Blue Mountains author's debut novel, Ordinary Human Love, set in Lithgow

With that in mind she's clearly catapulted out of her comfort zone with her newly released debut novel - but on picking up Ordinary Human Love you'd never be able to tell.

"It was a leap, writing a novel... it is such a unique skill set, and it is quite different," Ms Goode told the Gazette.

"With short fiction and flash, you're so limited to a particular word count, [so] this was quite liberating... it's a challenge, but it's such a fabulous thing to learn how to do."

The plot follows Mardi McKee, a divorcee returning to her father's home in Lithgow after drifting overseas for eighteen months. Mardi's mother has died, and her former lover Ian wants nothing to do with her after she left him without explanation.

As she forges an intense friendship with Ian's younger sister Claudia, Mardi strives to recreate a life in the aftermath of what she's lost. The story that follows is a hypnotic journey into relationships, desire, and discovering what makes life worthwhile.

Ms Goode draws from her background in flash fiction as a strength in her long-form debut. She keeps a tight leash on her prose, paring paragraphs to the bone with poetic utility.

The end result is an engrossing journey of emotion, evoked in raw thoughts and banal moments which Ms Goode has pulled from the depths of experience.

"The most fundamental things that I like to write about are love and death. To me they're the most compelling stories, the ones that deal with those universal experiences," she said.

While Ms Goode has lived in Leura for 11 years, she knew the Mountains from her earliest memories. Her grandparents owned a farm in Orange, and each road trip there as a child meant stopping in Lithgow for a midway break.

Her familiarity with the area, along with its unique identity, made it a compelling choice of location for her first book's story.

"I think [Lithow] is stunning in how it's situated, it's surrounded with the Blue Mountains. From a scenery point of view it's quite breathtaking. But also I think it's quite a complex area," she said.

"It's a town that's quite tough and hardened, and has endured hardship, and has had to reinvent itself, basically."

Ms Goode also said her time in the Blue Mountains heavily informed the novel, not only in helping her write scenery but in her 2016 residency at Varuna (The National Writers' House).

Since releasing Ordinary Human Love Ms Goode said she feels drawn to the longer form of novels, and she encourages aspiring writers to approach the craft with the same spirit of experimentation and "writing without expectation".

"I wrote like that for a long time... and there's something so wonderful about that [because] you're writing in a way where you're learning, and without the pressure of a deadline or having to submit something," she said.

Ms Goode also recommends writing groups as an invaluable source of feedback, several of which are thanked in her book's acknowledgements.

Ordinary Human Love is out now and can be found at book shops around the Mountains or ordered online via book retailers, including the website of publisher Ultimo Press: https://ultimopress.com.au/products/ordinary-human-love

Ms Goode will be speaking with her mentor, Kim Kelly, at a book signing event in Leura on May 25. Held at Megalong Books, arrive at 6.15pm for a 6.30pm start, light refreshments provided. Tickets are $10, book at: https://www.megalongbooks.com.au/p/melissa-goode-event?barcode=2471712280642