You can buy Lisa's The Twelve Dates of Christmas series as eBooks here!
Interview with Lisa Dickenson
Q1. Please tell us about your series of eBooks 'The Twelve Dates of Christmas'.
Thank you for asking! Twelve Dates is all about Claudia, and how her same-old-same-old life suddenly gets shaken like a snowglobe just weeks before Christmas. Things get pretty confusing as she embarks on a number of dates, and she realises that both the last thing, and the first thing, she wants is romance. It’s sparkly and festive, and hopefully will bundle readers into a warm of seasonal world of London at Christmastime.
Q2. What inspired you to release the books as 6 parts as opposed to one big story?
I’m afraid I can’t claim credit for that one – it was my Editor at Little, Brown, Manpreet, who came up with this idea. She’d wanted to try serialising a women’s fiction novel, and Twelve Dates split quite neatly into six parts! It works especially well at Christmas, when more and more of the novel can be revealed the closer you get to the big day, like an advent calendar.
Q3. Do you have any Christmas traditions in your house?
All of them! I’m mega-annoying at Christmas because I always want everything to be very traditional and exactly the same every year! But one thing is that I do like to kick the season off with a screening of Muppet Christmas Carol.
Q4. What's your favourite thing about Christmas?
I’m not sure I could pick one thing – which is super lame of me. Can I pick the run up as a whole? The Christmas adverts appearing, the red cups in Starbucks, the lights, the carols, the yuletide jumpers… And also now one of my favourite things about Christmas is that my first ever novel was released.
Q5. What are some of your favourite festive reads?
Ooo I love reading festive reads in the run-up to Christmas! There’s nothing better than curling up in a coffee shop with a gingerbread latté and devouring thousands of evocative words about Christmas. Chick Lit is my go-to genre for a festive fix – I love Winter Wonderland by Belinda Jones among many others – but a classic that I read every year is A Christmas Carol by Mr Dickens.
Q6. What do you do when you aren't writing?
Urm, mostly I procrastine, but that’s when I’m supposed to be writing! When I’m supposed to be doing nothing of the sort, I’ll either be thinking up reasons not to go to the gym, wandering about the house looking for snacks, walking along by the beach, watching US TV shows or at my day job, at a scientific publishers.
Q7. If you were stuck on a desert island, what 3 things would you want with you?
A massive can of aerosol sun spray, a knife, and a superyacht.
Q8. If you could be as successful as any other chick lit writer, who would it be?
I’d love to be as successful as Jackie Collins (aiming high, much?!) because she writes whatever the heck she wants, several books at a time, lives in a mansion, is published around the world, and I think is actually a very strong role model as well – she’s built this huge empire writing about women who run major companies, who hold the power, who enjoy having a partner but their happiness isn’t reliant on them.
Q9. Are you working on something new for next year?
I am! Or at least I’m supposed to be… I really must get my head down and get on with it so I can send some material to my lovely agent Hannah at The Marsh Agency soon. It’ll be another chick lit novel, but this time set (mainly) in the US, where my leading lady wins a place at a film summer school. She knows nothing about the movie industry, and is totally out of her depth. I’ll be sure to throw lots of trials and tribulations at her, poor girl!
Twitter: @LisaWritesStuff
Thanks so much, Lisa!
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