1. Lucy, thank you for joining me today and answering my questions. I look forward to your next novel whatever the final title will be. :)
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Please tell us a little about yourself.
Please tell us a little about yourself.
Oo where to start? Well, key facts would be that I am 35, newly single and currently back living with my parents. So, where, on the inside page of my new book, it states ‘Lucy-Anne Holmes is an actress living in London’, which sounds rather glamorous, it should say ‘Lucy-Anne Holmes is an actress living in Eastbourne with her parents, but hoping to buy a camper van in the near future.’
I trained as an actress, and have been doing plays and commercials and the odd bit of telly for years, but the writing began after I started an online blog, which charted my dating disasters. It garnered some interest from agents and publishers and led me to write a novel.
2. Gracie is a super character with lots of energy and drive, where did she come from?
Oh, thank you! I love her too! Sadly I don’t know where she came from. It’s a lovely question though, because, where do ideas come from? Sometimes you see something and it triggers an idea but sometimes they just appear in your head like magic. Gracie was like that. I’ve never met anyone like her. Physically she’s an amalgamation of two women I know, but as for her personality, she’s not based on anyone in particular. I remember getting the idea of the story though, I was sitting in my old flat in Camden and I’d just tidied the lounge, and suddenly this story started to be daydreamed into being in my head. The story got fleshier and fleshier and I literally sat there for hours thinking about it and then I called my dad and told him the bones of it.
3. What songs would be on the karaoke machine for you to sing?
I can’t sing a note!! When I was at Drama school my singing teacher told me that if tune was London I was in Birmingham! I would love to be able to belt out some Adele, but for the good of society I will never do that. I adore music though, which I’m sure was why I enjoyed writing the music storyline in Unlike A Virgin so much.
4. What are you working on next?
A new novel, as yet untitled, well, I want to call it Smiling Fanny, but my publishers go very pale at the thought. It’s about a girl named Jenny Taylor, but her friends call her Fanny, she’s lovely, she had a bit of a hard time of it growing up, and her best friend wrote her The Smiling Fanny Manifesto to perk her up. It’s a list of things she should do every day to stay cheerful. She’s been doing this list religiously for years and it’s led her to meet loads of people and have lots of adventures. We meet her on a day when 3 things happen to threaten this happiness she’s been trying so hard to keep.
5. What book is on your bedside table?
I’m having a bit of a dark reading spell because I have to hand a book in to my publishers, like, today! GAHHHHHHH!! And I have to try to limit things, ie, getting into a good novel, which will distract me from achieving this. Hence, on my bedside table is Haruki Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which is not a novel so is therefore currently ‘allowed’. I have newly got into running and am doing a half marathon in 2 weeks. I’m really enjoying the passion with which he writes about running and writing and it’s managing to encourage both my writing and my running..marvellous!
Little, Brown Publisher is running an AMAZING competition http://www.littlebrownbooks.net/britainsings/ to win a Play Station 3 and Singstar package, so that you can sing your heart out like Gracie Flowers in the book!
Little, Brown say we’ve set up our own Singing Contest, Britain Sings http://www.facebook.com/pages/Britain-Sings/162133383864884?sk=wall, to rival the X-Factor so do upload your own audition.
You can find out more about Lucy here
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