Author Interview: Lily Temperley
Author Interview: Lily Temperley
Hey All!
Today is my stop on the Fix: Sex, Lies and Banking blog tour and I am here today with an interview with the author!
Title: Fix: Sex, Lies and Banking
Author: Lily Temperley
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 7th June 2014
Format: Paperback
Source:: N/A
Add It: Amazon. Goodreads.
Summary: What’s love got to do with it? Patrick Harrington is handsome, wealthy and successful. He is also a high-functioning addict that craves his next fix. His vices of choice are money and women: taking risks at work and pursuing multiple sexual conquests. Determined to get what he wants, as he always does, Harrington fixates on Alexandra Fisher – the latest pretty young thing in his office.
The Interview
What is your favourite thing about writing books?
I appreciate the opportunity to tell my stories. To write about the things that I have seen and heard… along with things I imagine. I think it is true that life can be stranger than fiction, so it is a deep well of material to draw on. I like the solitude of writing but also the creative energy and flow.
Who is your favourite character in your book and why?
Candice. Alex’s best friend. She is a blend of many of my favourite girlfriends. I have always tried to surround myself with other women that inspire, support, love and laugh with me. The world can be a wonderous place but also scary and alienating so to know you have some solid connections at the end of a phone is a reassuring thing.
What is your favourite drink to consume while writing?
I always start the day with coffee – a single shot cappuccino with oat milk. Throughout the day I drink sparkling water and herbal tea to stay hydrating, for comfort and for a warm cup to hold when I need to stop and think or gaze out the window for a break from my screen. I enjoy taking my laptop to cafes, so I am amongst people even though I am inside my writer’s bubble.
Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
Procrastination is probably the worst habit. Putting things off when there really is no need. Sometimes you know a character or a chapter needs to be reworked – and it is usually fun to mould and continue to shape the narrative – but some days it can be just as easy to do just about anything else. I also must limit my social media interaction as it is easy to go down a twitter rabbit hole or lose time scrolling on Instagram.
How did you research your book?
Google was my best friend. I read widely and made notes about things I needed more information on before I started online research. I could end up going off on tangents sometimes as I clicked through sites, but it usually helped me hone my writing and forced me to be more succinct in what I chose to include.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
By nature, I am the former. I like and need structure when I write, otherwise I can lose my way. The only part of Fix that was more pantser than plotter was the ending. I really didn’t want to finish it and couldn’t commit myself to the ending the book as it had happened in real life so I decided to leave it more open… as a result it ended up being far less planned and thought through than the rest of the book.
If you could live in any fictional world, which would you choose and why?
The world created by Hunter S Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I found the whole story tantalising as it is so far from my reality… yet it was compelling and I felt like I was enveloped within the multi-layered cosmos as I devoured each page.
If you could befriend any fictional character, who would you choose and why?
I have just finished Little Fire Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I would like to be friends with Izzy Richardson. She struck me as determined and honest which are great qualities in a friend. I like her rebellious streak too. She came across as human and much more relatable when juxtaposed with her other siblings.
About the Author
Lily Temperley is now based in an exotic location after fifteen years of living and working in London. She arrived in London at the tender age of twenty with a dream: to dominate the world and see as much of it as she could while doing so. Reality soon bit with paying her rent becoming paramount, and so it was that she shunned everything she learnt at law school and opted for a shiny, lucrative job in the city.
Roll the clock forward more than a decade, she was married, she was single; she was armed with a list of more than fifty countries visited and had some money behind her. She was hit by an epiphany. After a lifetime of being known for both her tendency for amateur dramatics in everyday life and storytelling riddled with hyperbole, she confirmed to herself that, actually, her dream had always been to write.
What life had done in the time preceding this revelation was provide her with rich material, amazing experiences, and deep relationships on which to base her prose. To crystallise her declaration that she was now a writer, she promptly resigned from the city job, bought a new laptop and began to write.
The basis for her first book is her own life experience. She grew up in an investment bank. She's had jobs working in the executive suites of two of Britain's largest firms and has seen both these companies handle catastrophes on a global stage. Interwoven with that, she had an intimate relationship with a very senior executive, providing a real-life romantic angle to the corporate setting. True life is stranger than fiction and our stories - however shameful or hurtful - must be told.
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Will you be reading this book?
