Nicola Doherty's Blog, page 6

Lily Does LA is published today!!!

Happy Birthday Lily!!!! My new ebook Lily Does LA is published today. And I’m over on the Headline site talking about my favourite things to do in Los Angeles … Come on over and take a look. And I hope you enjoy Lily!

From Poppy to Lily: how I thought up Girls on Tour

A funny thing happened recently. A kind blogger helpfully pointed out that the Goodreads blurbs for the Girls on Tour series were all out of date. They referred to earlier drafts of the blurbs and things I’d changed ages ago – like Jesse in Lily Does LA being called Mark and Rachel getting dumped by Oliver. I have no idea where they got them from – did they hack my computer? – but it just shows you, the internet is written in ink. It made me think about how far the Girls on Tour have come since I first dreamed them up over tea with my agent in Shoreditch House. (And yes, I know how pretentious that sounds and I love it).

What happened was, I wasn’t sure what to write next after If I Could Turn Back Time. The idea of starting a whole new book seemed terrifying. So I decided to write a stand-alone shorter story with Poppy from The Out of Office Girl. I knew I was going to send her somewhere on a work trip, and initially it was going to be to Los Angeles (and called Poppy Goes to Hollywood, boom boom).

But it just didn’t work. I was thinking up all sorts of ‘hilarious’ scrapes for Poppy to get into, but they were all lame. And then I realised that a trip to Paris would be much more up Poppy’s street. And that someone else would be going to LA: Lily. I think it works because in each of the stories, the girls go somewhere that represents something they really want. Poppy wants art, culture, patisserie, romance: hence Paris. Lily wants freedom, opportunities, sunshine and to be an actress; hence LA. And the other stories just came from there, and ending with a trip of all four girls to Manhattan because, where else?

I’m very excited that Lily Does LA is out next week because (and this is a secret) it’s my favourite book in the series, and Lily is my favourite character. If you like her too, you’ll meet her again in Rachel Does Rome and in The Girls Take Manhattan. Aaand … when the full series comes out in a bind-up book there will be EVEN MORE material in between each mini-book, so that you can read the whole thing like a novel.

But that’s not til next April, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Bring on Lily Does LA! It’s out next week and you can pre-order it here.

How running helps me write

Nicola Doherty:

As I’ve got back into a running routine again, wanted to share this on how running helps me write …

Originally posted on :

Before 2009, I never, ever would have thought that I could write a novel, or run for more than ten minutes without collapsing. But in April that year, I joined a running club; in June I started writing a novel. In October 2009 I ran my first half marathon, and just over a year later I got my first book deal.

Of course you don’t have to be a runner to write. Dickens never owned a pair of Asic trainers or nutrition gels. But for me, taking up running has really helped me pursue writing as a career. Running gives you physical stamina, which is useful when you’ve been going for six hours and still have 10 pages to rewrite. But even more important is the mental stamina it develops – the ability to keep on going through doubts and rejections, and eventually get to where you want to be.

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Interview with Ella Harper, author of Pieces of You

You may have heard of the new book Pieces of You by Ella Harper – out now in ebook with paperback coming on September 25th. Ella is a lovely author who I met in her previous life as Sasha Wagstaff when we did an event together and she was just one of those people who makes me wish authors all worked in an office together because she was so lovely and I would totally have great chats with her beside the kettle. I suppose Twitter is our kettle.  

Anyway: a while ago I asked Ella a few questions including the all-important: what would you do if you could turn back time?

1) There’s plenty of advice for unpublished writers but not so much for published ones. What’s the one piece of advice you would give to a newly published author?

The one piece of advice I’d give to a newly published author would be to connect with other published authors, if you can. It’s quite a bewildering process first time round and it’s reassuring to speak to people in the same boat. It’s also prudent to learn about the highs and lows of being an author and to become as knowledgeable as possible about the process!

2) What is your most favourite and least favourite aspect of writing? (My least favourite is research!)

My favourite aspect of writing (so many to choose from!) but I guess it’s just that amazing freedom of having a blank page and being able to create a world for people to lose themselves in. My least favourite is probably just those days when I’m not ‘feeling it’. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block, as such, but there are definitely days when it doesn’t flow the way it should and I find it best to just step away from the lap top and do something else to free my mind up a bit. But hey, that’s a small thing compared to all the highs!

3) A lot of your Sasha Wagstaff books feature wonderful locations (the South of France, Los Angeles). What’s the most romantic or glamorous place you’ve ever visited and do you ever find yourself planning holidays around somewhere you want to write about?

