Brianna Soloski: Tell me a little bit about The Regulars. How did you come up with the concept for the story?

Georgia Clark: I’d been thinking about writing something about beauty for a few months, but didn’t have much beyond the theme. The central premise of the book came to me one night while working on the edits for my last novel, Parched. The inciting incident scene of

the girls taking the Pretty played in my head like a movie. It was a gift from the universe.

BS: Girls and women of all ages are bombarded with all sorts of ways to make themselves beautiful today. In the book, the girls take a drop of a serum to become pretty. What do you think the world might be like if that’s all we had to do?

GC: Beauty would lose value and power. The allure of physical beauty is its rarity and its

impermeance: it’s the rainbow after the storm, the wild horse glimpsed through the trees. So while at first, Pretty would be taken widely by wealthy people, it would quickly lose its status as something desirable.

BS: What’s your writing style like? Do you have a certain time of day, a certain place you write?

GC: These days when I’m drafting, I keep a fairly solid schedule of 10 – 6 (ish), weekdays. Writing is my full-time job now, but I’ve always treated it as such, even when I wasn’t getting paid for it – I wrote The Regulars nights, weekends and days off around a full-time job. I work from my home office in Brooklyn or from the New York Writers Room, which is a members-only space for writers in Noho. I need total quiet, no internet, and lots of tea.

BS: This is your first adult novel. How is writing for adults different from writing for young adults? How is it the same?

GC: A 16 year-old is very different to a 23-year- old; I certainly was! You’ve become more aware of who you are, what you want and what your limitations are, operating in the world out of the family home. Adult characters can drink, smoke, swear, have sex, their thinking is more developed, their world is less black and white, it’s more exciting and it’s also more scary and depressing; this was all very freeing for me, as it’s closer to my experience, as a card-carrying adult. The same structural rules apply; a good plot and effective character development uses the same guidelines, whether you’re writing for teenagers or adults.

BS: Would you take Pretty?

GC: Pandora opened that box… so would I. I couldn’t resist — I’d be too curious not to! It’s magic! I’d like to see what it does for me. But only once….

BS: What’s up next for you?

GC: I just finished my next novel, which is another adult fiction set in Hollywood in the 1920s; sex, fame, friendship and film. It’s really fun, I love it. Right now I’m creating an extensive online course on how to launch a novel; marketing, publicity, events, communication, online presence, everything! Sign up for my newsletter at georgiaclark.com for an early bird discount when it launches.

BS: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

GC: I’ve just spent a week going through all my childhood stuff at my Mum’s house, and

am finding all these old projects of mine; short stories, film scripts, plays, treatments, poems – it’s reminding me that writing is a life-long passion and it is a long road. Don’t get too hung up on your current project having to be your big break or else. You will write so many stories and iterations of your novel before it comes out. Do the work, keep the momentum moving forward.

Buy The Regulars here.

Disclaimer: I participated in this interview with BookSparks PR. I was not compensated in any way.