Today’s post is a guest post by the very lovely and talented author Courtney Peppernell. I am incredibly honored and excited to have this chance get to know her and to work with her to promote her wonderful poetry collections and novels! Please make sure to check out Courtney on her website, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. There are also links to the Goodreads pages of her work scattered throughout, so definitely make sure to check those out as well!

I’ve never done a guest post before but when Ariana who writes The Quirky Book Nerd asked me to do a guest post, I was excited to jump in.

My name is Courtney Peppernell, I’m a 26 year old LGBTQ author and I live in Sydney, Australia. A lot of people write to me and ask about how I write. I really believe it’s important to develop your own writing process, as not everyone is the same, but I’m always happy to talk a little about my own writing process. A good book to read is called “5000 words per hour” by Chris Fox. It really helped to develop my ability to sit down each day and write as much as I can in a short space of time.

If anyone is like me, I am generally a very busy person (currently raising a puppy) and don’t have time to write for 8-10 hours a day (plus that would be exhausting, so many feelings!!). Instead I try to pump out as many words as possible within an hour or two. My favourite author Jodi Picoult once said something along the lines of, a page of writing can always be edited, but a blank page can’t. I really agree with this and I highly recommend Fox’s book to help you get started on following a similar process (or internal screaming also helps.)

Before I start writing any project, I make sure I have an idea I’m passionate about. I believe in creating top quality products for people who choose to purchase my books, and I don’t think I can deliver the highest quality unless I am very passionate about the book I’m writing. I feel if you write the book that you want to read, then you will find an audience who wants to read it too. Once I have my idea ready to go, I start to do an outline of the characters. I begin to imagine who they are, what their interests, dreams, hopes, aspirations are, and how they are going to develop and fit the narrative I am writing. I try to imagine my characters like real people, and when I’m writing them, I feel like the words I’m putting on the page are truly how they would react if the situation was real. This is also a really fun part of the writing process and for me, the characters are really what I love most about my novels/stories.

My two current novels Chasing Paper Cranes and Keeping Long Island had characters that I very much loved, and I am sure I will feel the same for other characters in future books as well. After that, I start to try and piece together a rough timeline of the story I am going to tell, names, places, dates, even irrelevant information that might not actually be in the story. It’s all still important to me, as I feel it helps shape the characters and pull everything together. Once I have all these in place, I have my story guide in my head, and I’m ready to start writing.

Writing poetry books isn’t as an intense writing process for me. My poetry books Pillow Thoughts and The Road Between are based off personal experiences but also experiences I have witnessed of other people. In fact, I tend to “get into character” when I am writing poetry books sometimes, as it helps me imagine what someone who is “heartbroken” may feel like. I’ve experienced heartbreak (naturally) myself, but where I am in my life currently, is very in love so it’s often hard for me to write about pain when I am happy. However, I think this is really good for developing my writing skills, so poetry is important to me as well.

I started as a self-published author, and over the last year I have had some amazing opportunities that were a combination of mine, and my business partner’s efforts, as well as some great exposure. We have worked hard on (slowly) building my brand of books (still striving to build this every day, but it’s exciting and half the fun and drive to keep going) and I have been blessed with some attention to my writing via readers and also The Chainsmokers which lead to my eventual publishing deal with Andrews McMeel Publishing.

I am really looking forward to continuing my career and working as hard as I can to give readers books that mean something to them and make them feel as though either they can achieve their own writing dreams, or just that there are others in the world who relate to the feelings they have every day. In my spare time, I am very family orientated, and very close with my family. Plus, I am always with my dogs Hero (German Shepherd) and Dakota (Pomeranian / probable tiny gremlin) or looking up new places to grab coffee with my partner Rhian. She’s actually a huge source of inspiration for me. Most readers find me/my books after reading a poem called Looking for Ice Cream which is for and based on Rhian. I really enjoyed seeing how different people from all walks of life related to that poem, as it drove home something I am trying to achieve in my writing which is that LGBTQ couples can live happy, healthy and normal lives like everyone else. We experience love, pain, loss and gain all the same.

So that’s me, I’m generally a pretty quiet sort of person but I do like a good chat about feelings ha! I also will probably cross an ocean to meet someone’s dog, so if I am to have signings one day, you should definitely ask if you can bring your four-legged friend. I hope to interact with my readers more over time, either via Twitter, Instagram or email. I love hearing from people because I always find it interesting which stories/poems/books of mine people relate to most. Special thanks to Ariana for letting me post on her blog, she wrote such a lovely review for both my poetry books, that I even showed my Mum.

Thanks again and love to all,

Courtney