do you have a routine that you uh follow to make sure that writing gets done you know do you write every day

if i was writing full-time if i wasn't working full-time i would have structure for sure like i would have barriers around my time, boundaries around it, and I would work in a very structured way.

So it's pretty hard to do that in the spaces between.

But I do, there are things that certainly helped me along the way.

So I highly value writing retreats.

And I don't mean group retreats, I just have two really great friends who I write with, who have been at similar stages of their writing with me, and we would go away for a few days a time separately i would go away with each of them to margaret river or to broom for anywhere from two to five nights and it was just because we were all busy in our lives and so we would all we would all appreciate that space to write and it would just be full on writing all day long like nothing else um and thousands and thousands of words would get down.

And then that gives you momentum.

Tell me a little bit about your process, like how did the ideas come to you and then how does that end up as that complete manuscript?

At what point did you say, I actually will now write it and create a book and create something of art?

So I knew from the beginning, from that 2018, that I would.

At what point I started doing it was 2021, September 2021.

And the reason it took so long was I didn't feel ready to start actually writing the story until a few other things fell into place.

So yes, I had to research and yes, I had to learn the craft, but there was nothing stopping me starting earlier.

A lot of writers would start earlier and learn that along the way.

But I knew I didn't quite have it yet.

Did you think you were going to self-publish or did you think you needed to engage professionals to give you support to produce this book?