Behind the Scenes and a Giveaway with Becky Wicks, Author of BEFORE HE WAS GONE (Starstruck #2)

Behind the scenes: How working with celebrities inspired me to write the Starstruck Series

 

Hi! Thanks for having me on the blog! I sometimes get asked what inspired me to write the Starstruck Series and I guess while the majority of it came from an idea I had about what became Noah and Chloe – two best friends fighting their feelings for each other – the rest came as a result of working with celebrities both in London and Dubai, and also Sydney. I wrote for various magazines and websites, and in Australia I worked on the morning show for a popular radio station. Super fun jobs but also really bad hours – try getting up at 5 AM to help a radio show presenter challenge Bear Grylls to a weird-food-eating contest – you do not want to see that so early).

I was always fascinated with behind the scenes…

Whenever I got to meet these famous people, it always struck me how normal they were. Sometimes I would barely recognize them, and even on the odd occasion when I’d get a little star struck they always seemed to treat everyone around them normally too. It kind of made me feel embarrassed for expecting anything else, you know? When I started researching more in order to write Before He Was Famous, I realized I could draw from my own experiences – the little glimmer I’d seen of behind the scenes.

Celebrities were always so normal. That sounds weird to say…

Up close you see the make-up, the designer labels, the entourage, yet when they talk, you also start to see the cracks; the little humanisms that so often get glossed over in the media and sensationalized. It was actually after I was sent into a paparazzi frenzy in Darling Harbor to photograph Kim Kardashian getting off a boat, that I started thinking more about the show they have to put on for people and what it must really be like for them, knowing that whatever they say or do must be scrutinized. It can’t always be fun. That’s when my two ideas, of the best friends becoming lovers, and the celebrity angle started to blend.

I almost got chosen to be on a reality TV show once…

It was called Farmer Wants A Wife Sssssh! Thank god it didn’t happen – I’d have been sent out into the middle of nowhere and made to do weird things, like cheese making and helping cows give birth, probably, but thanks to a combination of all my imaginings and my experiences, reality TV became the basis of both Before He Was Famous and Before He Was Gone. I like the fact that behind the façades we’re all just normal people and we all want to shine for who we are. We just go about it different ways, that’s all.

Before He Was Gone (Starstruck 2) is out now on Amazon!

Becky Wicks lives in Bali and scribbles books, and she’s mostly powered by coffee. Her first book in the Starstruck Series, Before He Was Famous recently reached #1 in Amazon’s Coming of Age and New Adult & College categories, and her three travel books, published by HarperCollins are online to make feet nice and itchy. Mostly though, she loves to write love stories. She blogs most days at beckywicks.com and always welcomes distractions on Twitter @bex_wicks. Especially if you have photos of cats.