Australian literary legend (and good friend), Nick Earls, recently blogged a section of his marvellous 2014 novel, Analogue Men, that was binned during editing. Whilst enjoying this tasty morsel trimmed from the published main meal, I thought: “Let’s cook up some leftovers, too!” In Are You Seeing Me?, I had one I’d prepared earlier.

Much earlier.

Pasted below is a long-removed, never-read, never-seen-apart-from-a-select-few section of AYSM. It wasn’t surrendered during the publisher’s edit or the final draft. It wasn’t canned as a condition of the book’s contract.

It was cut from the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT!

And, although I liked the original very much, the cut wasn’t unkind. Quite the opposite.

It helped turn a homeless tale into a Random House resident and, ultimately, a Booktopia 2014 Book of the Year.

* Continue reading “The ‘Are You Seeing Me?’ Chapter No One Is Seeing” →