Recently, I was asked whether my books fell into the chick-lit category and what my thoughts were on that genre:

I've heard my books called contemporary women's fiction, chick-lit and hen-lit. To tell you the truth, I really don't mind what people call them as long as they're reading my books!

I guess chick-lit is instantly recognisable and suggests that my books, Lucy Springer Gets Even and What Kate did Next will be holiday reads. And that's fine by me.  

Most chick-lit books have several of the following elements:

• The heroine is either looking for Mr. Right or getting over Mr. Wrong.
• She's in a dead-end job or is looking to climb the corporate latter.
• The tone is often light and funny.
• The story usually is told in the first person.
• By novel's end, the heroine usually has worked out all (or most of) her problems and has learned important lessons about life.

Certainly the term chick-lit has its fans and detractors:

Jennifer Weiner, author of best sellers Good in Bed and In Her Shoes, finds the term dismissive and sexist. ‘It's something that says chicky, fluffy, inconsequential, of no importance and no literary quality,' she says. ‘But at the same time it doesn't bother readers, and I have to be mindful of that.'

But Shopaholic series author Sophie Kinsella, who has more than 7 million copies of her six books in print, says she's not bothered by the label. ‘To my mind, it means a fun, light book, often with humour, often featuring a contemporary heroine that women of today can relate to, often addressing an issue of today,' she says. ‘I would probably prefer the term 'romantic comedy' or 'wit lit,' which I once saw in a bookstore. But I can't get too het-up about it. It hasn't done me any harm.'

The spin off's of chick-lit include hen or lady lit,  which is where I see myself because the heroines have been replaced by women in their 30's and 40's who have married and perhaps have children and are now struggling with issues such as infidelity, divorce and career slumps, as well as raising a family.

My main characters are thinking, ‘what happened to the dreams I had?' and ‘how did I get here?'

Basically, I write women's fiction and hope that my books resonate with readers because they're true to life but still light in that there's comedy and generally if not a happy ending then at least a hopeful one. My main characters do tend to ‘find themselves' by the end of the books I write.

What books do you like reading?

 I recently attended a fascinating talk by international best-selling author William McCall Smith (the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, amongst countless others) where he said he wrote 1000 words per hour and rarely re-wrote afterwards. He said that when writing he goes in to a ‘trance-like state' and the words naturally flow!

Hello! I sat open-mouthed listening to him, my feelings a mix of shock, envy and admiration. One thousand words an hour, that's one hundred words every six minutes, ten words every twenty-four seconds. More importantly, it's an 85,000 novel in little over two working weeks!

It got me thinking about how me and some of my writer friends go about their business.

I aim for two thousand words a day which takes two to three hours, depending on whether I'm in the mood or not. If I'm struggling with a scene, two thousand words can take two days - and we're talking definite first draft material.

When I'm writing a manuscript, I try to get the first draft out as quickly as I can - drawing on that goal of 2,000 words a day, five days a week. When the first draft is complete, I try to let it sit for a couple of months and then start at the beginning, editing/adding and deleting as I go. I write a minimum of three drafts, often many more.

Here's what some other Australian authors had to say:

Fleur McDonald, best selling author of Red Dust (Allen & Unwin) and the forthcoming Blue Skies (Allen & Unwin):

www.fleurmcdonald.com

"It seems I write differently to many other authors! I sit at my computer, write a few paragraphs, or sometimes a whole chapter and then I'm off again - cleaning, outside, hanging out washing. Maybe I'm just hyperactive, but I can't sit still for long!

The time away from the computer gives me 'think-time' so I can go over what I've written, change it or plan the next section. I rarely re-write, until the end of the book - but I've learnt that since I started Blue Skies. Red Dust was re-write after re-write and I wasted so much of my precious writing time, by doing that.

I never aim for a word count per day, just because I never know how much time I'm going to get at the computer on a particular day - if any! But I aim for a chapter word count of about 1,500 to 2,000.

Sometimes I write two or three chapters a day and sometimes I write only half a one!

It's all a matter of what suits you and what you feel comfortable with."

Kylie Ladd, author of After The Fall (Allen & Unwin):

"I write three days a week, between 9:30 and 3:00. Well, that's what I tell myself, but to be honest I tend to stuff around so much on email, Twitter, reading blogs and doing laundry it's usually 11 or so before I actually start writing- and then I have to stop for morning tea... The one thing I am tough on, though, is word count. I am a word count Nazi, and do not permit myself to consider a day completed without at least one thousand polished words- as polished as I can make them, that is- to show at the end of a writing day.

To get that I probably write about two or three thousand but edit obsessively as I go.... I've never been one of those writers who can just pour everything out, then come back and fix it later. If a sentence isn't right in my mind- if an adjective is wrong, or it doesn't flow- I have to fix it before I go on. It can take me an hour to write one paragraph, but somehow those 1000 words get written each day- the school bell is a great motivator.

So too is my spreadsheet, into which I enter each day's word count, simply so I can see the totals starting to build, like money in the bank (not a metaphor usually associated with writing). Oh, and I read every single sentence I write out loud to test it out, often three or four times ... so much fun for my husband when he works from home on the desk next to mine!

I plan quite extensively before I write - it's never just dive in and do. All that makes 1000 words/day seem quite pathetic, but I heard a Radio national interview with Australian author, Lee Tulloch, last year where she said she aimed for 1000 words in a six hour stint, and I felt ridiculously relieved! I have no idea what rate other writers work at- will be interested to find out!"

Kirsty Eagar, author of Young Adult novel, Raw Blue (Penguin) and forthcoming title, Saltwater Vampires (Penguin):

http://www.kirstyeagar.com/

"Something that helps me face the first draft of a new story idea is to spend around 6 to 8 weeks doing what I think of as "free falling". Each day I write 1,000 to 2,000 words on anything I think might be part of the story. Whatever interests me on the day: a major scene, some dialogue between two characters, or something about the setting. Usually the writing is crap and the whole thing is an exercise in what doesn't work. But it lets me circle the story without feeling any pressure. Exploring.

The story usually changes completely during this stage and so do the characters I want to write about. I'm looking for situations and people that fascinate me. There comes a point when I get impatient with this and just want to get going on a proper first draft. I try to drag it out for a while longer, so I'm really going crazy, and then I hit it. What's good is that when I do, I've got momentum."

So there you have it...while we all aim to get the words written, we each use an individual method and process to keep us on track. What's your approach?