We were lucky to catch up with M.C. Vaughan recently and have shared our conversation below.

M.C., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Writing novels requires a mix of persistence, talent, community, and audacious confidence.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve written stories. Picture books, fables, short stories… Creative writing assignments brought me delighted frustration. I penned my first novel at 24. Was it good? Definitely not! But it taught me I could, if I met my desk day after day, produce a book. Everyone has great story ideas, but few convert those ideas into sentences, those sentences into paragraph, and on and on until they’ve written a novel.

But writing without feedback is like playing tennis against a wall. Without other players or a coach, you’ll never improve your game. To learn the craft, I needed to surround myself with writers on this journey to get advice, critique, and guidance. Ten years ago, I joined Maryland Romance Writers, and my journey picked up lightning speed. Romance writers are outrageously generous with their time and knowledge. Monthly workshops taught me the business and craft of romance writing, but I also was privileged to share space with people at various stages of the publishing journey. The people enjoying success showed me I could make it, too. And the people who were struggling showed me I wasn’t alone.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Baltimore-based author of contemporary romance riddled with humor and local flavor. I grew up in a house crowded with family, friends, books, music, and the occasional ghost. After graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in English literature (and an unofficial major in student-run theatre), I worked in sports marketing, higher education, toy production, and software development. Currently, I live in Charm City with her husband and three delightful kids.

My path to the romance publishing industry hinged on one basic fact about me–stories have anchored my life. If I’m not consuming a story through books movies, television, theater, or podcasts, I’m writing. At my core, though, I am a practical person. Since I was investing all this time in my hobby, I decided to commit to making money from it. So, I self-published a novel and it… did okay. But I got enough positive feedback on it that I continued honing my craft, attending workshops, and writing, writing, writing. Oh! And developing a thick skin, because a creative industry is full of rejection. That perseverance paid off, though, and I received a contract for a four-book series with a small publisher, Champagne Book Group, and have now secured a two-book contract with Harlequin’s ‘Afterglow’ line.

There are a number of things about my work in which I take pride. My first series, The Charm City Hearts series, is a love letter to Baltimore and all the quirky goodness it offers. When you pick up one of my books, wherever its based, you’ll find kind-hearted, authentic people who have great senses of humor while they figure out how to fall in love.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2010, two days after joyfully indulging in sparklers, fireworks, and American-flag cakes, my husband and I careened home along I-76 and I-70. These highways stretch across Pennsylvania, connecting where we live in Maryland to my husband’s hometown in Ohio. We’d been visiting with his parents for the Fourth of July.

Dread made those six hours feel like sixty.

My mother wasn’t well. About a week earlier, my sister, who lived in England at the time, called. My parents were visiting them across the pond, and my sister was worried. Mom was sleeping more than normal, and seemed out of it. She still went to pubs and day trips to Stone Henge with my sister’s family, but without her normal lust for life. They took her to see an NHS doctor. Mom had grappled with pneumonia earlier that year, so the British doctor gave her antibiotics and strongly advised a chest x-ray when she returned to the States. Just before the holiday, my parents flew home as planned. No sense trimming any days from their European vacation, they thought. My brother collected them. The airline supplied him with a wheelchair to get Mom to the car. She called our city’s airport by the name it had used decades earlier.

Not a great sign.

Something sinister lurked under Mom’s surfaces. This wasn’t just pneumonia. My parents-in-law offered to watch our children–then 5, 3, and 6 months old–for the coming week so I could focus on whatever my parents needed. I tearfully agreed, and we drove home the morning of July 6th. Without realizing it at the time, that was also the last day I nursed my youngest.

When we were less than an hour away from my parents’ house, my sister-in-law called to say she and my brother were there, and they’d called 911. Mom was confused, struggling to stand, had fallen in the night.

I got there just as they were loading her onto a gurney.

Why do emergency helpers seem so much larger in your home? Is it all the equipment? The noise squawking from their radios? But the paramedics were kind, knowledgeable, efficient.

My Dad rode with two of my brothers to the hospital. I traveled with Mom in the back of the ambulance. I didn’t want her to be alone. But I’m not sure she knew who I was. At the hospital, we waited for almost an hour to be taken back to a curtained area in the emergency department. If you don’t already know, July is the worst time to have a medical emergency. It’s when medical school graduates begin their residences. Everyone’s learning new routines.

I know I was.

Once Mom was settled, I waited with my dad, periodically unsticking myself from the vinyl guest chair in Mom’s tiny patch of territory to trade places with one of my brothers. They were all in the waiting room, as was one of my sisters-in-law. The others were home with their young kids. I can picture my family sitting there, and how crowded the waiting room was. Overall, my memory is fuzzy, perhaps a protective favor from my brain.

Some strange bits are clear. The patient in the next curtained-off area. She was a diabetic woman, whose son was annoyed she hadn’t kept up with her medication. Why do I remember that, of all things? Throughout the afternoon, and evening, and late evening, they took Mom back and forth for tests.

We waited.