The most romantic place I’ve ever visited is probably Mauritius…absolutely gorgeous. These days, with my change of writing direction, I don’t find myself planning holidays around somewhere I want to write about, but I’m always open to be inspired by a glamorous or stunning location!

4) What’s been the most exciting moment of your writing career to date?

Probably…my latest book deal. It’s unbelieveably exciting to have a new novel out in a different genre, using a whole new persona! Ella Harper is me, but a different side to my personality so my new novel is still relationship-based with a love story at its core, but it’s hopefully also poignant and emotional. I absolutely loved writing it and I’m incredibly proud of it.

5) And lastly, what would you do if you could turn back time?

If I could turn back time, I would probably have started writing sooner. When I discovered writing, I had that ‘coming home’ feeling and it would have been lovely to have found that sooner. But I’m convinced that timing is everything, so it most likely all turned out the way it should have done!

Thanks, Ella!

Pieces of You is out now in ebook and coming out September 25th in paperback.

The people inside my head

Call me sentimental but I get attached to my characters. Having seen them through their adventures I like to know what happens to them afterwards – especially since a happy ending always the start of something else. And I also like taking people who had a small role in one book and giving them a starring role in the next …

So, when I wrote IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME, I let Alice, the heroine of my first book, pop up in a cameo role so we could see what had happened to her after her story ended. (All good things! Poor Alice, she suffered enough.) Then I decided my next heroine would be Poppy, who we met as Alice’s friend in THE OUT OF OFFICE GIRL. Then I realised that Alice had a cousin, Lily, who would obviously be attending Alice’s wedding in LA. And Lily had a best friend, Maggie … who ended up going skiing with some of the people from IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME (namely David, Jenny, Rachel and Oliver. If you are interested in the David-Jenny story, it gets resolved for good in MAGGIE DOES MERIBEL).

I’m not sure how this has all happened. It’s partly inspired by my own life where the people I know often turn out to know each other through six degrees of separation. And it’s thrifty: prevents waste and discarded character wrappings. But mostly I like the way it lets the characters switch roles –  sometimes the hero/heroine, sometimes a supporting character. One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve heard is to remember that every character you write, no matter how small, is at the centre of their own life. We step in and out of all those roles all the time in our own lives – sometimes we’re the best friend, who’s hearing about someone else’s drama; sometimes we’re experiencing the drama ourselves. 

Anyway, my publishers have brilliantly created the above map to show the people in my character universe. Link to an embiggened version here.  We left out Kevin Bacon but Alice knows him through Luther.

 

What we did on our summer holidays

A and I just got back from ten days in Ireland – well, ten days for me, a week for him. We packed a lot in. So much so in fact that if I wrote it all down it would be as long as Peig though with considerably more restaurant meals. We:

Had our bags lost by Aer Lingus – and found again 48 hours later (phew, especially as we were going to a wedding)
Resolved never to check a laptop in again (IT WAS THE FIRST TIME I EVER DID IT)
Had a fabulous meal at Fade Street Social thanks to wedding present vouchers. 
Went to a wedding in Kilkenny which was great fun and also my first Samoan-English-Irish wedding 
Stayed at the Cashel Palace Hotel which is lovely, like something left behind from the 19th century in a good way
Climbed the Rock of Cashel which seems to be very popular with Italians these days – who knew?
Had afternoon tea in the Park Hotel in Kenmare where we saw Francis himself!
Took 5 nieces and nephews to the Dingle funfair where they won an arsenal of plastic toy swords and guns 
Dined in many great places in Dingle, which is the ‘foodie capital of Kerry’ as my jeans can now testify – highlights were Fentons and Out of the Blue
Ate Murphy’s Ice Cream – made from the milk of Kerry cows 
Watched the Rose of Tralee festival – completing A’s induction into Irish popular culture.
It was lovely. 

Poppy Does Paris soundtrack

This afternoon I’m rocking out to the Poppy Does Paris ‘soundtrack’. I made one of these for The Out of Office Girl so I wanted to do one for PDP as well. You can find the full list on Spotify, these are the highlights …

Ca Plane Pour Moi – Plastic Bertrand

My husband introduced me to this song which sounds like the Beach Boys going mad in Paris in 1975. Love it.

Sympathique – Pink Martini

http://youtu.be/nLaY4aksfRo

Pink Martini are one of my favourite bands and Poppy loves their retro vibe too. The refrain ‘Je Ne Veux Pas Travailler’ obviously means ‘I don’t want to work’ which is appropriate considering all the skiving Poppy does in this story

Sous le Ciel de Paris – Juliette Greco

 

This might be THE classic Parisian song, to be hummed while strolling down the Champs Elysees wearing a stripy top and cigarette pants – you have definitely heard this before even if you didn’t know what it was.

