Lucy Robinson

Lucy Robinson started writing in 2009 when she began her blog on the Marie Claire website chronicling her doomed attempts at internet dating, she was then approached by a Women’s Fiction editor who insisted she wrote a book and a year later, ‘The Greatest Love Story Of All Time’ was produced followed by ‘A Passionate Love Affair With A Total Stranger’. Lucy’s third book ‘The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me’ is released 7th July 2014.

1. Your latest book, ‘A Passionate Love Affair With A Total Stranger’ tells the story of Charley Lambert, a hardworking woman who is determined to create the perfect life. With a good pair of legs, a great flat and job and a boss who she is madly in love with since a drunken fumble in the mop cupboard. Then she breaks her leg in three places, watches her boss propose to another woman and is forced to hand her demanding job over to her nasty deputy. But for Charley, a certified workaholic, fears that she will go mad. Dangerously bored, she starts to help people who are useless with internet dating and along the way, meets William she rocks her inbox. Helpless she watches herself fall in love with a stranger and discovers she’s not who she thought she was. What inspired you to write this type of story Lucy?
   The story for ‘A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger’ was borne out of an article I read in The Times about a business in the States which offers ghostwriting services to those who lack the necessary banter skills to be a successful internet dater. I know! Who? What? Why?! It seemed like an extraordinary kind of job to do and as soon as I read it I knew there would be a story in there. And when I came to putting together a heroine, Charley just sort of happened. My friend the writer Katy Regan once told me that your heroine must always come from you, in some way or another – it’s impossible to write on behalf of a human being with which you have zero identification. So I looked at the aspects of my personality that had not been baked into my first novel and thought . . . hmmm. Workaholic, perfectionist, self-critic. And thus Charley was born.
2. As your story is based on the concept of finding love on the internet. How would you describe yourself for a dating website?
   I did internet date for a while but I was on mysinglefriend.com so I left most of the description to my friend! But nowadays I think an advert for Love With Lucy Robinson would read along these lines:
   Cheese-lover with numerous bad habits searching for ridiculous, loveable, clever-but-not-too-serious man with whom to giggle a lot. Has a great bottom and a filthy sense of humour. If you bring a dog on the date I will probably marry you.
   Looking at this I think it’s probably a good thing that I am in a long-term relationship. With the man I’ve described!
3. To the readers of the website, that may not familiar with you or your writing, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into writing?
   I used to be a TV producer but in 2009 I started blogging for Marie Claire about my search for love online. It was a great blog, not because I think I’m a particularly brilliant blogger but just because my experiences were so outlandishly awful! I was approached by an editor who told me I should write a novel. I said I didn’t have a novel in me but she disagreed. After a bit of a fight she won and I started writing something. I wrote 30,000 words, decided it was dreadful but thought I should at least send it to an agent just to be certain. To my amazement, my (now) agent took me on straight away. She gave me invaluable advice on what needed to be done with the manuscript and held my hand all the way through what became The Greatest Love Story of All Time. She was and is truly wonderful. Thanks to her my book ended up in a very exciting three-way auction! I felt like the world had gone mad. I signed with Penguin and ran off to Argentina to learn Spanish, mince around and write my books.
4. Regarding the phenomenon of “Fifty Shades of Grey “and how well it did. Some people criticised the writing and the books that followed on after the series. Do you think the standards of writing has slipped?
   I haven’t read any of these erotica books that have flooded the market so I’d struggle to comment directly on it. But I don’t think standards of writing have slipped. I think there have always been poorly-written books – and there are thousands of them on sale right now – but for every average tome there is a novel of sheer brilliance. Look at ‘Pamela’ by Samuel Richardson – it was one of the first novels ever written and was, basically, eighteenth century chicklit. It was phenomenally popular but intellectuals wrote it off as silly nonsense and many people believed it to be far too racy. Now it’s something that literature students study at university. Every book has its place. My job is not to criticise but to just do the very best I can with my own work. I would never agree to write a book in six months, for example, because I don’t want to produce something that’s shoddy and unpolished.
5. What part of the writing process do you find most difficult?
