Liz Foster shares her journey from discovering writing as a creative outlet during recovery from breast cancer, to becoming a published author with The Good Woman's Guide to Making Better Choices. The podcast episode explores Liz’s habits and strategies for success, including the importance of setting micro-goals, maintaining a daily 1,000-word count, and finding support in the writing community. She shares her experience using Scrivener and how she handled editing and reducing the length of her manuscript.
You can listen to the episode below, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or add the podcast RSS feed manually to your favourite podcast app. Â
00:00 Introduction and welcome
00:19 Special edition romance writing course
05:01 Nat Newman’s writing tip
19:46 Competition announcement
21:44 Word of the week: palimpsest
22:29 Interview with Liz Foster
30:21 The journey of writing the first novel
31:39 The importance of deadlines and motivation
32:03 The challenges of writing and the role of courses
32:28 The evolution of the author's novels
34:19 The process of writing The Good Woman's Guide to Making Better Choices
35:39 The role of setting in the novel
37:28 Building an author platform
40:29 The value of writing courses
43:32 Liz’s future plans
45:32 The genre and research behind the novel
50:14 The writing process and use of Scrivener
58:36 Keeping the faith and staying on course
Links mentioned in this episode
- WIN Moscow X by David McCloskey
- Buy So You Want to be a Writer – the book!
- Facebook group for So You Want to be a Writer
Writer in residence: Liz Foster
Liz is a British-Australian fiction writer of stuff, viewed through a whimsical lens. After years doing all sorts of business and professional writing, she started making things up seven years ago during a long convalescence. Somehow the thought of going back to editing the fifty page ATO Report into dot points had lost its allure.
Liz has written a monthly column called Life’s Rich Pattern for the Village Observer, Lane Cove’s long running local paper, for six years. On issues that really matter, like what to do when you forget your shopping bags. A few features and interviews here and there as well.Â
Follow Liz on Twitter and Instagram.
Follow Affirm Press on Twitter and Instagram.
This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre and our course Creative Writing Stage 1.
Find out more about your host, Valerie Khoo (@valeriekhoo on Twitter and @valeriekhoo on Instagram).