Damien Leith - How I Write

First published on 15 Mar 2010. Updated on 4 Jun 2010.

I wrote my first novel One More Time while I was travelling in Nepal, which became the novel's setting. In a rice paper book, I hand wrote the first 100 pages. I was just so inspired by my surroundings, the diverse culture, the people – I found writing the novel had a constant, easy flow. While writing Remember June, I had decided from the onset that I wanted to write a novel that involved a father and a son as I had recently become a father myself. I thought about the journeys they would take through their lives, the ups and the downs and the many other relationships they would both develop over the years. As the novel moves between the past and present I found it was vital that I had a fully developed storyboard to keep things in line. Remember June was a joy to write because in many ways I myself was taken on a journey – based entirely on fiction, I developed the characters as I went along and often felt for them during some of their darker days. When I am writing I find that location and personalities really inspire me. Remember June is set in Ireland in the 1980s – perhaps for my next novel, a road-trip around Australia is called for.