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Books that beckon: TeenRC chats with CARRIE MAC
Realistic, funny and remarkably down-to-earth, award-winning author Carrie Mac is just someone with whom you would want to have a nice chat over coffee. And teens from across Canada got the chance to do just that through a TeenRC online chat in the summer of 2008.
“Hello, hello, hi, hi, hi there, hiya, yo, aloha, bonjour... HI” is the enthusiastic greeting from Mac, who proceeds to answer questions and talk with teens for over an hour. “Hopefully I can type fast
enough. I failed typing in high school,” admits Mac, “The teacher had a hate on for me, I’m sure.”
However, when asked if she writes by hand, she responds, “HECK NO... I can type very fast... and MOSTLY without looking at the ‘puter... I aced the exams, but I looked... and even then, I got good time scores.” A pause, and then, “I think she just didn’t like me.”
Not surprisingly, Carrie Mac is very comfortable talking to teens over the Internet. She talks about winning “a bazillion awards” and follows up with “... puhleez don’t ask me to name them.” You could almost imagine her grinning in front of the computer.
Of course, talk turns quickly to her books. Her latest, Pain and Wastings, takes place on an ambulance, and is based very much on the author’s personal experiences. Mac herself lived in the Downtown Eastside, where the book is set, and also works as a paramedic. “The paramedic thing certainly adds to the reality,” she says, “like when one of my characters got their head chopped off... or broke a bone.”
Clearly, her experiences have had a huge role in shaping her stories. Inspiration for The Beckoners, a coming-of-age story about bullying, must have come from her own life. “I HATED HIGH SCHOOL,” she writes in all caps, “I got picked on all the time.” Things get more personal. “I’m a classic high school drop out, in fact. I was doing a lot of drugs, and didn’t fit in, and was bored... so I thought I better leave before I hurt myself.
“I finished high school by correspondence... the best thing I ever did.”
On Writing
“What made me start writing? I just ALWAYS did... as far back as I remember,” comments Mac. “I wrote my first book when I was in grade one. It was about a butterfly who got lost... even back then I liked a sad story.” Indeed, her ideas come from “everywhere... eavesdropping, news articles, things I’ve seen, people I’ve met, experiences I’ve had.”
Carrie Mac goes on to describe her own writing style. She doesn’t have a routine, and notes how she doesn’t sit still very well. “I usually try to write when I have a block of time no matter what.
“My writing is always described as dark and edgy and disturbing,” she says, “[but] my personality is pretty much the opposite, though my mind is pretty hard and edgy... when I write. I guess that’s where I channel all that stuff. I like to write books for the teen I was.”
Whatever she does, it’s clearly working. A striking feature of her books is how her characters are so richly developed. “My characters do whatever the hell they want... I apparently have no control over them whatsoever. They are complete rebels – that’s why I never have an outline, because they don’t pay attention to it no matter what I do.”
“I base my characters on all kinds of people... yes, ones I’ve met and know. I usually make composites, so it’s not totally one person or another. I did base the bully characters [in The Beckoners] on real life jerks that I went to school with... I used their names, even.
“But I doubt they read... so I won’t get caught.”
Several aspiring writers in the group have eager questions for her, and Carrie Mac remarks, “Pretend you’re watching a movie... start with writing the first scene and then just follow your characters. Your mom will say it’s perfect and your nasty older sister will say it sucks.
“I love the story as it unfolds... I love finding out what happens next.”
Editing, she says, is the easiest part. “I love editing... that’s when the book starts to shine. (The first draft always sucks bum.) I’m definitely my hardest critic. I think you can edit until [you’re] undoing the edits you did... then you know you’re making mud pie and it’s time to stop.”
On Getting Published
“They say that the first 100,000 words you write is crap,” says the author candidly, “so keep writing, even if it’s just to get past that.” It wasn’t easy getting published. Apparently, Mac even keeps a binder of rejection letters. “Maybe someday I'll plaster my bathroom wall with them so whenever I use the toilet I'll think of someone who dissed me... ahahahah,” she laughs.
Carrie Mac also advises young writers to “listen to your voice, and it’ll come... and listen to the characters – if they’re whole, they’ll carry the story for you.”
One of the best techniques, she says, is to “always read what you’ve written out loud – to make sure it sounds right.” In fact, she reads her own books out loud from start to finish at least once before they are published.
“It’s weird being an author... like when your books show up in the mail, hard to believe you wrote it.” Fan mail always surprises her, as she puts it eloquently, “I’m just me, writing away in my little room, mostly to entertain myself, and I forget that my books are all over the world in a bunch of languages.”
Beyond the Books
What more is there to Carrie Mac? “I write crappy, angst filled poetry that will go with me to my grave!” she says. When asked to post some online, the response is, “ACK NO... people would be spewing chunks on their keyboards!”
When she’s not writing, she’s, well, reading. “I read about a million books a week,” she says. “I love reading about terrible, awful things. And I love reading about things I don’t understand... like right now I’m reading about polygamist sects.”
Being a paramedic is also an important part of her life. “I love helping people in crisis,” Mac states, “and I’m great with things like dead bodies and severed limbs.”
On the Future
We talk about movie adaptations and audiobooks. “The Beckoners is supposed to be a movie,” Mac reveals, “I hope the [Triskelia] trilogy gets made into a movie because I think it’d be cool. I don’t mind if they botch it... if they want to pay me for three, that’d rock!” Although she doesn’t get a say in casting, she comments on possible actors to fill the demanding role of Beckoners protagonist Zoe: “Maybe Abigail Breslin will be old enough when the time comes.”
So what does the future hold for this wonderful author? “Next is a book called The Gryphon Project about a girl who has to prove that her brother didn’t kill himself so that he can be brought back to life,” she states, “Sounds odd, but it works.”
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Carrie Mac’s books include Charmed, Crush, The Beckoners, the Triskelia Trilogy and Pain and Wastings.
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Ten Things You Never Knew About Carrie Mac:
- Admits to liking IMing, “as soon as I got over my grammar OCD”
- Writes in her office, and can’t write in coffee shops: “too many interesting things to look at.”
- Believes writer’s block doesn’t exist. “Can you imagine if plumbers got plumbers block... or doctors got doctors block... or I got paramedic block... ”
- Has a “constellation of stars tattooed on my back that I add to whenever I publish a new book.”
- Always knew she wanted to be a writer, “couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
- Says “Ack, no!” to playing any sports, claiming she’s “about as clumsy as it gets!”
- Had “a spy belt and a spy route and the spy notebook, just like Harriet [from Harriet the Spy], when I was little.”
- “People used to call me carebear... CAREBEAR STARE.”
- Has two pets, “an old dog called Sailor, and a cat who thinks he’s a dog.”
- “loved Twilight! BUT hated the other two.”
Five of Carrie Mac’s Favourite Authors:
- Raymond Carver – “my favourite of all time.”
- Stephen King – “a master storyteller... absolutely top of his field.”
- Phillip Pullman – “The Golden Compass is AWESOME, unabridged, on tape.”
- Sharon Creech – “Walk Two Moons is a perfect, perfect book and I wish that I’d written it.”
- Ann Rule – “I’ll eat up one of those books in the time it takes to take one hot bath.”
Three Quick Questions for Carrie Mac:
- Biggest Obstacle? “Poverty”
- Droughtlander or Keylander? “Droughtlander... easily”
- Dreamer or Realist? “Dreamer”
