Hi, Laura. It is great to have you on AussieAuthors.com.

Q. Can you tell us a little about Laura Rittenhouse? Where in Australia do you live? Etc.

A. I don’t mean to be difficult, but I don’t actually live anywhere right now. When I think of where home is, I think of Sydney’s north shore. That said, tonight ‘home’ is a tent just beyond the Nullabor. My husband and I were living in Darwin for a while but are currently travelling the open road. Someday, many months from now, I should be back Home and have a more succinct answer to your question.

Q. When did you first realize you wanted to become a writer?

A. I suppose somewhere in my 30s, way back in the 90s. I had left the US and was living in Australia. My long epistles home were greeted with enthusiasm from friends and family and more than one of my pen pals suggested I take up writing. As my career in IT became less interesting to me, I found myself dreaming of doing something else, writing often topping that list.

Q. How long have you been writing?

A. Since December 2006.

Q. Do you belong to a critique group, or have critique partners?

A. Nothing formal. I have two good friends who are also authors. We review each other’s work, talk about writing and the tribulations of being an author and are learning a lot from each other.

Q. What did your journey entail in becoming a published author?

A. I’ll try to keep this answer brief in contrast to the actual process which was long and drawn-out. I ended up with a four-step approach. First I tried every Australian agent that I could find that would accept unpublished authors.

The list is shockingly short and that proved fruitless. Then I tried every Australian publisher that would accept unpublished authors without an agent. That list was longer but still no contract.

Next I tried US agents that would consider unpublished authors AND would accept queries via email. I had no intention of printing out reams of US format paper and posting them around the globe. This list was very long but in the end, still nothing.

Finally I went directly to US publishers who would accept submissions from unpublished authors without an agent, would accept electronic submissions, did not charge to publish and offered some sort of print option. Bingo – some two years down the track, I received a publishing contract.

Q.  How long does it take you to write a book?

A. Draft one takes me one month to write. When I sit down to start, I have the beginning and end of the story, the main characters and three or four major plot points. I write every day and take a professional approach to it.

I have a target word count of about 70k words (to reach an eventual word count of between 80 & 100k). My major plot points help keep me on track to reach my word count and retain some balance to my story. New characters, unplanned storylines and lots of diversions appear, but in the end I basically have the book I started to write.

I then leave draft 1 for about a month to let my mind forget what I’ve written and then go through it a second time, maybe 1-2 weeks this time.

After about draft 3 I’m ready to send it out to one of my friends to get their feedback (I never send partials or early drafts because you only get one shot at getting a reviewer’s first impression which is the best feedback you can ever get).

I guess I would expect to spend a good six months to go from sitting down with an empty document to having a book that I was willing to submit to a publisher.

Q.  Do you belong to any writer’s organisations?

A. Not any of the more formal ones. I belong to AussieAuthors and I’ve signed up for a few online groups that target writers. One that I’ve found helpful is Agent Query (www.agentquery.com) where sometimes they host agents who are willing to answer questions in a chat session with authors around the globe.

Q. What does your family think of your success?

A. They are over the moon. Especially my father who devours every word I write and says he knew all along I’d get published. My husband now loves to refer to me as his ‘authoress’.

Q. You are probably dying to tell our readers and writers all about your debut novel ‘Starting Over.’ Can you tell us a little about it?

A. This is the novel I had to write. When my family encouraged me to write, they all said I had to write about my great-grandmother. She’s sort of a legend in our family.

My grandmother raised us all on tales of this woman who she clearly idolised and some of that hero worship rubbed off on me.

That said, I am not a biographer and didn’t think I have what it takes to write a historical novel so I thought about my options. What most interested me about my great-grandmother was that she migrated alone from Germany to the US in 1903.

I migrated from the US to Australia in 1988 and I found that daunting enough. Imagining her plight, her motivations and her challenges inspired ‘Starting Over’.

I wrote the story around two migrant women, one set in the early 1900s and one in the late 1900s.

The hurdles and choices these women faced were those that I knew my great-grandmother confronted. What this novel tries to do is show how much our circumstances may have changed in 75 odd years, but that the driving forces of our lives remain unchanged.

Q. Do you have any other novels planned in the near future?

A. I’ve actually finished two other novels. My second novel, ‘Life’s Journeys’ has been shopped around a bit in Australia and my third novel, ‘Confessions of an Ageing Adulterer’ is in a final draft stage.

When I am settled again, I’ll go through one more review of these two books and then start the process of hunting for a publisher for them.

Q.  What do you think makes a good story?

A. I like a character driven story. I’m less interested in plot twists, crash scenes and dramatic climaxes than I am in a story about people in real situations that I can believe and hopefully spend some time thinking about.

Q.  Where can readers find out more about your current novel?

A. I’ve got information about it and myself on my website www.laurarittenhouse.com

Q. Do you have a website, blog or other internet space?

A. I have a website, www.laurarittenhouse.com, but I don’t blog or such. It’s too hard to even contemplate anything like that while I’m on the road.

Q. Would you like to offer a tip on how to be published, or something you would like to share with aspiring writers?

A. My best advice is to write because you love it. If you only want to write to be published, you might be in for a lot of heartache.

I read somewhere that for every book published, 25,000 go unpublished. It’s a scary stat, I know, but I think I believe it. So enjoy your writing and look at being published as icing on the cake.

On a more practical note, how about 1) Finish your book (I’ve met a surprising number of authors who just don’t). 2) Make sure your word count is in the target range for your genre (generally 80-100k) and 3) Be prepared to contact dozens of agents and publishers, don’t just pick your favourite or most likely two or three.

Your book might be perfect for them but their reader might have a headache when they pick up and skim your first few pages or their publishing schedule for that type of book might be already filled this year or maybe your manuscript just gets shuffled to the bottom of the pile until it reaches their time-limit for reject.

AA: I've have enjoyed learning a little more    about you, and I’m sure our readers have as well.