Beth Kendrick (The Pre-Nup) reveals the 5 addictions she cultivated while writing The Pre-Nup ... In this month's 1-On-One!

Behind the The Pre-Nup by Beth Kendrick


“Well, it’s official: I’m going to hell.” My friend Cara called me at 11 p.m. with a quaver of desperation in her voice. “I swore off diet soda for Lent, and I only made it…let’s see…ninety-five hours before I fell off the wagon. “

“You’re not going to hell,” I told her. “Don’t you think God has more important matters to attend to than monitoring your carbonated beverage intake?”

“I can’t help myself! I’m telling you, they lace the stuff with crack! I was shaking and sweating; I had the worst headache of my life. There should be soda rehab centers, with, like, therapists and straitjackets.”

And just like that, “Noda,” the diet soda addict’s salvation invented by The Pre-Nup’s Jen Finnerty, was born: a healthful, cola-flavored alternative to help soft drink junkies survive withdrawal. But sometimes we merely trade one addiction for another…


5 Addictions I cultivated while writing The Pre-Nup

Cardio
Authors have a weird relationship with their characters (at least, I do!) I couldn’t write about a die-hard gym rat like Jen without feeling twinges of guilt over my own indolence. Thanks in large part to a desire to live up to a fictional character’s expectations, I dragged my lazy booty to the gym four times a week throughout the writing and revision of this novel. My resting pulse rate has never been lower. Jen Finnerty, I salute you!

Swanky online shopping sites
When your characters are well-heeled girls about town, they’ve got to dress the part. The right labels, the right silhouettes, the right colors. So I spent an inordinate amount of time browsing Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Bergdorf Goodman for virtual outfits and accessories. Would Ellie’s upper-crust mother-in-law prefer Jil Sander or St. John blazers? In the charity ball scene, should Jen wear a gold Zac Posen gown or a floral Oscar de la Renta? These are the poignant, soul-searching questions every author must ask herself.

I was fervently hoping that I might be able to “invest” in a Marc Jacobs bag or two and write it off in the name of “research,” but sadly, my accountant informed me that this was not to be. Just as well; Marc Jacobs bags were not meant for homes full of slobbery dogs with a penchant for counter-surfing.

That overwrought divorcee on YouTube
Have you seen it yet? The infamous video clips posted by Tricia Walsh-Smith, the spurned Manhattan socialite who got screwed in her pre-nup and took revenge by filming a rant about her husband’s, uh, shortcomings and uploading it for all the world to see? One of my friends sent me a link because she thought I might be interested, given the title of my book, and she was right. The viewing experience is…well, really, there are no words. Okay, maybe three words: sturm und drang. Definitely inspired me to ratchet up my characters’ conflicts a few more notches.

http://www.triciawalshsmith.com/The_Videos.html

See's chocolates
Which counteracted all the healthful benefits accrued from my gym visits. I would reward myself for meeting my daily page goal with See’s peanut butter patties and lemon/dark chocolate truffles. (Well, truthfully, sometimes before my daily page goal was met. What can I say? Sometimes, a girl needs to hit the hard stuff to get through revisions.)

The "borrowed" L. A. Kings t-shirt
When I’m on deadline, I get superstitious and imbue certain articles of clothing with mystical powers. For some reason, these items tend to be sports-related; when I was in college, I had to write all my term papers while wearing an ancient Chicago Bears shirt that used to belong to my grandfather.

In The Pre-Nup, Mara Stroebel and her fiancé Josh have a running joke that she swipes his shirts without permission because “they’re so much more comfortable” than anything she owns. My husband will be the first to tell you that this is a case of art imitating life—he lost his favorite Los Angeles Kings t-shirt to the cause. I tell him that his shirt had a higher calling and promise to give it back someday soon, but we both know I am lying. That Kings shirt is the new Chicago Bears shirt. It has good deadline juju. And it would look fantastic with a Marc Jacobs bag.