Sexy Boy – Air

This song is on Poppy’s mind as she leaves Jonathan’s apartment … As she puts it, her subconscious isn’t exactly subtle.

Joe Le Taxi

 

This is one of my go-to karaoke songs – just ignore all the weirdness about underage girls making friends with taxi drivers and sink into the atmos.

Un Homme et Une Femme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UYTLIdjSyc

 

This romantic film soundtrack number is the best way to finish Poppy’s story (this part of it at least …)

My dress of the summer

This is my dress of the summer.

I’m not even kidding; this dress has been with everywhere. It’s been to lunch in the best Turkish restaurant in Green Lanes, to dinner at Brasserie Zedel, to Hampstead Heath, to Julie Cohen’s book launch, and to see Josie Long at the Battersea Arts Centre as well as numerous barbecues and parties. It basically has a better social life than I do.

I have never bought anything from Boden before but they seem to have got my address through some devil’s bargain with John Lewis, and I’m at home a lot with their catalogues, so what can you do. I have worn this dress every week since I got it, and sometimes (ahem) more than once a week. Fine, more than once a weekend. It is actually not the most flattering shape on me – for years I bought A-line skirts because I thought they were meant to be the most flattering, before I realised they tend to bulk me out. But I don’t care: it makes me feel like I’m driving along the French Riviera in 1956 with the roof down and a silk scarf on. I love the aqua colours and the pink details. In fact I love it so much that I’m not even too bitter that it is now reduced to £35.60 and I paid £89.00 for it. Sigh.

There is also a matching skirt – now reduced to the strange price of £20.70 – but don’t think I need that though it is very pretty. Instead I have my eye on another dress in a very similar print and an even more flattering shape.

I am watching it hawklike to see if it goes in the sale. Of course the only way to make sure it goes in the sale would be for me to buy it at full price. But I’m not gonna. Basically Boden and I are waiting to see who cracks first. It won’t be me, Boden! 

At least probably not.

5 cool things to do in Paris that aren’t the Eiffel Tower

Today I’m over on the Headline blog talking about five of my favourite things to see/do in Paris (and where to stick your head in a hippo’s mouth). Come and take a peek.

My four Parisian homes

When I was 20 going on 21, I lived in Paris for a year (well, ten months). I got to know Paris very well, partly because I kept on moving. Without counting the times when I crashed on my friend S’s futon or floor in between accomodations, here are the places I lived …

1) October: Rue de Babylone, 7th arrondissement, for two weeks, as an au pair girl. The apartment was palatial and the kids were quite sweet but I was a terrible au pair girl. One night I used the home phone to call my friend (local call, she was in Paris too!) and tell her at length what a bad time I was having. This was back in the days of answering machines and it recorded our entire conversation. I left pretty soon afterwards.

2) November: College des Irlandais, 5th arrondissement. An Irish cultural centre with accommodation attached, in the middle of the Latin Quarter. It used to be a seminary for priests and the rooms were still rather monastic, but it was cheap, breakfast was provided and I could walk to my French classes through the Luxembourg gardens. Sadly, just before Christmas they told me I had to leave as the room was wanted. The next day at breakfast I met a charming young man from Galway who had just arrived and been delighted to find a spare room going. It turned out he knew the priest-in-residence. J’accuse!

3) December to March: rue de Commerce, 15th arrondissement. Now earning money working for an art foundation, I was able to move into a proper flat, with Sylvie. This is a pseudonym because I ended not friends with Sylvie. She taught me a great recipe where you simmer chicken in a pot with thyme and rice and end up with a delicious stew. She also used the same pots to boil-wash her underwear. And she was sort of cheating me over the rent in a way I no longer 100% remember but involved a fictional landlord. What with that and the underwear, enough was enough.

4) April to August: 5, rue de Conde, 6th arrondissment. Ahh. My happy place. A tiny chambre de bonne on the top floor of a 17th-century building, five minutes from the Luxembourg Gardens. The shower was in the middle of the bedroom, and there was a ‘mini-oven’ rather than an actual kitchen, and if there had been a fire I would have been dead in minutes, but I didn’t care. I was very happy here and my landlady was a sweetheart who had me over to dinner every month to pay rent. Every time I go to Paris I have to make a pilgrimage to the door of the building and remember my time there. Which is great fun for whoever I’m with.

It’s no coincidence that this area is the one where Charlie and Poppy stay in POPPY DOES PARIS although I could never have afforded their hotel – the Hotel du Globe, nearby, is a good budget alternative.

Anyone else have a favourite part of Paris? I’d love to know!