Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
When I was in high school in Sydney I wrote poetry in chemistry class, scripted plays in my lunch breaks and started but never finished lengthy, character-driven, plotless ramblings in the backs of my school books during free study time. The behavior pattern hasn’t really changed since then, but the ramblings have improved.
What was your first book and how long did it take to get it published?
Suicide Point is my first publication. I wrote it in about nine months and it was accepted on my first submission, but if you measure the time from when I first imagined wanting to publish something one day to when I actually bit the bullet and submitted a manuscript to a publisher, we’re talking about a period of about fifteen years. I’m hoping to speed up the process on the next one!
When did you start writing m/m romance? What about this genre interested you the most?
Actually, my writing was already leaning in the direction of m/m back in free study time at high school…
Do you write full time?
The characters I write about follow me around all day, keep me up late at night and hound me at my day job. Seriously, someone has to pay the bills, guys.
Looking back was there something in particular that helped you to decide to become a writer? Did you choose it or did the profession choose you?
I can’t imagine not writing. I guess we chose each other.
On a typical writing day, how would you spend your time?
Writing, researching, and staring blankly into space for varying periods of time as scenes play out in my head.
When it comes to plotting, do you write freely or plan everything in advance?
I like to build strong characters who tell me how it’s gonna go down.
What kind of research do you do before and during a new book?
I actually love the research part of writing. I use the library, the internet, take photographs, talk to people. Not everything researched ends up in the story, but it’s nice to become a quasi expert on something for a brief period of time. I remember studying Scientology as a teenager for whatever I was writing at the time. My parents must have been pretty worried when I checked those books out of the local library.
How much of yourself and the people you know manifest into your characters? How do you approach development of your characters? Where do you draw the line?
I think that, inevitably, you bring your own experience to anything you write.
When someone reads one of your books for the first time, what do you hope they gain, feel or experience?
I hope they feel what I always want to feel when I pick up a book by an author I haven’t read before. A connection to the story through the characters. The books I have most enjoyed reading in any genre have been the ones I’m disappointed to finish, because I don’t want to give up that connection.
Does the title of a book you’re writing come to you as you’re writing it, or does it come before you even begin the first sentence?
The title is constantly evolving with the book when I write.
How would you describe your sense of humor? Who and what makes you laugh?
I like to laugh. I guess I have a typical dry Australian sense of humor.
What is the most frequently asked Georgie Leigh question?
Since I’m brand new, at the moment it’s probably: “Who the hell is Georgie Leigh?”
What are you working on now?
I have a number of works in progress focusing on studly Aussie guys in love and lust and peril…
What was the best piece of advice you’ve received with respect to the art of writing? How did you implement it into your work?
They say to write about what you know, so I’m always trying to broaden the scope of what I know.
Writing is obviously not just how you make your living, but your life-style as well. What do you do to keep the creative “spark” alive – both in your work and out of it?
For me it’s always been more of a struggle to keep the spark at manageable brushfire level so as not to burn my own house down. I don’t like to do anything exactly the same way twice, but that’s not always a good thing.
What kind of books do you like to read?
All kinds. I’m going through a bit of a crime thriller phase at the moment.
If you weren’t a writer what would you be?
Sad.
Where did you get the idea for the stories you write?
I don’t know where they come from. They just pop up and they won’t go away until I write them down.
Aside from writing, what else do you enjoy doing?
I love taking photographs, hearing about other views of the world than my own, and improvising my way through life, love and cookie recipes.
Can you please tell us where we can find you on the Internet?
www.facebook.com/GeorgieLeigh.Author
Could you please share your favorite excerpt from one of more of your stories with us?
Suicide Point p19
Charlie wanted to reach out. He wanted Ness’s strong arms around him. He wanted to be held, protected. But that was ridiculous. For starters, Charlie had never had those feelings before, and he resented his stupid primitive brain for desperately seeking a protector now that he had been weakened. And anyway, even if Ness had been the one who held his hand in that car and talked him through the most harrowing experience of his life, that didn’t mean anything. During the weeks Charlie had been recuperating in hospital Ness had probably held the hands of twenty other men and women who were unlucky enough to need the services of the police rescue unit. That was his job. Probably everyone who got rescued by tall, toned and chiselled features crushed on him like crazy. And Charlie was a freak now anyway. A man with a stump. As if a broad shouldered hero type would go for that.
“How’re you doing, Charlie?” Ness asked, standing there at the end of the bed, shifting from one foot to the other, barely even looking at him. Oh, man. Was this part of his job, too? Following up with a visit to the cripple in hospital? And Ness couldn’t even look at the one-armed freak he was now. How humiliating. How agonising.
“Okay,” Charlie answered. “They’re sending me home soon.”
“Oh yeah?” Ness said, looking up at him now.
“Yeah. They fitted me for a prosthetic, but I don’t want one.” Charlie shrugged. It was easy to talk to Ness, so easy, after spending that time with him in the smashed van. It was like they’d been friends for years. “It’s weird. I don’t think we could afford a decent one anyway, and I don’t want to get around looking like I’m part Ken doll.”
Ness grinned and chuckled, and Christ, Charlie flashed on seeing Ness jogging on the beach, muscles glistening with sweat. He flashed on Ness’s beautifully formed body writhing under him in bed. Charlie had made plenty of sightings of his cop on Bondi since that night, sometimes jogging as he had been the day they’d hooked up, sometimes standing around in his uniform, looking like he was patrolling the beach. They had made eye contact occasionally, but Charlie had always been the first to look away. He rarely dipped in the same pool twice. Especially not when he’d been kicked out of the freaking pool in the first place.
There had been definite interest, anyway, if Charlie knew anything about spotting interest from men. If the accident had never happened, though, Charlie would have gone on ignoring the cop’s antics, without ever even knowing he was as brave and sweet as he was buff.
Now, Charlie was interested. But God, he might as well just forget there was any such thing as sex, now he wasn’t even a whole man.