Close to midnight, a beautiful, curly-haired doctor with a Greek-sounding last name arrived. She pulled the curtain closed. Well, as closed as possible, given the design. There was still a foot-wide gap between the fabric and the wall. Of course, the curtain did nothing to block out the man complaining to his mother that she had to stop playing fast and loose with her medications.

With great empathy, this doctor gave us the answer we sought but didn’t want–brain and lung cancer.

“Do you understand?” the doctor asked, knowing my mother’s awareness was not altogether, well, aware.

With tears in her eyes, my mother nodded. “I’m dying.”

That was the first of many times my heart broke for my mother, for my father, for my family, for me.

I wish I could remember what the doctor said, because it was exactly what I needed to hear. But I know how it made me feel. It was an authentic, sympathetic acknowledgement of my mother’s reality. There was no mile-wide smile and inflated hope, but a firm commitment that they would provide us with kindness, care, and treatment options. We felt like we had a team behind us, that we weren’t alone.

Mom followed their advice, signed up for the surgeries, therapies, and treatments they recommended. It bought her six more months, time she used to settle affairs, visit with family, see her favorite places, and celebrate one more Thanksgiving and Christmas. She passed away on New Year’s Eve that year.

Why am I sharing this on this blog, which is supposed to focus on all things writerly, Baltimore, coffee, and wine?

One reason.

For those of you struggling with Big Things, be gentle with yourself. Some folks will disagree, but it’s okay to go dark sometimes. In times of trouble, when you’re stretched beyond breaking, you look around for the thing you can give up. During that time, I couldn’t give up my kids, my husband, my day job, whatever time I had left with my parents. Though writing is my career, it was the only thing I could put on pause. So I did.

Before my mom was diagnosed, I was already struggling to find the energy and the brain space to write. In July, 2009, I was heavily pregnant with my third kid, selling and buying a house, moving, and enrolling my oldest in kindergarten.

In July, 2010, Mom was diagnosed with cancer, and the rest of that year was devoted to her, my husband, and my littles. After she passed away, I spent my time helping my father and my developmentally disabled sister.

Dad passed away a few years later, in August, 2013. The death certificate states his heart gave out. That’s medical jargon for dying of a broken heart.

When Dad died, my developmentally disabled sister came to live with me part-time. This brought up a host of new tasks–getting her into a program, providing her the support she needs, elevating the expectations of what she can do. We also cleared out and sold my parents’ home in Fall, 2014.

I’m no superwoman–I shared all of this heartache with an amazing group of siblings, an outstanding husband, family and friends. Still, there was nothing left. No creative juice to squeeze out of my dessicated brain. All my words lay like fallen leaves in an abandoned yard. I had no desire to rake them up, to organize them into any cohesive narrative. So I let them lie.

And then…I didn’t.

In 2013, the writing urge came back. Hard.

Plot ideas bounced in my brain. I joined Maryland Romance Writers to better my craft and meet other writers.

By Christmas of 2014, I’d begun writing again. In July, 2015, I went to my first RWA Nationals Conference in New York City and completely whiffed agent and editor pitches. But that was okay! Because being around that many like-minded writers jolted me into finishing that manuscript.

In August, 2015, I entered that manuscript–my fourth, overall–in Pitch Wars. It was selected! My mentor, Lynnette Labelle, helped me polish it until a shone like the sun, and in November, 2015, I began querying agents with it.

In 2016, after querying dozens of agents, I struck gold with Barbara Collins Rosenberg of the Rosenberg Group. In 2017, that book sold as the start of a 4-book series, The Charm City Hearts Series, which published in 2018 – 2021. We shopped around another manuscript, ‘Showmance,’ that didn’t sell. Rather than shelve it, I published it as a standalone novel, ‘Showmance,’ through a chapter-based romance app called Radish. I also am on a 2-book contract with Harlequin’s ‘Afterglow’ imprint, The first in that deal, ‘Romancing Miss Stone,’ publishes in May, 2024.

Rarely does the publishing world go exactly the way any of us plans. But the only thing we can control is our own process. Give yourself the time and space to process the big things life throws at you, and when you’re ready, make a promise to yourself about when you’ll meet your keyboard, how you’ll learn your craft, and and how to open yourself up to feedback. Then its try, try, and try again.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Earlier in my creative journey, I wish I’d understood the power of networking. I’d always perceived ‘networking’ as a euphemism for using people. But it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Once I was surrounded by like-minded people, I could learn from their successes and their failures. And since we were in these trenches together, we developed an affinity for each other, if not outright friendship. That converts into amplifying each other’s work, and offering advice on solutions when we reach out to each other. Had I forced myself out of my introverted ways earlier, I would have enjoyed the fruits of networking earlier, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mcvaughan.blogspot.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mc_vaughan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mcvaughanauthor
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MC_Vaughan
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MC_Vaughan/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4591776.M_C_Vaughan Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/m-c-vaughan

Image Credits
Book covers: Champagne Book Group All other photos: M.C. Vaughan