So I wrote a book! I can't begin to explain the enormous sense of accomplishment that doing this has given me. From almost as far back as I can remember I have always wanted to write. It has taken me almost 50 years to finally do it and I want to share my journey with you.
'When Boys Kiss Boys' is a coming of age
story set against the backdrop of Sydney suburbia in the early
1980's. A story spanning two generations dealing with the the search
for forbidden love amidst a society not yet ready to accept it. When
Boys Kiss Boys is a touching reminder of a past when lives were
simpler but still affected by issues that impact society today.
They say write about what you know so that is where I decided to focus my energies. Writing about what you know could be interpreted as a range of things: writing about your skills, your intellectual knowledge, your recollections of past events, your interests, your experiences.....
We all have stories inside of us and I have had one inside of me for nearly 35 years. The story I began writing when I was around 18 and already touched by a wealth of experiences that no person should really have to go through. What we endure should always enrich us and make us stronger. I don't know if that was truly the case with me but my experiences have made me the person I am today and finally helped me unleash a talent which has given me more satisfaction than any other thing I have done.
That's a very decisive statement to make, but I can truly say that after everything I have ever done, this is the first time in my life when I have actually been wholly consumed with both a passion and a naturally occurring flow of thoughts and desires. Desires which allowed me to both share my experiences and highlight the issues which affect so many people in their search for self identity.
My 18th birthday was celebrated way back in 1981, just months after a life on the streets of Sydney and Adelaide, Australia. For the country it was a time of cultural and social change. A fairly rapid transition from a backward thinking, conservative, macho society where being white, straight and gender conforming was the norm, to a more worldly society where difference was slowly recognized as a badge of achievement, albeit in a generally altruistic way.
The 'White Australia Policy' had been revoked almost a decade earlier. Vietnamese 'boat people' were arriving in droves, the Gay Mardi Gras was becoming an established event on the Sydney calendar and the drug culture of the 1960's and 1970's was moving away from something that only freaks and weirdos indulged in to something which was beginning to affect almost every family in the country. It was the time of Princess Dianna, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It was the time of the economic boom. It was the time of Dallas, big hair, and nouvelle cuisine. It was the time of promise.
For those of us whose generation was making their first steps into the world of adulthood it was a time of choices. The choice to follow in the aspirations of our conservative parents or the choice to jump, feet first, into a world of sexual liberation, drug taking, and self satisfaction. There was a 'New Wave' of music and fashion and thinking sweeping the more adventurous of our generation. A post punk plethora of thought, style and energy was there for the taking. Most balked, but a very brave few accepted the challenge and confronted the new decade in an exuberant, self-expressive way which challenged the very fabric of society. Or so we thought.
'When Boys Kiss Boys' is the background to the society in which I took my first independent steps. It is the precursor to the story which I began writing when I was 18. It is the sum of my own, and others, experiences in the times leading up to the 1980's. It wasn't the story I set out to write, but it is the story which, amazingly, began flowing once I started writing.
'When Boys Kiss Boys' is a culmination of people, places and events which were all a very formulative part of my childhood and adolescence. I began writing about 'what I know' and the story just began to flow from there. In the coming chapters of this blog I will begin outlining these elements and how they influenced the theme of the book. I will endeavour to write less about 'me' and to write more about how the times and the experiences affected not only me but, surprisingly, many of the people who were a part of this amazing time.
As a disclaimer, I will emphasize that 'When Boys Kiss Boys' is my first book. I never expected a literary masterpiece, and it is definitely not that. It is however an amazing story which reflects experiences and events of the time and one in which, I'm sure, many readers, will be able to identify with. It is a story whose themes and characters, while existing in another time and another place, still bear relevance to the issues which many of us still face today.
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