2008-10-17

The author’s diaries

Meg Cabot pops into Bangkok to meet and greet her young fans

Meg Cabot, author of the “The Princess Diaries” series, didn’t earn much money from Walt Disney’s two adaptations of her light-hearted romantic tales, which starred Anne Hathaway as Mia Thermopolis, but says she’s happy that more people are reading her books.

“I’m a geek who gets paid to be even geekier!” she grins, as she greets the crowd of teens at Asia Books’ Siam Paragon branch who turned out to meet her. Wearing a big smile and a black dress, Cabot may been enjoying the good life now but she grew up in an ambience far less rosy than her young heroine.

Cabot’s father was an alcoholic but she says she’s never associated with sad books about kids with problems but preferred to escape into a fantasy world.

And while her best-known books feature Mia, pretender to the Genovia throne, she says the stories are really about “girl power, about Mia searching for her place in the world”.

In fact, Cabot has written al most 1,000 stories, both for teens and for adults, though it took four years and several rejections before she was published.

“My teacher didn’t think I was a good writer,” she says, recalling her teachers’ admonitions at school. “I write the way I speak,”

When her father died and her mother started to date her art teacher, the youngster needed an outlet for her frustrations and began writing “The Princess Diaries”. Her agent found her a publisher but while the Cabot had planned to tell Mia’s life in a 16-book series, the publisher was reluctant to accept more than three. When Disney bought the movie rights, she signed a new contract for a 10 book deal.

Her books aren’t complicated and she draws on her own life for inspiration. Good writing, she says, starts from something inside you”. Memories of a traumatic childhood move form the backbone of her new “Allie Finkle” series for teenagers.

So what does it take to become a famous writer?

“Believe in yourself, work hard, and you can accomplish anything,” comes Cabot’s reply.

By Lisnaree Vichitsorasatra

DAILY XPRESS

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