Guest Author - Claudia Carroll

Today my Guest Author is Claudia Carroll, author of Personally, I blame my Fairygodmother and more recently, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.  

Photos courtesy of Avon Publishing

1. In your latest novel Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Annie and Dan meet at Senior School, marry and should live happily ever after, but then life gets in the way. 

 When planning the novel, did the storyline about long distance relationships or the couple's delicate marriage develop first?

I think probably both storylines started to develop at around the same time. I was very interested in writing about a young couple who get together when they’re both teenagers and are madly in love, the way you only really can be at aged fifteen. You know, at that age, you’d follow the man you love to the ends of the earth with only a packet of fun sized Mars bars to live off. Whereas at forty, you could barely be arsed driving him into town on a Friday night because he wants to go out on the p*** with the lads…again.

Then I wondered, what happens if you flash forward to when this couple are suddenly aged thirty and growing apart from each other, when the cracks are starting to show in their once perfect marriage? What then?

2. On the general subject of storylines, do you plan your cast of characters and stick to them, or do they sometimes wander into the storyline ?

I would always do out a detailed synopsis of every book I sit down to write, like a kind of skeleton outline of the story. I find this really helps, and although I may meander off in slightly different plot twists and turns, once the ‘roadmap’ is in place, it’s always great to keep coming back to. So to answer your question, I’d be fairly clear at the outset as to exactly how a storyline will pan out and how a book will end. Having said that though, part of the joy of writing lies in characters coming in who take your story in a direction you could never have foreseen!

3. The two settings for the novel, Ireland and New York are so very different and very far apart, why did you choose these two places?

I wanted to pick a place that was a whole world apart, literally and figuratively for Annie, the heroine, and I thought, given that she lives in the remotest country village known to man where life is like a Samuel Beckett play (nothing ever happens...EVER) that life in Manhattan would offer the great contrast imaginable to her. So, as can only happen in the theatre world, where a single lucky phone call really can change the whole course of your life, one minute she's in the back of the beyonds, next thing, she's in the midst of somewhere as glamorous and exciting as mid-town NYC and about to opening on Broadway.

4. What are you working on now?

The book I’m working on right now is called AN ACCIDENTAL LOVE AFFAIR and it’s a romantic comedy about a newspaper editor called Eloise Elliot who uses a sperm bank to become pregnant, then gives birth a year later to a beautiful little girl, Lily. The story kick starts three years on when Lily has started play group and is starting to wonder why every other kid on her class has a Daddy and she doesn’t.

Lily grows up a gifted child, and pretty soon Eloise herself becomes initially interested and then obsessed with finding out who her baby daddy really is. If you had a child this special, is her reasoning, then wouldn’t you want to know about it? A leading cardiac surgeon, she reckons, or maybe even a conductor with the New York Philharmonic. Definitely someone highbrow, cultured and intelligent though, she assumes. Anyway, she sets about tracking him down and discovers he’s none of the above……he’s actually in prison with a police record the length of your arm.

Of course, Eloise panics and tries to circumvent fate by setting this guy on the path to middle class-dom, so that in years to come, should her daughter try to track him down, she’ll find a Dad she can be proud of and not an ex-con sleeping rough and more than likely on a Methadone program.

So, just like in My Fair Lady or Pygmalion, Eloise sets about making a gentleman of this rough diamond, just like Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, except gender reversed……..

5. What book is on your bedside table? 

A big pile of books that it'll take me till Christmas to get through! Right now, I'm reading Hugo Vickers biography of Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, a character from history who I knew shamefully little about and I'm finding her life story fascinating. Also Red Queen and White Queen by Philippa Gregory. Oh and this week's OK Magazine, which I bought because a free Aero biscuit bar came with it. Delicious too. But then, I'm a total sucker for a freebie. Genius marketing......I mean, who'd ever have thought? Aero turning into a biscuit?

I would like to thank Claudia for taking time out from her writing to answers my questions.  I am honoured and delighted to share her answers with you.

I am excited for the next book already. :)

You can find out more about Claudia Carroll here