What Does An Author Do

My Typical Day

Research new ideas and for accuracy. For example, in my upcoming novel Stepping Stone, it’s featured in San Francisco. I’ve never been there before so I researched all the locations. The setting was based at an investment company. I used my experience working in a Big 4 Bank but I also did additional research on financial crime, hacking, how to get caught, and what hacking looks like.

Also, I’m from Australia. My editor often pulls me up on words Americans don’t say.

I work a lot with my editor to create a polished product. There’s a lot of back and forths with editing.

Pros

• Writing sex scenes and finding interesting positions. Once I first started writing sex scenes, I thought there’s only so many ways someone can have sex. But there are new ways of writing to make it your own. It’s not only about the sex. The sex has to move the story forward and develop the main characters.
• I love writing a lot of puns. People believe romance is cheesy, so why not have fun with writing it?
• Also, I get a thrill seeing my cover for the first time. Nothing beats that feeling. I recently got an amazing quote for my front cover by New York Times Bestselling Cherry Adair. I admire her so much, and for her to be so kind and generous with her time…I was completely blown away.

Cons

• Writer’s block. Sometimes I can’t help but fall asleep while writing.
• There’s also a stigma for romance authors. That they’re desperate housewives, that romance isn’t a real genre, or that they perform all these kinky sexual acts. No one asks a crime writer if they’ve murdered someone in real life. So, the stigma shouldn’t be different with romance. It’s another form of slut-shaming, shaming those who enjoy the romance genre. But why? In most romance novels, the heroine takes control of their life and has amazing sex. Isn’t that what everyone deserves?
• People also believe that romance is all a formula, from start to finish with the happily ever after. But for a murder mystery or other genres, there’s a formula too. Someone gets killed at the beginning, there’s another murder in the middle, and all the clues stack toward one person. But then the detective solves the mystery by finding clues, and their intuition.

Advice to aspiring Authors

• Do short writing courses. You learn a lot about craft and the dos and donts. Many classes are after full time work hours which I did. It was exhausting working full time and going to class but they were the highlight of my week.
• Also, you’ll meet other aspiring authors. It’s important to make like-minded friends. Many people don’t understand writing.
• Also, even though I’m with a publisher, you still need to be prepared to do a lot of your own marketing. Research on book marketing and social media ads.
• If you want to be an author, you have to be passionate and persistent. Writing is a lot of sitting at a computer, thinking of ideas and researching. It’s a solitary career path.
• Be thick-skinned. You’ll get a lot of rejections from publishers and agents. Be willing to improve your craft.