You recently signed on with HarperCollins for two more young adult books. I wrote what I wanted to and what was right for the characters. I pursued the character's differently and I absolutely never thought it should be the same as the TV show. The TV show was never about the character's back stories and a lot of the decisions were made because the actor was available and we wanted to give the actor a part. When movies and television shows write characters, the medium and the decision making process is so different. Did you write the differences on purpose? For example, in the second film Carrie told Big she was always more Coco Chanel than coq au vin, but in this book, she's a whiz in the kitchen. The characters in Summer and the City divulge a lot of information about themselves that differs from the show and movies. There weren't hundreds of fashion magazines and blogs. Everybody didn't copy everybody else and it was very individual. People were very creative with their clothes. Those labels were very, very, very exclusive and only wealthy people who lived on the Upper East Side wore them. Young people, unless you came from a ridiculously wealthy family, would never wear Chanel or Gucci. It wasn't label driven and the whole thing in the eighties is kind of a head scratcher. How would you describe the fashion in the city during this time?

Ĭarrie wears everything from oversized robes to scrubs to latex (mind you, latex in the summer). A lot of Carrie's clothes, I realized, those were my own clothes, and that's the one thing that I did take directly from my own life and I had the scrubs. You take that inspiration and in the process of writing and you come up with something that is new that has its own energy and its own truth. I drew a lot from real life experiences of myself and people I knew. In terms of the time period, I'm 52 years old.

The carrie diaries by candace bushnell