Friday, October 21, 2011

Cindy Bokma talks about writing, beauty blogging and Here If You Need Me





I first met CIndy when she interviewed me for her great blog Cindy Reads. We became friends and Cindy now even has me writing about beauty products for her fantastic beauty blog Hello Dollface (You cannot imagine how much fun this is to try out $70 lipsticks and $200 skin creams!) But Cindy and I also have many, many conversations about writing, novels, scripts, the works, and one of the best times of my life was shopping in Manhattan with her--No one has a sense of style like Cindy, or better celebrity gossip.  Her new novel, Here If You Need Me is as sparkling as Cindy herself, and I'm thrilled to be peppering her with questions.  Thank you, Cindy!

So tell me about your book. What sparked the idea?
The book is about a working class young woman befriending a down- on- her- luck celebrity with disastrous results. When I wrote the book, I was running my celebrity gossip website. I considered what would happen if a regular person like myself became friends with a celebrity. I don’t think it would be as glamorous as most people imagine. In fact, I could see being sucked into that world of fame and money and losing everything!
What's your writing process like? Are you an outliner or do you just "follow your pen?"
I love to follow a screenplay format. It helps to keep my ideas clear so I know where I’m headed. I use Blake Snyders “beat sheet” from his Save the Cat book. Its brilliant. Once you kind of know what your character is going to do, and is supposed to do, you can be free to fill in the blanks. It works for me...most of the time. 
You run a successful beauty blog, Hello Dollface, another literary blog Cindy Reads, and you're also a screenwriter as well as a novelist. Plus, you're a wife and mother! So how do you juggle everything in your day?
Oh my gosh, Caroline, I’m overwhelmed! I am super busy every single day. There isn’t one day of the week where I’m not on my computer, working on something. I feel like in order to reach the level of success I’m after, I have to put in the hard work! Its been ten years of sitting at the computer every single day whether I feel like it or not.
What's obsessing you now?
Right this second, it’s the pile of laundry in the bedroom and the fact Project Runway is on!
There are a few projects on my mind- one is my 40 Things Before I Turn 40 series, about trying to cram in all the things I want to do before I turn 40. I want to try NaNo and bang out a novel in November. And I have an idea for a television series I’ve been planning in my mind- I have to get that on paper.
What project are you working on next?
NaNo! I have an idea for my book and it will be the first character I write that is a mother and wife in the suburbs, which is exactly what I am.
What question didn't I ask that I should have?
Maybe if I have an agent? Which I do not, but I desperately need! 

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