ABOUT PG DEVLIM
I didn’t spend six weeks living alone in the wilderness just to return to society and follow the same routine as everyone else. Well, I had to eat those words but the thought was there; and it still is.
So, I was out there living in a tent, figuring things out: myself, my life, my mortality, my purpose, you know, the kind of things we all think about. I knew I wanted to write, though living alone in nature, the ideas that came to me were far more relaxed, spiritual and positive than the ones that turned up later on. But when I returned to society everything, including me, just slotted back into place, tightly. Old and bad habits, based on negative ways of dealing with childhood traumas, led me to short-term antidepressants (yuck), long-term therapy (intense) and very powerful ancient healing (wow!). It all took some time but from those experiences came my stories.
​My writing journey didn’t start in a tent though, it started in a modest house, in a state school, in a protestant church, but it was solidified in a tent in the wilderness, because that was when I was certain that I wanted to be a writer.
Many will be familiar with the archetypal male vampire that seduces the virginal young woman. Well, I inverted the trope and centred my writing on Powerful Female Vampires and their naked male servers. It didn’t start as clearly as that, but as the idea developed it dawned on me that it was actually a cool, dark and hot concept; something that, if I wrote it well enough, would stand out because it was different, intriguing, atmospheric and ultimately - and typical for a vampire - inviting: hot, dark and empowering for the ladies and dangerous and seductively disempowering for the gents.
I was raised in a strict Christian family. By which I mean loving but guilt tripped where sex and intimacy were regarded as sinful. So, as I reached puberty, the sexual part of me was inhibited. This repression went so deep that I was unable to acknowledge it until many years later. I needed distance from this wound before I could heal it because without the distance the wound and the wounded are one. This wound has been ‘me’ for most of my adult life and only now am I starting to separate myself from its expression. So, as you read this, you’re witnessing the next part of my healing journey, which is taking place, in me, right now.
If I’m going to properly own my writing, I feel I have to publicly acknowledge, own and be the part of me that I was taught was fundamentally wrong. It’s not easy, but it is doable.
In my writing, it’s the exposure of the nude male that liberates his repressed sexuality. It’s not however in a safe space it’s actually in a potentially very dangerous environment and I think that really mimics my own journey: the fear of being exposed, physically, sexually and what I feel is even more scary, psychologically, because there is vulnerability in that exposure and that’s a big thing to face.
The other side of my writing expresses the dark power of the feminine. Her liberation offers her sin-free indulgence and sensual empowerment. It’s all so very satanic, which is also so very liberating.
So this is my writing journey. Owning. Healing. Discarding the coffin of guilt and stepping into myself. It is a journey of self-discovery, of healing, of death, rebirth and of darkly erotic writing (and a healthy dose of humour).
