Anne Freeman wrote her first novel on her phone – and became a three-book author

Anne Freeman wrote her first novel on her phone, in the Google Docs app, while nursing her baby. Several awards later, she’s a three-book author with the independent press Hawkeye Publishing, and her latest novel is The Time After Now.

By the time Anne enrolled in AWC’s Dare to Dream course, she already had novels on shelves and a run of competition recognition behind her. What she was after was harder to pin down – a way to reach further into her own imagination. But writing didn’t come easily for a long time – in fact, for years it didn’t come at all. “For most of my life, I suffered from a crippling perfectionist’s block, which prevented me from even trying to write,” Anne says. That changed after the birth of her second child, when she wrote in the only pockets of time she had. “Because I was caring for two children under three, I mostly wrote in the Google Docs app on my iPhone while I was nursing my baby,” she says.

The proof that she was onto something came from outside. “I wrote my first novel that way, but it wasn’t until it was recognised in the Romance Writers of Australia Valerie Parv Award and the Hawkeye Prize that I began to suspect I wasn’t crap!” she says.

That Hawkeye Prize – the press’s competition for unpublished manuscripts – led to her first deal. “I have been fortunate enough to be signed for three books by tiny but mighty press, Hawkeye Publishing,” she says. “They’re one of the few remaining small press publishers in Australia and do much to bring unique storytelling to readers.” The whole thing still slightly astonishes her: “I was just some git who wrote a book on her phone!”

Daring to dream

Most writers, Anne reckons, aren’t like her when it comes to ideas. “I often hear other writers describe how their ideas arrive in crowds, each vying for attention and stealing focus from current projects. My experience is different. My ideas are polite, orderly. Sometimes I wonder if any will turn up to the party at all,” she says. That is what drew her to Dare to Dream. “What lured me to Dare to Dream was the promise of connecting to my subconscious, of tapping into the fertile ground of my imagination,” she says.

The course changed how she thinks about the whole business of having ideas. “My ideas are still very polite, but I find that when I invite them, they will come,” she says. “The course taught me that intention is an integral part of generating ideas. That, as writers, we don’t need to passively wait for our muse. We can pull on sturdy boots, pack a lunch, and trek off to find her.”

It helped that the emphasis stayed on fun rather than pressure. Anne credits her tutor with keeping it there. “She provided practical tips and exercises for tapping into one’s own creativity, and encouraged wonder and play – elements that can become lost when we focus on the ‘problem’ of having no ideas, rather than the enjoyment that can come with chasing our fascinations,” she says.

Inside The Time After Now

The Time After Now is an Own Voices novel that draws on Anne’s own life with type 1 diabetes. It follows a suburban wife and mother whose seemingly perfect life is upended when her first love dies and she starts receiving intimate photos from her party days, along with an anonymous threat to expose them. Moving between past and present, it digs into the ripple effects of the choices we make when we’re young – and takes readers back into the post-millennium Melbourne underground rave scene.

The juggle is real

Ask Anne how writing fits into her life now, and she’ll point you to a phrase. “Whoever came up with the phrase ‘the juggle is real’ must have been spying on me,” she says. Alongside her own writing and marketing, she works two part-time jobs – one as a content creator for a social media agency, the other as a publicist – speaks publicly, hosts book launches and author events, and runs her own writing workshops at libraries and writers’ centres. She does all of it from Northcote in Melbourne, with two kids in the mix. “I’m also mother to two hilarious and kind children who still think I’m cool,” she says.

For all the juggling, one thing anchors it. “Writing books is how I keep my membership to the greatest club in the world: being friends with other writers and readers,” she says.

Anne doesn’t hold back when it comes to recommending AWC. “I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend AWC. I would go so far as to say: forget the writing degree and spend your money in a wiser and more targeted way here! The tutelage is world-class, the delivery options are many and varied, and the knowledge invaluable.” Her pitch to anyone weighing it up? “Why accrue a HECS debt taking compulsory units in which you have no interest when you can tumble down the rabbit hole of learning that will make your little weird heart sing?”

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 Course/s taken at AWC:

• Dare to Dream