An Evening With Lauren Lloyd
An Evening With Lauren Lloyd
On a cold, damp October evening, something rather special happened at a pub down the road….
It’s taken a few days to process the warmth, love, friendship and inspiration in the room.
I’ve been buzzing for a week.
But yes, I hosted my first author’s event ‘An Evening With Lauren Lloyd’ at the Alton Inn in Kilwinning – all to promote my new book, Borderline Normality.
Arrival
Unbeknown to me, a group of friends had set up the ‘Lauren Lloyd Management Team’ WhatsApp group to make sure the night was special. Oh my goodness.
“What time you planning on arriving,” a friend sent the text.
I assumed because she didn’t want to go into the pub on her own.
But no, it was because she (and friends) were organising an author’s festive winter wonderland of enchantment for me to walk into, like Royalty. They’d organised balloons, balloon arches, a Borderline Normality display, red curtains, stage set up, the Lauren Lloyd cocktail designed and batch-made to ultra potency, a Queen’s buffet, amazing Borderline Normality cupcakes with the cover emblazoned on top of soft sponge and unctuous cream, and perfect replica Borderline Normality earrings….
Book Groups
This event was organised by the Ayrshire Book Group.
Book Groups are special things. The Ayrshire Book Group in particular is a group where connection, community, friendship and magic happens.
If stories are the architects of humanity, then Book Groups are the guardians. Storytelling is a fundamental part of being human and stories let us share information in a way that creates an emotional connection.
When you talk about stories and books in a Book Group, you feel connected. Part of something bigger than yourself. You recognise yourself as part of other peoples’ experiences.
I have never felt that as powerfully as standing on stage on the 17th October, sharing something personal. Sharing characters that lived and breathed in my head and that I’d poured my heart and soul into writing about over the past two years. I swear Amy, Adam and Rachel were sitting in the room, listening too.
The Reading
I was meant to do two readings. That was the schedule, organised by cat-herder and Book Group leader extraordinaire, Ali Mitchell.
But I’ve never been one for schedules – winks at the audience
I planned on doing the first chapter, ‘Amy,’ which introduces Amy and aspects of her ‘Borderline’ personality. That was the chapter which was shortlisted for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Literary Award as a standalone short story.
But I’d also wanted to read Cal’s (Adams’ brother’s) chapter, ‘Brothers Don’t Walk The Dark Alone.’ That chapter pulls a lot of the past together and tells you why the book is called Borderline Normality. It’s testimony to the raw emotion of family experience. When I got to writing that part of the book, my hands typed Cal’s words and the chapter wrote itself. I cried when I read back what Cal had said.
But….. I talked too much.
The cocktails were flowing
The debate was so good.
The audience interaction was so fabulous.
That we never quite got to the second reading!
IT ALL WENT SO FAST. CAN WE DO IT AGAIN?
The Questions
- Why is Borderline Normality written in the 1st person, present tense, and why did you pull so many characters (six) into the narrative?
What a great question to kick us off. The default for an author (I think) is to write a book in 3rd person, past tense (Adam said, Amy said, the neighbour saw, they did, six months later….). That way you have maximum flexibility, can see everything and manipulate time as you wish. You can skip 6 months or 200 years, go back, jump forward. You narrate everything from an all-seeing place outside of the characters.
1st person, present tense (I fill each glass with venom and hurl it with superhuman force – chapter one) is undoubtedly harder to write without annoying your readers. Everything is viewed/said/experienced in real time, from inside the characters head.
Why did I choose it?
I wanted to normalise aspects of mental health, what it feels like from the inside. I wanted the pain/distress/chaos to feel authentic. I wanted to build suspense, like shattered glass, bit-by-bit, as it happens, from the viewpoints of unreliable witnesses with their own agendas. I wanted to document a descent into delusion from inside, real time.
Why did I pull multiple characters in? Easy. No man is an Island. Our lives play out in a context of other people. Had it just alternated between Amy and Adam, the book would have revolved around an echo chamber of Amy reacting to Adam’s behaviour.
Rachel (our co-heroine) reminds us of strong women, healthy relationships and what women can give to other women. Dr Walker, the psychiatrist, gives us a glimpse into the limitations of mental health services. Cal has vital pieces of the jigsaw as the only one who understands the trauma Adam’s been unable to process.
The intention was to gradually build layers of complexity, understanding and compassion into the main characters, despite the bad stuff they might do, as well as a ‘hands over the eyes’ sense of authentic foreboding for the reader.
- Why did you start writing and how do you find the time (alongside being a mother and working full-time)?
I wrote my first novel, A Trip To The Moon, almost ten years ago. It sat on a shelf for a number of years because I didn’t think it was good enough to publish. I hadn’t written it for other people’s eyes. I was working full-time in a stressful job, had three young children and felt I had lost a bit of who I was outside of being someone who worked hard, a mother and a wife. Someone whose life revolved around doing stuff for other people.
In a book you write yourself, you can be whoever you want, create whatever world you want and have the craziest, lustful, imaginative, larger than life adventures.
Once you’ve got over the ubiquitous feelings of Imposter Syndrome (‘I’m not really a serious author’ and ‘it’s not very good’), you can bring everyone in and create some storyteller magic. Everyone should have a go!
- Were the characters based on anyone or purely imagined people?
