Five Minutes with Laurie Bell #LoveAusAuthors

Laurie Bell writes MG and YA for girls. She believes children should feel like they can try anything, and in her stories, young girls and women take charge, find their inner strength, and become the hero.

‘In my books, girls and women don’t rely on others to save them. They save themselves and everyone else. They can do anything.’

Laurie loved reading and watching science fiction and fantasy as a child and now writes science fiction and fantasy! She blames/thanks her Poppa for that! She also wrote radio plays as a child and performed them, recording them onto cassette tape with her sister.

‘My poppa (grandfather) read a book of fantasy short stories to me repeatedly, at my request, when I was very little. It had giant worms getting their heads cut off and knights and dragons and trolls getting violently slayed. The same poppa told my siblings and I about the Hob-yays who would be waiting outside in the dark for us (he made my Nana take rubbish to the outside bins when he told us this!). He had the BEST laugh and I miss him a lot.’

In a recurring theme of my #LoveAusAuthor blog series, Laurie says she writes because she ‘has’ to. She gets ‘antsy’ when she isn’t writing and always feels like she should be writing! She also writes because she believes stories are important and sharing those stories is even more important.

Laurie has a rich creative life and as well as writing, has taken singing lessons (and says she wasn’t horrible!), has acted on stage, (she says, badly, but she got away with it because it was an ensemble cast and the others were hilarious!) and directed preps in performing The Three Billy Goats Gruff, which she says, was a mad, mistake-ridden, hilarious short performance that no one could hear very well!

Five Things About Laurie’s Current Work

1. I wrote one of my current WIP’s because the two grandma characters are based on two of my favourite older ladies. I worked with them at my local theatre company and they both made me laugh (enough to cry) on a regular basis! This book was written for them.
2. My published book, The Butterfly Stone, was written based on a 1000 word prompt.
3. My published book, White Fire, was written when I was 17.
4. I wrote another WIP over the space of 7 years. It’s a book I desperately want to see published. It’s a darker scifi than I usually write and seems cursed to never appear in print!
5. A third WIP is a SSF that has my version of dragons and elephants in it. Because dragons and elephants are cool.

Five Things That Help Laurie Keep Writing

1. I’m too stubborn not to keep writing.
2. I believe that if you want to do something – then do it. Don’t just try once and give up…keep at it. You only learn if you practice. You only get better if you keep trying. You only succeed if you don’t give up. Don’t live with ‘what ifs’. (That being said. If you don’t like something you try, it’s perfectly okay to stop…which is what happened to my budding piano career! I didn’t like it, so I stopped. And I am totally okay with that decision).
3. I like telling and sharing stories. I believe stories are meant to be shared.
4. I love talking to and interacting with other writers.
5. Why not.
   

In the future Laurie would love an agent and wants to visit more schools and talk to more children about reading and how amazing it is! And how they can do anything they put their minds to. Her dream is to give up her day job and write full time (and actually be able to live off it.) She would also like a TV series or movie spin off of one or more of her books (the ultimate author’s dream!). Finally she wants to write IP (waves madly at Marvel, Star Wars, Doctor Who…basically all her favourite TV shows!!). Oh, and she wants to meet Neil Gaiman! Wouldn’t that be an incredible moment in the life of a writer.

You can find Laurie at her blog
Twitter: @Laurienotlori
Instagram: @writerlauriebell
Facebook: WriterLaurieBell

Book links – find White Fire and The Good, The Bad and The Undecided in my Bookish Shop

The Butterfly Stone here
The Tiger’s Eye here