So are there architects out there, do you think, who are going to take exception to that portrayal of their profession? Or where did you get that from?

Okay, so it's interesting you say that because I had a few architects at the launch.

And yeah, I had, I mean, so I studied architecture at university.

I have a degree and I never practiced, but I have a lot of good friends who are architects.

And I mean, I kind of wanted to skewer the profession a little bit because they do take themselves quite seriously, right? And there really was, you know, there's very much a sense that it's a vocation rather than a profession.

And architects generally do believe that they're changing the world.

But I try to not make it too negative because I actually...

But with your success with short story writing, you know, how was it for you coming to the novel and then finding yourself a publisher for a novel? And why did you choose Echo for that?

yeah.

And I think the biggest thing was, I didn't even really know what cross-dressing was.

I mean, I went to university in quite a large city in the UK, quite diverse.

I've got friends in the LGBT community.

But yeah, it just isn't something that's commonly spoken about.

So not only was it a bombshell, it was sort of like, okay, well, what does that even mean? And I think the biggest thing that I struggled with in the beginning was finding the information.

You know, finding the information online, finding support from other people, because...

intimacy in their marriage because I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people who's like we've had a don't ask don't tell for 20 years and oh yeah we stopped having sex 10 years ago and no no I don't tell her anything and yeah yeah we we're just roommates now it's like that's because y'all got frozen

Is this the first novel you've written or first manuscript you've

No.

So I've written a few manuscripts, as many of your writers have.

Yeah, I've written a few manuscripts that have not been published.

And I suppose I've changed the process over time as I've learned what works for me and what works for the story.

I think what happened in the past is I actually came from short story writing.

So I was trying to write novels as though they were long short stories, you know, just a very long short story, which doesn't really work.

Um, I want you to talk me through a little bit about like, where do you get your ideas from? So we know that this wasn't the first story you've written and, um, you know, do they come to, do the ideas come to you, uh, as a, you know, an image or something someone said, or like, is what inspires your creative work?

What was the, what was the moment where you made the shift, I guess, from short stories to, to full-length novels? Some would say the short stories are harder to write.

Yeah, I mean, people do say that, though I find them more intuitive to write because I'm able to...

You know, they're limited words.

You've got 5,000 words, 10,000 words, and so I'm able to see the whole picture in my mind and, you know, see a bird's-eye view of it.

Whereas with a 85,000-word novel, there's so many strands and so many things happening that it's-- I found that a lot more difficult.

Um, but I also found, you know, if you wanna make a career as a writer in New Zealand, um, you really do need to be writing longer form fiction.

I know that we've had some success recently with, um, Ingrid Horrocks' collection, um, at, at the Ockhams, but I felt that I needed to, um, to make a career as a writer, I needed to write longer fiction.

Our narrator first, perhaps.