Ha! Great question! I defy any writer to say that the stories they create don’t have themselves and the people they know in there. Who hasn’t been scared of rejection: sent 50 text messages over a perceived sleight; overthinks things; thinks the worst; and can’t count to ten and walk away (Amy). Likewise, we all have Adam’s propensity for narcissistic behaviour: taking advantage of others; a lack of empathy or responsibility; entitlement rooted in an all-consuming, soul-destroying fear of being discovered for who we really are. A pathological fear of vulnerability and attachment.
Like Icarus to the sun, the one personality type is attracted to the other, and the relationship fated, sealed but doomed.
- What is the significance of Groudle Glen and why did you set key events there?
Groudle Glen is an iconic place on the Isle of Man (and the inspiration for the cover of the book). The Isle of Man generally is rich in myth and legend involving fairies and ghosts.
Practically as a vehicle for the story, you can get there easily from Manchester in a day. There are cliffs. The coastline is wild and the oceanography unique. A body thrown off a cliff at Groudle Glen could be caught in a multitude of interconnected, ever-changing tides and end up anywhere.
Having been there, it feels spooky.
I can’t imagine anywhere better for a fairy portal to the underworld.
Once the site of a Victorian pleasure park, there’s a miniature railway down the glen to ‘Sea Lion Rock’ where sea lions and polar bears were kept chained for visitors in the 1870’s. It’s said that the polar bears were released to sea in WWI. Their ghosts still haunt the place.
A young ghost, Molly Quirk, reportedly robbed and murdered in the glen, is also a regular visitor.
- How long does it take to write a book, from original idea to published paperback?
Borderline Normality took around a year of thinking about and a year to write, from having the original idea to completing editing and publishing.
I’m now writing my next book, Faery Tales, which I hope to publish in May 2025. It’s quite different to my other novels.
- In the film, Borderline Normality, who plays Adam, Amy and Rachel?
We spent ages discussing this!
When I am writing, I always see the story visually. The characters play out in my head. Adam, for me, always looked like John Thomson (also from Manchester, which is a bonus). Cheeky, childlike chappy. Right build, right accent. Charming, abdicating of responsibility, but capable of some serious psychopathy!
Delicate, vulnerable, but capable of throwing a monumental wobbler and 30 glasses at someone’s head, Joanne Froggatt makes a perfect Amy.
I’m plumping for Bafta winning Laura Fraser (‘The Missing’) as Rachel. Looks like a strong sensible GP. I’ve always thought of Rachel as dark haired. Laura Fraser is also from Glasgow, which nails it!
Thanks
So many people to thank. To Ali Mitchell (Chief Cat Herder, Book Group lead and ‘better than Kirsty Wark’ interviewer). To the Lauren Lloyd Management Team – never has an author had a better PR Company – (Ali, Rachel, Liz, Caro, Debbie). To Caro and Paula for utterly amazing, unctuously delicious Borderline cupcakes (shout out to Del’s Rolls Bakery in Prestwick). To the Glasgow Book Group folks who made the trip doon the coast to share the story. To the Alton Inn for hosting a fabulous party with an amazing Borderline Feast, a bespoke Lauren Lloyd slushie cocktail (which I’m told had three types of vodka, plus blue curacao – all of it perfect, despite none of the ingredients being measured). Finally to Rachel, for everything, but especially the most exquisite earrings – perfect replicas of Borderline Normality books.
The Kris Boyd Charity
We didn’t just have fun and talk books. We also raised £292 (through book sales and a fantastic book-related raffle) for a local (Ayrshire) mental health charity, The Kris Boyd Charity (www.thekrisboydcharity.co.uk ).
Now with some sadness, I leave Amy, Adam and Rachel and move on to pastures new.
Here’s an excerpt of my new work in progress (eeek!) to whet your appetites!
Faery Tales by Lauren Lloyd expected May 2025
There’s an egocentricity about believing you are everything and not seeing what moves amongst you. If Humans weren’t so focused on their own needs and wants, maybe they’d realise there’s an inordinately rich world below their perceptions.
Take my kind, the Faeries. If you look at books or films, we’re tiny and fly about folk’s heads. Sparkling and chittering. We’re good. We’re bad. We’re mischievous. We’re beautiful. Kylie Minogue in Hook. Computer animated or textbook images of us with daffodil hats. We’re all but invisible, coming out only to spirit away children’s teeth.
What nonsense!
I’m 5ft5 in my bare feet. 5ft7 with some decent heels. My hair is long and red, my skin pale (that’ll be the Celtic Fae blood). My wings are invisible to most Humans (although I’ve always had the weird feeling that cats can see them, birds too). My favourite colour is green. My drink of choice, pink fizzy wine. I obsess over chocolate Revels. I love salads, but can be tempted by a cheeky KFC on a weekend. I adore the cinema. Give me 1940’s glamour. Elizabeth Taylor. Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights. She could almost be the Faery Queen or a Green Lady.
“You’re back in Scotland?” the Faery Queen asks me quietly. “Political unrest?”
I nod.
“Glasgow 2025. A disease pandemic. Poverty. They’re losing hope. No belief in magic. They’ve got smart phones, technology but they’ve forgotten how to dance. Hate and division is blackening hearts. People feel alone. I fear it will take more than a few Wraiths this time. The young people are so distressed.”
I look around at the Gathering, the Place, the joy and the word in my head is love.
“Love is the bridge, my Queen. And tomorrow I begin to build.”
Faery Tales by Lauren LLoyd is coming soon……
Lauren Lloyd Books
A Trip to the Moon (https://amzn.eu/d/4hHldmz )
People Make Glasgow (https://amzn.eu/d/a2uGbqw )
Borderline Normality (https://amzn.eu/d/i14m5Jx )
Lauren Lloyd 