I’d like to welcome Lisa de Nikolits to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday.
Hardest thing about being a writer: The constant worry that I’m not marketing and promoting my books in the best possible way. Social media can feel like a black hole, and I always feel like I’m not doing enough – or doing it correctly.
Easiest thing about being a writer: How much fun I have getting lost inside writing a book!
Things you need for your writing sessions: I need to start off neat and tidy, with my pens lined up just so and my desk in order.
Things that hamper your writing: social media. It’s very easy to think the grass is greener, that other authors are doing much better than I am. I have to push that self-doubt down, get on with my writing and ignore my inner critical voice.
Words that describe you: Determined, productive, prolific, creative, original, disciplined.
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: Perfectionistic, obsessive, outcome orientated.
Something you’re really good at: binge writing. That’s when I have the most fun and am the most productive.
Something you’re really bad at: taking breaks from my desk. If things are going well, I’ll work around the clock, until the early hours, like 2 a.m., sleep for a few hours and then get back at it.
Last best thing you ate: Chocolate! Without fail, chocolate is my favourite thing in the world. That said, I do love cake too. Vanilla sponge cake with lemon filling and buttercream icing.
Last thing you regret eating: Onions. I love them, but I hate onion breath!
Favorite music or song: It’s very hard to just choose one song! I’ll go with the best of the 80’s.
Music that drives you crazy: I just can’t love hip-hop or rap even though I’ve tried.
My favorite book as a child: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. That book inspired me to become a writer.
A book I’ve read more than once: There are so many great books in the world that I don’t usually reread a book. I do reread poetry, T.S. Eliot, for example.
Your favorite movie as a child: The Man from Snowy River, 1982. I guess I wasn’t really a child in 1982 (I was 16) and I was a very romantic teenager, and I loved horses.
A TV show or movie that kept you awake at night as a kid (or as an adult): Foul Play, 1978, starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. I know—who gets terrified by a comedy? The albino terrified me. His face appears in a window at night and for years (even now), I can’t bear to have uncurtained windows at night for fear of “the face in the window.”
The last thing you ordered online: A sofa cover from Shein. It really refreshed the room, and it didn’t break the bank.
The last thing you regret buying: A fancy dragon ear cuff off Instagram. It didn’t fit and was really poor quality.
Favorite places you’ve been: Tasmania, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shetland, Edinburgh, Long Beach, New York, Nice, Barcelona, Budapest, Namibia, Peru, Vail, Australia, Rome and Milan and all across Canada on a bus (which became West of Wawa). And South Africa of course, my home country.
Places you never want to go to again: I got lost in Cusco, Peru, and it was awful. It was completely my fault. I went on a group tour and the minute we arrived at our hotel; I ran out into the street to explore. And I got horribly lost. The sun was setting, I was jet-lagged, I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel or what street it was on. And some of the streets I wandered down weren’t exactly safe. Thankfully, I found a travel agent, and they helped me back to my hotel. Now the first thing I do is grab a map from the hotel, a business card of the hotel and the name of the hotel manager.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: take the (very precarious) chair lift up to Great Wall of China and climbing down the Stairs of Death on Huayna Picchu mountain in Peru.
Something you chickened out from doing: So far, I’ve done everything I’ve set out to do even if my heart was going to explode from the fear.
The nicest thing a reader said to you: “I loved your book and read it in one go!”
The craziest thing a reader said to you: “You based that book on me, right?” I actually get that quite a lot.
Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: I was a fashion magazine art director for 30 years. I art directed Vogue Australia, Cosmopolitan, marie claire, and many magazines in Canada. The glory days of magazines were very “Devil Wears Prada” and I wouldn’t change a thing
A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: There have been many! I start off plotting my books carefully but, like the Fleetwood Mac song, they like to go their own way!
