Lauren Conrad makes a quick stop at a Starbucks with a gal pal on Thursday afternoon (May 24) in Santa Monica, Calif.

Later on, the 26-year-old author/designer met up with her dad, Jim, for a bite to eat and to go over some plans for her new pad.

Lauren recently chatted with MTV about her “Fame Game” book series: “The third one [book in the series] is roughly outlined. I know where Madison’s going to end up, and I am in the very early stages of the second one right now.”

She added, ““I think that the biggest challenge is to take a love-to-hate character and really humanize her. So I knew where I wanted her to start, and I knew where I wanted her to end up and along the way I kind of wanted her to hit rock bottom. So that’s where I’m at right now, sort of taking her along her own journey.”

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