Before I was published, I had several novels that got close – well, that’s what the glowing rejections suggested. However, I did feel that those novels were – in their way – reserved in some areas. I was holding back. It was intimidating to put work out there where people who knew me would be reading it, and possibly judging me through what I’d written. I’m sure lots of writers feel the same. So I wrote through a filter – I held back in scenes (be they explorations of emotional vulnerability or realisations, intimacy, etc.) where I thought somebody might think of me, I can’t believe he wrote that! Going…