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July 7, 2008 10:51 AM

GUEST BLOG: Delaune Michel

On Friday - this Friday, 11 July - at 11am EST* we'll be hosting author Delaune Michel for a chat right here on this very blog. What that means is that Delaune will hang out in the comments and answer your questions.

* US - which is, I believe, 3pm UK time ... if you're elsewhere you'll have to work it out yourself, 'cos it makes my head hurt. This is useful though.

So please make sure you turn up and, you know, ask some, otherwise it'll just be me and her chatting and she might not be as obsessed with The West Wing as I am (if she is, don't worry, we'll be fine). So start thinking up questions ... now! And in the meantime, read Delaune's guest blog and make sure you vote in the polls at the end. Over to Delaune...

How is it that summer is suddenly halfway gone? I feel like it was only last week that I finally got completely ready (I think!), and can go to the beach without looking like the ghost of winters past, or at least without having to wear last season’s swimsuit! But there are worse things that summer brings. Like weddings.

Not that I don’t like weddings. I love weddings. I loved my wedding. But the wedding I really didn’t love was a good friend’s when she married a man whose sole purpose in life (or at least in mine) seemed to be to come between her and me. Please raise your hand now if this has happened to you. Or better yet, answer the poll below.   

Why does this happen so often? And why is only one person in the friendship aware that it is? I realized after I went through my friend’s happy-for-them-but-not-for-me extravaganza nuptial year, that I wanted answers to those questions. But I knew I couldn’t get them from her. So I did what I always do when I need to figure something out, I decided to write about it.  And fifteen months later, my new novel, The Safety of Secrets, was born.

I wanted to explore deep-rooted loyalty between women, and how sometimes it can be a sword that cuts both ways, opening up whole worlds of safety within the friendship while exacting a price, as well.

When I started looking at loyalty, I also had to look at betrayal. And it occurred to me that one currency of intimacy in a best friendship is shared secrets, so I wanted to see what would happen to that relationship when its most powerful secret is given away, and given away thoughtlessly, like so many pennies dropped on the floor. There is such stark and deep knowledge of one another in an ages old friendship that I wondered about how some secrets are used to protect ourselves, while others are used to try to continue to be the person we think our best friend needs.

Then I realized that if there is any world in which secrets are at a premium, it is Hollywood. Shielding and hiding are essential tools in that town. I think one trait that distinguishes stars from other actors is their ability to appear completely exposed while in fact they presenting only and exactly what they want us to see. I felt that making my main characters, Fiona and Patricia, actresses in LA (though part of the novel occurs in flashbacks in south Louisiana where they grew up; I can’t let go of my roots!) would deepen their connection to secrets and revealing truths. Besides, my first novel, Aftermath of Dreaming, was mostly set in Los Angeles, and after living there for so long, I wasn’t ready to leave such a rich and provocative backdrop yet.

By working through Fiona and Patricia’s friendship in The Safety of Secrets (and being surprised how it ended myself), I learned a lot about loyalty and secrets between women. But I still have more to go. If you get a chance to read it, I’d love to hear what you think about how those issues play out in the book and in your own life. And if I'm near you for an event, (check it out my tour at www.delaunemichel.com), come by and tell me in person.

And you don’t even have to be beach-ready. I still may not be!

Poll questions:

Bonus question:

Came straight to this page? Visit www.trashionista.com for more female fiction news, reviews and interviews.

Posted by Aigua Media on July 7, 2008 in Guest blogs | Permalink

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