Just Another Week in Suburbia: The Sex Scenes
The first real sex scene I tackled was in my YA novel Pride (the first draft was written in 2002). Early drafts implied that the protagonist, Luke, and his girlfriend, Amanda, had sex. It was the typical consummation of intimacy that was kept off the page. Pride was selected for the 2009 Olvar Wood Fellowship. Queensland author, Inga Simpson, mentored me through a redraft, in which I added this vague sex scene. She highlighted its shapelessness – the scene acted as this general overview that embodied the relationship as a whole. In the redraft(s) that scene gained definition, showing a young couple’s first time. When Busybird Publishing were trying to place Pride…
Just Another Week in Suburbia: The Inception
I thought I’d look a little at the creative process behind my books. Back in 2012, with several unpublished manuscripts behind me, I decided to write a novel that would be THE ONE, as in the one that sold. Not that I could make that determination. Arts are so subjective that you’re always at the whim of taste. But I decided that up to that point, my writing had been … too safe. In any of the arts, you’re often working through a filter, worried what people will think of your work. It’s not the anonymous reader that’s a concern. It’s the people you know – friends, and family. What…