The Cordeaux Heights author tends to base aspects of his books on his own experiences growing up. And it seems those experiences are running out.

"Most of my stuff is autobiographical and I've run out of life," Condon joked.

"It's time to work on my next life.

"Also, because I write teen books generally, it's a while since I was a teen so I'm a little bit out of touch."

For Condon, the reason he reaches back to his own past for stories is because he finds they have a ring of truth about them.

"I just find the stories are more powerful if I can use my own life rather than just making stuff up," he said.

"I try to make things real. I don't have a lot of car chases and bombs and shootings. I find it hard to come up with something that's original and gripping but still real."

Condon's writing background includes authoring plays and poetry and spending 10 years - from 1982-92 - as a journalist on a weekly newspaper in Liverpool.

It was about a year into his journalism career that he started writing for children. That was when he met his wife, children's author Di Bates, who encouraged him to stick it out.

"I was pretty bad at the start but I gradually picked it up," Condon said.

"I loved doing plays but it's very hard to get them staged. You'd spend months writing a play and it'd be on for a week and that was it. It was very hard to get them staged elsewhere after that week."

In 1992 he decided to ditch journalism and take up writing children's novels full-time.

"It was very scary," he said of that decision.

"All the time I was working in the paper I was getting stuff published so I did have my foot in the door. It's easier once you get known to get published.

"Even so, I think the first year I went to freelance writing I submitted 200 separate submissions - poetry, plays, stories - I figured the more you submit the more chance you've got. Well it doesn't work that way, because you do so much the quality depreciates. I don't submit nearly as much now."

His first book was published in 1983 and about a hundred more followed in just over 30 years. He keeps them on a set of shelves at home and uses them as a reminder of his skills.

"Whenever I think I can't write, which is very often, I look at all the books I've written and give myself a good talking-to," he admitted.

But Condon's speed of publication - an average of three a year and the shorter nature of teen books as opposed to those for adults shouldn't lead one to think that they're easy to churn out.

As a case in point Condon offers up his latest book, The Simple Things, a story about 10-year-old Stephen and his aunt Lola.

"The Simple Things is a junior novel - 30,000 words. I thought I'd do a junior novel because I thought I could throw it out quickly. It won't take long and I'll move onto a young adult novel.

"It took a long time, it took about a year. It was as hard as writing a young adult novel."

He doesn't have a strict writing schedule - "my tired old brain doesn't work that way" - but he does write every day.

He said most of his inspiration came when he was away from the computer terminal.

"You can sit in front of your computer for hours and nothing happens," he said.

"But if you go out and do something completely different and let your mind get free, then something will come."

One thing that doesn't work when writing young adult novels is trying to be a kid yourself.

"I don't think you have to think like a kid, you just have to keep it real," he said.

"Picture yourself in the situation that you're creating and the stuff that's said, the feelings and what would happen. You just make yourself be there."

Mostly, it's easy for Condon to imagine himself there - the majority of his lead characters are male and some of their stories are drawn from his own life.

One that was a bit trickier - but also one of his most popular - was A Straight Line to My Heart which followed main character Tiffany's first summer out of school.

"I was in Wollongong Library one night and I saw this girl, she was a little bit plump, she wasn't very attractive and she was all alone reading a book," he said.

"So I just wondered about her life. I went home and created a life for her. I'd never written a girl character as a main character before.

"Even with her I used what I suppose was her life, but I put in my life, like working for the newspaper - she works in the newspaper. So it's still autobiographical even though it's about a girl."

He said it was one of his most popular books, because teenage girls are the biggest readers and they latched onto the book. So much so that it made Condon start working on a sequel.

"I find writing a sequel hard because the first one people read it and liked it, liked the characters as they were," he said.

"But something's got to happen in the sequel and not necessarily for the good. So I've got to try and write what I want to write but also keep the reader happy."

Speaking of being happy, one of Condon's favourite moments was winning the 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Award for his novel Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God. Partly because it came with a $100,000 cheque but also because Condon figured he was no chance.

He said it had failed to win a number of other awards that year, including being ignored by the Children's Book Council.

"The Children's Book Council have Book of the Year, and three Honour Books and then three other books that are shortlisted. and another 20 that are notable books," he said.

"That book Confessions didn't get anything - not even a notable.

"The Prime Minister's award was the first one that it was shortlisted in, it was the last chance for it.

"I went there thinking it had no hope whatsoever. I was even thinking of going to the other people who were nominated and saying 'Let's split up the prize money'. It would have been $14,000 each.

"I'm glad I didn't."