Surfer riding a new wave

Mr Laurie said the novel was a contemporary West Australian tale about a friendship between two boys who grow up and live to the “rhythm of the sea”.

“On one level, it’s a story of discovery, adventure and travel wound around a friendship that forms between the two main characters and the directions their lives and the lives of others around them take,” he said.

“On other levels, it subtly touches on deeper themes.”

Mr Laurie said writing a novel was a natural progression from the travels diaries he had kept throughout his life.

“I started to travel to far-off places independently and began to have some experiences which I felt were worth recording, so I started keeping journals of some of the more off-beat happenings,” he said.

“I soon found it was often when things didn’t go anywhere near to plan that the story was more interesting to write about.

“All the places in the novel are real and I’ve spent time in all of them, but otherwise it is fiction.”

After spending three days working on the first paragraph, Mr Laurie said the words flowed easily.

“I’d usually write twice a day and in the periods when I was not writing I found my mind was turning things over in its own way, almost subconsciously, and that helped the development of the novel enormously,” he said.

Mr Laurie said the novel had been well received. “It’s been fantastic to hear people’s thoughts through the website and Facebook and in person,” he said.

“I spend a fair amount of time on the beach or in the waves and have had a number of discussions with people about the novel as we pass on the beach or bob around out the back between sets.”