Today, I am thrilled to be bringing you a guest post from fellow Aussie author and lovely lady to boot, Maria P Frino. Maria is the author of 'Two Men In A Shed', 'Studio', 'The Shop On The Princes Highway', and 'The Decision They Made', to name a few.
Maria has an exciting work in progress (WIP), and today we get to hear all about it. A sneak peek if you will. So, over to Maria.
Guest Post
About My WIP
This novel has a working title – Television Wars (another possible title is Fame and Other Disasters.) It’s about two female hosts who are friends but work at rival stations. Molly Edwards has a show called ‘Daytime’ and it’s a 90min light-entertainment show with celebrity interviews (some B-stars as well), Molly isn’t fussy about who she interviews, live music and lots of fun with challenges that Molly takes on. These are suggested by fans and the audience. The show is on at midday five days per week.
Note: Molly worked at the station as a production assistant and fell into the role of being the host. How? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Molly lives with her boyfriend, David and their 2-year-old brown Labrador, Bono.
Emma Beers Jones hosts ‘Evenings with Emma’, which is a news format show at 9pm on Friday nights, it’s a 60min show. Emma is an accomplished journalist and devours everything to do with news and current affairs. She does interviews and will sometimes have celebrities on her show, but only A-listers.
She and her husband, Trevor own a farm in Bowral (Southern Highlands), but Emma prefers to live in Sydney. She has an apartment in Kirribilli in Sydney's northern suburbs and travels to Bowral when needed, or if she wants a break. Trevor is happy running the farm, and hates the limelight that Emma adores.
Richard Penser is a newsreader at the same station where Emma works. He and Emma have been having a long-term affair, and he lives in Kirribilli as well. If Trevor knows about the affair, he doesn’t say anything.
Problems arise between Molly and Emma when Richard starts seeing Molly. It all begins at a party with lots of alcohol and drugs. Will Molly and Emma’s friendship last?
This story is a comment on fame, social media and egos. How these three things come together to first elevate a person’s career and then ruin it with one mistake. Read how the two friends use social media to denigrate each other. Whose team will you be on – Team Molly or Team Emma?
The idea for this story came to me a couple of years ago during an interview (one of my first ones after publishing my debut). The interviewer asked whether the character of Larissa (the TV host) was based on my years in television. Did she have a bit of me in her? My answer was that she probably did have some of my personality however I didn’t ever go on-air, I worked on the production side.
So, the story started to form in my head. I wrote notes, worked on a timeline, and set out the characters. Having already done a novel with a TV host, I wanted to make this one different. That’s when I came up with the idea of two rival hosts who were actually friends. What could go wrong, right?
I want this story to have bitchiness, intense rivalry, and show the awful side of social media and fame. Larissa’s career was safe and she won awards. Molly and Emma jeopardise their friendship and ultimately their careers, and many egos come into play as colleagues and fans take sides.
End Guest Post
Well, that certainly sounds juicy. I look forward to reading this when it gets published. Thank you to Maria for sharing this teaser with us. If you would like to check out her work, click on the links below.
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