In my new book (Leftovers, Harper Collins - out April 25th, no doubt extremely reasonably priced), my main character has quite a lot to do with pasta. In one scene, she makes herself a bowl of pasta to recover from having seen a photo online of her ex, with his new girlfriend, at a fashion party in Bond Street.
She makes a bowl of stortini - which are small macaroni, designed for soup. She chooses them for several reasons (explained in the book) - one of which is that they look like little smiles (genuine smiles, not fashion party smiles.)
It is important to her character that she knows how many smiles are in her bowl, so she (i.e. moi) had to count the number of the little buggers in a 100g portion:
436, seeing as you've asked.
The thing is, I know fiction is made up but I think it's important within your made-up universe to have veracity. Most writers seem to be obsessive types - I think maybe you have to be a weirdo, to sit on an uncomfy chair all day, on your own, facing a blank page.) And counting macaroni is not the worst way to spend your time. And then of course you get to eat it too, in the form of mac-cheese - gruyere's so the way forward.
Another thing my heroine is into (aside from pasta) is an actor by the name of Ryan Gosling. Maybe you've heard of him? He is quite attractive.
So purely in the name of research I have been watching quite a few of his movies. On a loop. My next post will be on the subject of how I have thus suffered for my art. Don't cry for me, reader, I'm doing all this for you....
