About Catherine Cavanagh:
Catherine is into her third phase of adult life. The first phase was spent gaining actuarial qualifications and working as an actuarial assistant at a life insurance company, which involved computer programming for complex financial modelling. The second phase was spent as a home schooling mother to a son gifted with imagination and drawing ability. For now the third phase includes writing non-fiction and helping children’s book writers and illustrators acquire the skills needed to earn a living. And the rest of the third phase is still a mystery waiting to be revealed.
Catherine is a voracious reader of theology, apologetics, hagiography, patristics, thrillers, young adult fiction, fantasy, and anything with a decent plot. She prefers the research side of family history to writing about family history. Most of her writing gets done in the hour or so before midnight.
Somewhere in her junior days she developed note taking ability and never let it go. She finds she always listens more attentively and retentively when she is taking notes, and these days she is discovering new ways of using that ability to benefit others.
What inspires you to write?
Catherine is inspired by the men and women in decades past who stood on soapboxes in the Sydney Domain and talked about what they were passionate about to whomever would listen. So when an opportunity for a free online soapbox came her way, she took to blogging with both hands. She is also inspired by the unnamed people in the crowds that gathered to hear Jesus preach who would listen to Him and then relay the message to those too far away to hear Jesus clearly. So if she comes across good content created by someone else she likes to help give that content a wider audience.
Tell us about your writing process.
My writing process depends a lot on what I am writing. Sometimes I can have up to ten books open around me as I try to distil information into a coherent whole. Sometimes I write key words to remind myself of the paragraph topics I don’t want to risk forgetting. Sometimes I have mulled over ideas for hours or days in such a way that the words fall out in pre-composed fluency. Sometimes it is just hard work summarising the essence of an article or massaging roughly written notes into readable prose.
What advice would you give other writers?
Even if your book is a long way from being finished, start your online presence today. It takes producing regular content for that online presence and years of time to build a reputation. The number of people regularly connecting with you online is the best indication of how many copies of your book you will sell.
Then you need to catch up with other writers on a regular basis. That’s how you stay excited about your writing, get good local advice and avoid making too many rookie mistakes.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
For my purpose self-publishing with Amazon Kindle was an easy decision. It is the best way to distribute long tracts of information on a potentially global scale with minimum cost to a reader.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Hopefully the day will come when all books will be available digitally, in print, in audio and braille versions and where each significant town will have a print-on-demand facility in order to keep postage costs to an absolute minimum.
What do you use?: Professional Cover Designer
What genres do you write?: Non-fiction, Faith and Religion, Devotional Prayer, Children’s Book Writing, Children’s Book Illustrating, Creative Career Development
What formats are your books in?: eBook
Website(s)
Catherine Cavanagh Home Page Link
Link To Catherine Cavanagh Page On Amazon
