I’m frequently asked where I get my wacky ideas
from for my stories. Well, I collect them from everywhere:
from news articles, from TV shows, from books, and
even from real life, too. Here’s a little bit
from behind the scenes with Totally
Fabulous.
Q. Fiona Blount, the teenage heroine in Almost
Fabulous and Totally Fabulous, gets to travel first class with
her newly-discovered long-lost dad on an intercontinental flight from London
to New York. Have you ever travelled first class?
A. Sadly, no! Having done quite
a bit of globe-trotting squeezed in coach, and having researched what it might
be like to travel first class (they have a lot more room and the Internet, too)
I have always yearned to be upgraded, but in vain. Apart from on one occasion
when I was travelling from Rotterdam to Copenhagen. I was upgraded, but all this meant on the small
city-hopper plane was that I got to sit at the front of the plane in a totally
normal small seat, instead of at the back of the plane in a totally normal small
seat.
Q. In Totally Fabulous Fiona’s
newly-discovered Grandmother Gloria makes her listen to classical music to “improve” Fiona.
Were you forced to listen to classical music to “improve” yourself,
too?
A. No. I listened to and sang quite a
lot of classical music in my youth because I wanted to be just like Maria
Callas when I grew up. I even had singing lessons. But then I abandoned classical
music for folk music, because I wanted to be just like Joni
Mitchell. I even
learned to play guitar, but never as well as Joni. Then I dropped folk music
for rock music because I wanted to be the female equivalent of Robert
Plant.
Or Jimmy Page, but I could never play guitar anywhere near
as well as him, either. These days I love and listen to all kinds of music.
Q. Fiona and her boyfriend Joe are science nerds. Are you a science
nerd, too?
A. I am a wannabe science nerd because I think
that the natural world is such a fascinating, exciting place. Especially
the recent intermediate fossil discovery of Tiktaalik,
and the possible things we might learn from the Large
Hadron Collider when it
is finally up and running.
Q. In Totally Fabulous Fiona accidentally
smashes a very expensive Ming vase. She later learns that it is a fake Mink, so
not so expensive after all. Have you ever smashed a Ming vase, fake or otherwise?
A. No. But I have always been pretty
clumsy. I am always dropping plates or glasses, so I don’t own any expensive
China or glassware. But I got the idea for the book from a real-life event. A
poor man in England did accidentally
smash
some Ming vases...
Q. Fiona has a big problem with any kind of theme park, because
although she really wants to try out all of the rides, even the slowest, gentlest
of rides makes her sick to the stomach. Is this based on your own experience?
A. Yes. :)
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