Once I got passed the initial trepidation of what was ahead of me, I set to and began to write my next communication to Normie, and the first pages of many many many pages of questions. I started at the beginning; his birth, his family, his homelife, his childhood, his schooling etc. I asked him his feelings on things; his mothers illness, his brothers illness, and how it felt to be a part of a big family. He replied openly and with thought - and each answer opened up a million new questions to be asked. It was a very slow and meticulous process. This is all we did pretty much for the first 2-3 years of communication - lots of letters, lots of questions, lots of going over and over and over each fact. I put aside the fact that he was known to me and treated him like I didn't know him at all, getting him to elaborate on every answer - assuming nothing. He organised for me to get all the paperwork from the case; his criminal record, the forensic reports, the witness statements, the police interviews, everything.....and I was also making phone calls to various departments about how to obtain more information or to locate specific people of interest. My desk was a mass of papers and files and lists of things I needed to do. The whole process was new to me, I didn't have any guidelines, I just followed my instinct and second-guessed everything.

My writing time was interrupted constantly by my life; I still had children and a husband and family to manage, and a job in the first few years of my research. It wasn't always easy to find the time to concentrate on writing - I did most of it late at night when everyone else was sleeping.

Some time in those first few years, I received a friend request on Facebook from Normies wife. She and I had lost touch since we had both left Albany and it had been a few years since we had spoken or seen each other. I knew when I saw the request that a conversation about my book was immiment and although I was unsure what her reaction was going to be, I was pretty sure our friendship could survive it. When the day came that I told her, in a messenger chat, she was a little shocked. She had gone through a terrible ordeal because of him and was understandably still very angry. She told me I was crazy for wanting to write a book about him; that he was not worthy, and I tried as best as I could to explain why I thought his story could help a lot of people understand the methamphetamine problem that Australia was facing. In the end, we agreed to disagree on the value of it, but agreed that we were both happy to be in contact again after so long. We caught up for coffee not long after that and the long standing friendship took over - the book always came up in conversation, she would ask how it was going and I would say....slowly....Occassionally I would ask her a question about a certain detail and she would answer, then say "Ok, don't wanna talk about him anymore" and we would move on to other subjects. And thats pretty much how it went for the next few years. We caught up for coffee every few months or so.....life went on.

The first rough draft was finished around 2010 - it was very rough and needed a lot of work, but it was something to show Normie regarding the way I wanted to set out the events in the story. I sent it to him with all the real names intact - so we did not lose track of who was who. I told him not to show anyone as it was only a draft, but in his enthusiasm for the commitment he had made to it, he showed it to a family member - And then the shit hit the fan!

#AlisonSampson #Normie #ShardsofIce #Ice #MethAmphetamine