Mary Balogh
Mary Balogh
Mary Baloghis a Welsh-Canadian historical romance novelist...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 March 1944
anyone ask dreamed lists love publish willing won
I do what I love and what I always dreamed of doing for a living. I write love stories, and I have always had a publisher willing to publish them. I have a sizable and loyal audience. I have made best-seller lists and won awards. What more could anyone ask for?
dream disappointment successful
Did she ever feel nostalgia for any of her girlhood dreams? But life was made up of a succession of dreams, some few to be realized, most to be set aside as time went on, one or two to persist for a lifetime. It was knowing when to abandon a dream, perhaps, that mattered and distinguished the successful people in life from the sad, embittered persons who never moved on from the first of life's great disappointments. Or from the airy dreamers who never really lived life at all.
dream imagination soul
Stop being so fruitlessly busy and dream. Use your imagination. Reach out into the unknown and dream of how you can enlarge your experience and improve your mind and your soul and your world.
dream want needs
But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of?
home hope people writes
Everyone writes differently. I hope to get people energized so they'll want to rush home to write.
bit felt good three time wrote
I think I wrote 'The Trysting Place' in about three weeks. But it was inexperience that made me have to do that. I didn't feel good about the book all the time I was writing it. It felt a bit like wading through molasses.
fancy flickering image inspired lights music romantic
I fancy the romantic image of myself being soothed and inspired by music and the sweet aroma and flickering lights of candles.
bit characters develops existence exists finding main minor quite role setting
I don't know quite how a story develops in my head. It is a bit chaotic. If I am working on a series, one of the main characters at least is already in existence as well as some setting and minor characters. Finding the other main character can be a challenge. Sometimes this character already exists in a minor role in another book.
couple decide scale since sort success year
Since 1988, I have been writing steadily. I did decide a couple of years or so ago to scale back to writing one book a year - a sort of semi-retirement. But I never did have much success with that plan!
besides brought fit formal perfectly rather sort suited
I have a British voice and a rather formal one at that, having been brought up in post-WWII Britain. My voice is perfectly suited to the sort of book I write, I think. It would not fit a contemporary, besides which I do not know enough about the contemporary world to write convincingly or comfortably about it!
seen success
It's this idea that success changes you as a person... I've never seen my career that way.
felt finally full good novels overlap published quit since teaching three time written
I have written more than 100 novels and novellas since 1983 - I was first published in 1985. There was an overlap of three years with my teaching career, but finally I felt good enough about my writing career to quit teaching and write full time.
I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.
best beyond bit capable concerns figure guilty happening job primary producing stories walls within
I am a bit of a head-in-the-sand person as concerns things happening beyond the walls of my study. And I don't feel particularly guilty about that. I figure that my primary job is producing the very best stories I am capable of writing, and that is what I concentrate upon doing. That is within my control.