Travel Clinic
Travel SmartHow to turn your beach holiday into a bestseller
Bonkbuster author and all round glamourpuss Tilly Bagshawe has just finished her latest – a so-addictive -you-forget-you-left-the-bath-running read about two rival luxury hotels entitled Do Not Disturb. JetAway asked her to share some of her writing secrets…
CHOOSE A SEXY SETTING
What kind of bestseller are you after? If you want to write high glamour bonkbusters like mine, you can forget Blackpool or Tenerife! Saint-Tropez is a good option – pitch your tent outside Club 55 with big shades and a notebook and, by the end of the day, you should have plenty of good characters (and quite possibly some juicy adulterous plots) to draw on.
However, if it’s chick lit you’re after then by all means check in to a flea-infested B&B in Benidorm or tuck into some chips and hot Bovril at Whitley Bay in February. Your heroine can be the fat, chain-smoking daughter of an ice cream van man, who triumphantly loses two stone by the end of the book and marries her boring accountant boss (not that I’m anti-chick lit or anything).
DO SOME CREATIVE ACCOUNTING
Keep receipts for EVERYTHING – once you get your book deal you can charge it all to tax. You’d be AMAZED how far that little word “research” can stretch, particularly if you set your book in the hotel business, as I did. Perhaps write about an airline mogul or a cruise-ship owner – use your imagination and think laterally.
TICK THE PLOT BOXES
Remember, most bestsellers aimed at women follow the girl-meets-boy, girl-then-encounters-obstacle-or-misunderstanding-that-separates-her-
from-boy, girl-finally-marries-boy formula. You may as well have the girl and boy go through the dance at Shutters on the Beach in LA as in a dreary office in Slough. Although the latter did work wonders for Ricky Gervais, so what do I know?
Do Not Disturb is published by Orion, costs £9.99 and is available from all good book -stores
TALES FROM THE MINI BAR
THE PINK PEARL:
cube of brown sugar
5ml elderflower cordial
5ml spiced berry cordial
15ml Remy Martin VSOP
Bruno Palliard Rosé Champagne
Redcurrant berries for garnish
Infuse the brown sugar with orange peel and place in the bottom of the champagne flute. Add a splash of elderflower cordial, spiced berry cordial and Remy Martin VSOP. Fill the glass with Bruno Palliard Rosé Champagne and garnish with redcurrant berries.
From the Pearl Restaurant & Bar, London.
Celebrity iPod
We raid the playlist of the stars to see what they’d be nodding their heads to if they were seated next to you right now…
Rockin’ the Pod this issue:
CARRIE UNDERWOOD
PLAYLIST:
Beautiful Day - U2
I’m Your Man - Wham!
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
“I LOVE the Rolling Stones! I love just about everything they have ever done. In fact, if anyone ever sees me driving around Nashville with the top down, there is no doubt that they will most likely get a dose of the Stones’ Forty Licks album. I particularly like Paint it Black because it makes no sense!”
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