Writing Routines and 1920s Cosy Fantasy with Christy Anne Jones

In this episode of The Write and Wrong Podcast, host Jamie sits down with Christy Anne Jones, an author, illustrator, and popular content creator from Adelaide, Australia. Christy discusses the creative journey behind her debut novel, Theodora’s Tea Shop, how creating YouTube content has actually made her a better writer, and what she learned from trying the writing routines of famous authors like Dan Brown and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Key Takeaways:

• Theodora’s Tea Shop is a 1920s-inspired fantasy about a chronically ill woman named Dot who seeks out an illegal magic business run by a witch out of a tea shop.   

• Creating YouTube videos—specifically book reviews and writing vlogs—helped Christy learn how to compress prose and make her storytelling as engaging as possible.   

• Trying out famous author writing routines for YouTube taught her that most highly structured routines belong to privileged authors who do not have to factor domestic labor into their days.   

• Christy writes iteratively: if a draft isn’t working, she abandons it entirely and rewrites the book from memory, keeping the memorable moments and naturally cutting the unnecessary filler.   

• Despite being an illustrator who successfully self-published an illustrated guided memoir, Christy was happy to hand over the cover design of her debut novel to a professional designer.

  
  

A 1920s Magical Tea Shop

Christy’s debut novel, Theodora’s Tea Shop, is a fantasy novel infused with cosy elements. The story follows Dot, a chronically ill 23-year-old living in a country where magic is illegal. She travels to the magical city of Aliasta to find Theodora, a witch who runs an underground magic syndicate hidden behind the quaint facade of a tea shop. The shop acts as a perfect cover—if it ever gets raided, customers can claim they just ordered black tea rather than an illegal spell.   

While the novel centers heavily on platonic female friendship and features the sensory, atmospheric warmth typical of the "cosy fantasy" genre, Christy warns that it also has its darker, creepier moments. Interestingly, she chose to set the story in a British 1920s setting because she was heavily inspired by the modernist writers of that era, particularly Virginia Woolf.

How YouTube Improved Her Writing

Christy has been creating YouTube content for years. She started by following her interests, posting painting videos and travel vlogs about her time as an English teacher in Japan. She eventually pivoted to book reviews and writing content after a university lecturer advised that many books die in submission because the author lacks an existing audience.   

She notes that being a content creator fundamentally improved her writing. Filming and editing videos taught her how to engage an audience quickly, edit ruthlessly, and figure out the minimum amount of words needed to convey an idea—a skill that perfectly translated into compressing her prose.

Testing Famous Author Routines

One of the most popular segments on Christy's YouTube channel involves her testing out the writing routines of famous authors, including Haruki Murakami, Donna Tartt, and J.R.R. Tolkien.   

When trying Dan Brown's routine, she had to wake up incredibly early, drink a protein smoothie with coconut oil in her coffee, and do push-ups between 40-minute writing blocks (she managed 30 push-ups and pulled a muscle in her neck). Conversely, J.R.R. Tolkien didn't have a strict daily routine at all; instead, Christy focused on slow, joyful world-building to emulate his process, noting that he wasn't laser-focused on output the way modern authors are.   

Christy pointed out a frustrating reality she discovered during this project: the only authors famous enough to have well-documented writing routines are usually privileged enough to write full-time. With the exception of Ursula K. Le Guin, very few famous routines factor in domestic labor, cooking, or childcare.

An Iterative Approach to Drafting

Christy describes herself as a "discovery writer" who leans toward pantsing. She usually works from a one-page outline but treats it like a GPS rather than a physical map—it recalculates as she changes direction.   

Because she easily gets overwhelmed, she avoids deep plotting. Instead, she uses a highly iterative rewriting process. If a draft isn't working, she will move the file to a different folder and rewrite the entire book from memory. She finds this is the best way to naturally edit a novel—she remembers the core emotional beats and the most engaging plot points, while the boring, fiddly scenes are forgotten and left behind.