Excerpt
8:08 a.m. That’s what my clock says as I burst out of my covers. I must have fallen out of bed again. I know this because I’m staring at it from the other side of my room. There was luck to this particular tumble, however: I’m only sixteen minutes behind! I wheeze as I lift myself up, kicking the sheets from my ankles like a half-swaddled baby. The same old tapping returns, persistent and loud, and I walk over to my ground-floor window, lifting it dramatically in an effort to shoo the seagull pecking at the pane. The blunt-billed bird squawks as it flaps away. I slam the window closed, keeping the cold morning air off my skin for a few more minutes.
My shower was lukewarm and my breakfast fictional. This is the best I can hope for on Tribute day at my place of work: Montage Tower. The building may be taller than most, but the work is still lowly. I lock my bedroom door out of an irrational precaution; my roommate is still upstairs. It’s his third day off this week, and it’s silent, but I know he’s awake because his door is slightly ajar. If anything were to disappear from my room, he would be blamed for it regardless, as either a successful thief or a failing watchdog. I collect my earbuds, phone, and wallet combo and silently make for the exit. As my door card reaches the scanner, a magazine bricks the window, launched from the top of the stairs where Sam now stands.
“Almost hit you, Dan!” he shouts down to me in his usual
excitable manner.
“What is it this time? I’m already late.” I almost don’t reply.
“Page twelve—the blue chaise longue!” He points at the once airborne catalog, which now sits crumpled in my hands.
“I’m not dragging a chaise longue home for you!”
“It’s not for me, it’s for Shanty,” he says, partitioning himself
from the blame.
I spin the catalog around and read the cover. “Scratchwork
Furrrnishings.”
“It’s only small—twenty-five by sixteen.” He holds his hands out
like a puppeteer.
“Can’t your hamster just sleep in your bed with you?”
“No. He has an erratic sleeping pattern.”
A silence lingers.
“Fffffine,” I reluctantly sputter, throwing the catalog onto the
floor in a sulk.
Sam giggles and retreats back into his lair of aspen shavings and
lavender. I finally scan my door card, which sounds a cheery beep of
freedom.
Do you remember the colors of your life? How it used to feel before you became responsible and independent? Everyone does, I guess. Three shades usually cocoon themselves around the memories: the Blue Stage, the Purple Stage, and the Gray Stage. I am at Gray and dreading what comes after. The Blue Stage is the oldest. It consists of the memories of when you were a child. An only child. Not specifically you, but me. I forget how to separate myself from the situation sometimes, Sorry. Anyway, my childhood could only be described as glowing.
Mom and Dad were always here for me, breakfast table mornings and dinner table evenings. They both worked interesting jobs, each excelling in a separate creative field. My mother was a software programmer; a good one too. The start-up she worked at grew from a hole in 5 the wall to an admired business. Similarly, my father was successful in his career as an architect, not of towering superstructures but of small, respectable buildings in which families could live happy lives.
Those homes are gone now. I was around thirteen years old when I realized I’d never heard my parents fight. In fact, I hadn’t seen any anger from them at all. Not toward each other.
Not about work, or money—something which we were never without. Eventually, as my teenhood set in, I attributed their constant state of bliss to a secret drug habit, hoping to one day join the gang. But I was wrong. I found this out soon after Purple reared its ugly head. My life as a teenager was a lot slower than when I was a kid, and that aforementioned blissful family atmosphere quickly started to crack. Dad’s work hours increased. Taxes were the same, but he wasn’t, not with the stress he carried to keep the family “secure.” The same could be said for Mom. The company she originally worked for was poached and absorbed into a much larger company named Hourglass Industries—the place that now owns the building I work in. I think I repressed the name of the original, probably for the best.
The Book Junkie Reads . . .Reckless Dreams Interview with . . . Liam Quane. . .
How would you describe you style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
Quirky and emotional. Some have said it is complicated but they’re wrong, I’m not clever enough to make anything more than simplistic.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
Erm, this is tricky because there are people who do things because they’re the thing they’re naturally drawn to. Obviously environment is a factor but a lot of what we like is ingrained in our DNA memory so we’re get writing urges based on what how our ancestors were conditioned. So yes to both.
What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)?
Although I am a free writer I always need to get myself into character as whoever I’m writing. I need to match them emotionally in order for their “truth” to come out onto the page.
Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character during story creation?
We’re all influenced by everything around us so a little of all. Although the people watching is a bit of a strong term I think it’s healthy to take in your environment and look for inspiration in the people or places around you. Just don’t take too much or you might paint real people in an unflattering way. For Road to Juneau I tried to make up characters and build them from the ground up, purposefully avoiding traits found in those around me and those I knew in the past. I wanted to write something disconnected from my own life, especially for my first novel as I am not fond of seeing debut novels that are basically just the writer’s life story from a biased viewpoint. As for character development, I try to follow the logic of the story: how would this type of character react to this situation?
Do you have a character that you have been working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with excitement to work on the story?
Not really. If anything is unfinished then it is the stories that the characters are in that aren’t ready.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
I’d like to know the Dan, the main character of Road to Juneau but in order for me to be able to do that World War 3 would have to break out so I guess it would be for the best if they remained in the book.
Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
Just the stories, I know a lot about my characters already, it’s just the plot that I’ve yet to get to grips with as I need to actually write that story in order to see where it goes.
Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
I am working on a screenplay and a new novel at this minute. It’s still too early to say anything about them but what I can say is that they’re not connected to Road to Juneau at all.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
Finish the novel and the screenplay and have them in the hands of clever people who know what to do with them.
Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
Yes, I am kind of overly obnoxious, politically. I see arguments against global progress and I see them as the lies they are. It’s clear how obviously doomed humanity is and I’d like to find a way to help change things for the better before the human race basically commits suicide because comfort was more important to people than progress, happiness and sacrifice. People need to have more self-respect then to listen to bad people who just use people to maintain their own selfish comforts. And yes, those bad people are in every group, not just the “other teams across the aisle”. See what I mean by overly obnoxious? I can sound patronizing but I swear I’m just trying to describe what I believe, no matter how strange it sounds on paper.
If you could have dinner/dinner party with 7 fictional character, who would they be?
Oh, well I’d say…Izuku Midoriya, Captain Jack Sparrow, Rosa Diaz, Peter Parker, John Constantine, Jocelyn Carter and Bumblebee from Transformers. We’d have pizza.
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional character, who would they be and where would you spend that time?
I’d like to hang out with the funniest pro-heroes from My Hero Academia: All Might, Midnight, Present Mic, Mt. Lady and Hawks. I wouldn’t want Endeavour to come because he’s insane. I’d spend time in their world with them.
Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYWhere, money is not a concern? What would you do with this time?
I’d live in New York City with my family. I’d just live there, just to exist in that city like the privilege it is, taking in every day and living life to the fullest in the most beautiful and iconic city in the world. We’d have pizza.
Vero: @liamquane
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