YAtopia: From Australia With Love Blog Hop: My Writing Habits with Laura Catherine

Australian writers rock. We know it, and we love them. But it’s not always easy to discover the Australian talent that is right under our noses.

From Australia With Love Blog Hop introduces you to 18 Aussie authors across a variety of categories and genres. Each author is hosting three of their fellow blog hop participants between now and Valentine’s Day to let you find out more about them. So follow them on twitter, like their Facebook page and visit their blogs during the blog hop period to discover more great Australian writers.

And to show how much these Aussie authors love their readers, they’ve donated some great prizes for you to win!

Today we have Aussie writer Laura Catherine stopping by.

My Writing Habits

I suppose this post should be called My Dream Writing Habits because for the last year I’ve had no writing routine what-so-ever. I work full-time and spent most of last year editing my novel Djinn, which was released in December.

The problem I find is what I work in retail, which means erratic hours and late nights. I can’t just pick the same time every day and say, yes, I will write at 6pm every night for an hour because my hours range from 8:30am to 10:30pm. But my dream writing routine is when I either earn enough money from books to quit my day job or get a normal 9-5 job so I can get in the habit.

Writing is all about habits. I suppose life is too, but we’ll stick with writing for now. I think all writers out there strive to have good writing habits and to me writing habits are made up of three things.

The first is Time. Writer’s need time in their routines to write. Their lives are usually busy. A lot of us work part-time or full-time to support ourselves and spend what little time we have writing. The problem is finding time between, work, family, friends, kids, life. This is why you need to get into the habit of writing at the same time every day, repetition is your friend and he will urge you to write. Writing every day at the same time of day is a great habit for writers to get into and it’s something I hope for too. To be able to sit at your computer, open a file and simply start writing and keep writing without trouble can often seem like an unattainable dream. But keeping up with the same routine will pay off for those willing to try.

Location is part of my habit. I can’t write at home there are way too many distractions with tv, internet, food, laundry. There will always be something at home that I think can take priority over writing. The key is to get out of the house and find somewhere that these distractions can’t affect you. Coffee shops are a favourite of mine. They have warm atmospheres that invite you. They have comfy couches, chai lattes, power-points, and are perfect for people watching. I also love the idea of having a special coffee shop that I go to all the time that they know me, they have my order ready without me having to say a word and I’d ask the owner about their kids, the waitress about her law course. It’s always been a dream of mine.

The third thing my habit needs in order to succeed is Motivation. You can have all the time in the world, be sitting in the best café with your chai latte, but in the end if you don’t have the motivation to write then what’s the point? Motivation for me comes from the love of my story. I have to love what I’m writing about; be excited to start writing and get the words out. If I’m not excited by my book than I don’t want to write it and who would want to read something I’m not motivated to write?

So there you are. My advice for a writing habit is Time, Location and Motivation. These are all things that I used when working on my debut novel, Djinn.

Djinn Blurb:

She's been on the run for as long as she can remember and her father is the only stable thing in her life, but everything changes when the people pursuing them finally catch up.

Kyra is abducted by the handsome and mysterious, Will. He takes her to a secret compound where she is told the truth: She's a Djinn, a genie-like creature with super powers and a love of dogs.

Kyra has to adjust to the Djinn and their rules, but her new life is far from perfect. Everyone is hiding something and the one person Kyra cares about most is forbidden to her.

There are secrets around every corner and more dangers than Kyra could ever imagine as she struggles to find herself and be with the one she loves.

Djinn is available at the following places:

Buy the eBook

Buy the Paperback

| Amazon | B&N | Book Depository |

About Laura:

Laura Catherine was born in Melbourne, Australia and spent most of her childhood creating fantasy

worlds and talking to her invisible pet cheetah who ran along powerlines.

Her imagination has carried her through childhood where her mother read stories about fantasy worlds at bedtime. Never one to face reality, Laura spent a lot of time turning boxes into ships and castles.

In her High School years, Laura started to really consider writing as a career. All those notebooks full of story ideas finally had a purpose and in 2006 she started the first novel she would go on to finish 5 years later. The thrill of complete a novel from start to finish only inspired Laura more, soon she became a writing machine working on many novels and honing her craft by completing a Professional Writing and Editing Diploma in 2010.

2011 saw Laura get serious about becoming an author. She started her blog, Quill Wielder, and prepared her novels to be sent off to publishers.

Still writing whenever she has spare time; Laura also participates in NaNoWriMo religiously to get her writing on.

Laura has self-published her first novel, Djinn, a Paranormal Romance, and is working on the second in the trilogy, Blooders.

Links:

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