#PitchWars #PimpMyBio

A bio is like the tutu you wore for a dance festival when you were eight. No? Even when you can’t help yourself and try it on and it rips down the front and you cry because you can’t pass it on to your children? Oh, well. Just me, then.

ABOUT ME:

• I’m Lillian, fractionally British, devastated about Brexit but decidedly savvier about politics than I was a few months ago.
• I live on an island (it’s a speck on the map, don’t make me point it out).
• My boyfriend lives in France, my brother is joining a monastery, and my cat dribbles when she purrs.
• I love prog rock, brass instruments, card games and garish clothing.
• I work in a B&B, loading dishwashers, setting tables, changing beds and cleaning toilets, and as a band librarian, which involves photocopying, filing and transporting music for thirty musicians.
• I write YA Contemp. My age falls in the YA category. My age doesn’t matter.

I study maths.

Yes, you may ask what on earth I’m doing entering #PitchWars. No, you may not assume my answer is anything other than my love of writing.*

These are a few of my favourite things (hush, don’t tell the others):

Books: THE BOOK OF LIES, GREEN DOLPHIN COUNTRY, GONE WITH THE WIND, WHITE OLEANDER, VANITY FAIR, AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD

Authors: Eva Ibbotsen, Francoise Sagan, Francis Hardinge, Ursula Le Guin, Wilkie Collins

Bands: King Crimson, Them Crooked Vultures, Santana, Dan Ar Braz, Kayak, Focus, The Grateful Dead, Dvorak, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky

TV Shows: Gilmore Girls, The IT Crowd, Fawlty Towers, Larkrise to Candleford, Red Dwarf

Films: Following, Star Wars, Inglorious Basterds, Lincoln, Anne of Green Gables

ABOUT MY BOOK.

(the bulleted list)

• F/F romance / exploration of female friendship
• teenage pro athlete
• unrequited crush on best friend’s brother
• dual third person POV
• GG-like mother-daughter relationship (I probably flatter myself with the comparison, but the mum is still my favourite character)
• island setting
• complicated sister-brother relationship
• includes integrated letters, verses, and extracts from MC’s reading
• virgin hero
• but non-virgin heroine
• and sex-positive attitude
• Portuguese MC (a key immigrant demographic for the setting)
• no direct antagonists (because life)

(the explanation)

I decided long ago to write something about a pro teen athlete coping with family poverty and suck-up friends. I grew up with Heather Watson living two doors down from my grandparents, and, a tennis player myself, I went from there (age 12). The book I have now is a complete rewrite of the original, incorporating my subsequent experience as an awkward teenager stinting her own social skills to deal with an unwanted crush. No regrets.

It’s the fourth book I wouldn’t rather die than let the world see, the third that has a proper plot, the second that has a decent wordcount, and the first that I think has the slightest chance of going anywhere.

Someone described it as a love triangle the other day and I was terribly embarrassed.

It’s about two girls navigating the boundaries of their friendship, mkay. Think a lesbian twist on Dawn O’Porter’s PAPER AEROPLANES, complete with island setting, racially diverse MCs and progressively dark implications (you know, drugs, sex, arson, all that jazz).

Love triangle, indeed!

Pick me because I’m the kinda girl who organises her personal wardrobe in a spreadsheet. And pretends she doesn’t still play with Playmobil. And eats frozen fruit like a goring monster. And if you’re my mentor you get free idyllic beach pictures every day.

*Don’t assume I love writing, either. I don’t. I kinda hate the writing part. Editing is way more fun. Word.

Do comment! I’d love to meet other contestants!