that’s a small drop in the bucket—we easily have several thousand books in our library. Since you have unlimited downloads once you purchase a Kindle edition of a book, I guess it’s expected that you delete and replace as needed. Or purchase a second or third Kindle, as you would a Billy bookcase at Ikea. (Am I missing something here?)

So, a mixed bag. Though, to be fair, I think only time will tell what advantages it holds for my reading habits. I love the idea of traveling with it—no more bags heavy with books. My repetitive stress injuries will be oh-so-grateful!

Any other Kindle users out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

• Filed under publishing | 3 Responses