Malaysia Notes

Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries series, chooses to escape the darkness of her past by writing only about the bright side of life for now.

MEG Cabot might be jet-lagged and exhausted, but the American author is the image of chic when you meet her in her suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

The 41-year-old, who easily looks 10 years younger than her age, was in Singapore last month as part of a month-long publicity tour that includes Britain, Sweden, South Africa, Hong Kong and Thailand.

She had just spent the morning at Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, where she took questions and signed books.

“Every single kid there had a mobile phone and wanted to take a picture, and like five pictures, and pictures with their friends, and they all had, like, every book I ever wrote. It was fun but very exhausting,” she says with a laugh.

The slim, pixieish writer talks exactly like her teenage characters, peppering her speech with a lot of “like”, dramatic whispers and even squeals.

For example, when you ask her about the fact that her hit series The Princess Diaries was inspired by her widowed mother dating her former high school teacher (as the title character Mia’s mother does), her eyes widen and she leans forward confidingly: “They were set up on a blind date, and this is what’s really sick – are you ready?”


»I had a really hard time getting it published« MEG CABOT

A theatrical pause, and then, in a stage whisper: “He’s my ex-boyfriend’s godfather.”

Smiling at your suitably shocked expression, she exclaims delightedly: “I know, you almost threw up there, didn’t you? You almost threw up a little bit in your mouth.”

Then, somewhat more maturely, she adds: “But whatever, he’s so nice and he’s a really great guy, so it’s really good for her. I’m totally happy for them.”

Besides the fact that it is “totally gross”, this bit of family history has clearly paid off for the author.

When it was first published in October 2000, The Princess Diaries spent 38 weeks on the children’s books bestsellers list of The New York Times, and was sold to publishers in 37 countries.

The 2001 film adaptation, starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, also helped raise her profile. She has since sold more than 15 million copies throughout the world.

The global appeal of her books is something that still obviously amazes the author.

“It’s totally bizarre and it freaks me out because I don’t know what it is about the books that speaks to all of them,” she says, gesticulating animatedly. “But I think it is basically the fact that being a teenager kind of sucks universally, so the problems are all the same.”

That said, it is somewhat ironic that she had actually written the first draft of The Princess Diaries with older characters and an older audience in mind.

“I really thought it was for adults, and I was really surprised when my agent said it was for teens,” she says, adding that she had originally envisioned it along the lines of British author Sue Townsend’s satirical Adrian Mole series. However, on the advice of her agent, she rewrote her book with a younger protagonist.

Darker story

Beneath Cabot’s light-hearted books and sunny image is a darker story. Her father, a business professor, was an alcoholic, and the author recalls that he often passed out on the floor of the living room.

He also verbally abused Cabot and her two younger brothers.

“As a teen, I had a hard time finding books that were accessible for me.

My father was an alcoholic, so my family life kind of sucked and I didn’t want to read the books geared for teens at that time, as they were all about kids whose parents were alcoholics,” she says, grimacing.

“I was like, I already have that in my life. I wanted to escape from that. It was just really hard to find a book about a girl, a strong heroine who wasn’t getting pregnant, getting molested or having something horrible happen to her.”

Thus, she started writing her own stories as a teenager, which ranged from science fiction to mysteries to fantasies.

“The reason I write the kind of books I do is because I remember what it was like to grow up in a family that was really messed up and not being able to find books that were for girls like me.”

However, when she entered Indiana University, she decided to major in art instead of writing as an older friend named Benjamin Egnatz – himself a writing major who would, years later, become her husband – advised her not to study writing “because they will make you hate it.”

He now manages the business side of her career and the couple live in Key West, Florida, with their two cats.

After graduation, she went to New York to try and get art jobs in the media, but after little success started working at New York University as the assistant manager of a dormitory.

The job gave her plenty of time to write, especially during the long summer vacations. She started seriously trying to get published in 1994, when her father died from throat cancer.

Her first published books were Victorian romances, a genre she had decided to focus on as she had read that romances make up more than 50% the publishing market.

However, her real breakthrough came in 2000 with The Princess Diaries, though it was rejected multiple times before being picked up by HarperCollins.

“I had a really hard time getting it published because a lot of the people I sent it to were like, ‘This isn’t children’s fiction, this isn’t appropriate because there’s no great big huge moral lesson’,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I even got a rejection letter from a very prominent children’s book editor which said that The Princess Diaries was unfit for children, or anyone.”

She continued to work at the dormitory until 2001, when her earnings from the books and Princess Diaries movie meant she was financially secure enough to concentrate on writing full-time. She now has 10 different series under her belt, including a new one for readers aged eight to 12, which she admits is intended to capture the younger fan base of The Princess Diaries movies. Titled Allie Finkle, it is about a nine-year-old girl who moves to a new neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, even though the 10th and last book in The Princess Diaries series is out in January, she says it is not farewell forever to Princess Mia.

“I have met so many Princess Diaries fans who started out with the books when they were 10 or 11, and now they are going to college and they are like, ‘We really want to read about Princess Mia in college.’ I think that would be fun – I have lots of good ideas,” she says, though she hastens to add that there will be “a long pause” before that happens.

As her readers grow up, does she think she will ever seek inspiration from her past to write about, well, the darker side of life?

“Someday I might do a memoir, but I don’t think I could write about it from a fictional character’s point of view. I’ve just tried tonnes of times and have never been able to finish it.” – The Straits Times, Singapore / Asia News Network

By STEPHANIE YAP