   The part of the writing process that I find most difficult is all the online stuff. I don’t enjoy marketing myself at all, nor do I like spending too much time on the Internet. It’s probably very lucky, therefore, that I have a traditional publishing deal, meaning I can focus on maintaining an online relationship with my readers and leaving the clever marketing stuff to the experts at Penguin. I have nothing but awe and respect for self-published authors and the enormous amount of time they spend online, building their profiles and getting their books sold. I know several such authors and they are amazing – they know so much about Amazon and promotions and algorithms and stuff . . . I generally feel quite stupid when I talk to them!
6. Who is your favourite literary hero/heroine?
   Oh, probably Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind. A filthy piece of work. Yum.
7. Was there ever a book that you read, that didn’t live up to the hype that surrounded it and left you disappointed?
   ‘The Alchemist’. Dull, dull, dull. And massively self-indulgent, in my clearly-not-so-humble opinion.
8. When sitting down to write, what is the one item you need beside you?
   A glass of water. A hydrated brain will produce writing for a far higher quality than a dehydrated brain. Other than that I want as little as possible on my desk. I realised within three weeks of being a professional writer that the notion of sitting in a cafe with a laptop and notebook may sound nice but is a load of tosh – you can’t hear yourself think in that environment! I would, however, like to find a way of being ‘near’ to people in my working day. It can get a bit solitary . . . Bristol being Bristol there’s all sorts of lovely co-op type places where you can rent desks so I’m looking into that. I miss people! I only write for three hours per day so those hours need to be really focused. My poor boyfriend hates me because he is the messiest person on earth (and then some) and my need for a tidy house in which to write is at direct odds with his entire existence. Oops!
9. If you weren’t an author, what do you imagine yourself doing?
   If I wasn’t an author I’d seriously consider becoming a Lightning Process Practitioner. The Lightning Process saved my life when I got ME last year and is the most extraordinary tool for health and happiness. It’s so simple and yet so powerful: people who’ve been wheelchair-bound with severe ME have been able to get up and walk after a few hours doing the process. It works for all sorts of physical and mental health issues too – I just think it must be incredible to be able to teach people the tools to turn their lives round in the space of three days. Talk about job satisfaction…!
10. What authors do you admire?
    To be honest I don’t read much women’s fiction. There’s nothing quite as delicious as a cracking love story in which to escape . . . And I am privileged to be writing alongside some absolutely brilliant chicklit authors… but, equally, that stuff is my work so I normally read different types of fiction. I just finished Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Kim with my book club in Bristol – a heavy read but magical and richly evocative. Now I’m re-reading Jilly Cooper’s ‘Polo as my next novel involves horses and I don’t want any crossover. The first thing anyone says when I tell them about the next book is, ‘aha! The next Jilly Cooper!’ No. No no no! Apart from the fact that my writing is nothing like hers I would probably die if I had to write sex scenes like hers. Writing even low-key sex scenes leaves me bright red and flustered. The first time I wrote one I had to go out and walk in the park for an hour. Terrible.
11. What area do you suggest a budding writer should concentrate on to further their abilities?
    I am often approached by authors-in-the-making seeking advice about how to improve their writing skills. My answer is always the same: just write a book. It’s the only advice that was given to me and it’s therefore the only thing I know – and it works. This is just my own personal opinion but I don’t really see any need to go on endless courses and write lots of things that aren’t novels with which to practice and perfect your style – if you have a book in you, get it out! It will almost certainly be lacking on the first draft – my novel was DREADFUL at first (as in, monumentally awful) – but once it’s been written it’s editable. That’s when you should start working on your technique. You can send your manuscript to all sorts of people for their thoughts. I know how scary it is to just sit down write a book – I really do. But it’s the only way.
12. And finally Lucy do you have any projects or releases on the horizon which you would like to share with the readers of the website?
    After some health problems last year I’ve got back to work and have now edited my third novel which will be out on June 19th. It’s called ‘The Unfinished Symphony of You And Me’ and I am tremendously excited about it – it’s my most ambitious book yet and took a huge amount of research and effort. I am quietly confident that it’s my best book yet! I’m now researching horse stuff for my fourth novel, of which I have written a few thousand words, and hoping to have that done by Autumn. Yesterday I had a lovely (albeit cold) day at a yard asking billions of silly questions and laughing at the horses who were galloping and jumping around their field for no discernible reason. Oh and finally I’m thinking of bringing back Fran and Dave from ‘The Greatest Love Story of All Time’ in another little project. Above all though I’m concentrating on really enjoying my life. That’s number one these days!

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