Today’s special author guest is YA sci-fi author Martin Dukes and we’re chatting about his new fantasy, A Moment in Time.
Welcome, Martin. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’ve always been a writer. It’s not a choice. It’s a compulsion, and I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. Lots of childish scribbles in notebooks, lots of rejection slips from publishers and agents testify to a craft long in the making. In addition, it has proved necessary to earn a living by other means whilst those vital skills mature. For thirty-eight years I taught Art and Graphic Design, thirty-seven of them in a wonderful independent girls’ school in Birmingham, UK. For much of the latter part of this career I was Head of Department, which gave me the opportunity to place my own stamp on Art education there, sharing with the pupils there my own love of Art and the History of Art. Over a decade I was able to lead annual visits to Florence, Venice and Rome (some of my favourite places on the planet) as destinations on my Renaissance Tour. These visits created memories that I shall cherish for the rest of my life.
I love history in general, reading history as much as I read fiction. I have a particular interest in the ancient world but I am also fascinated with medieval times and with European history in general. This interest informs my own writing to the extent that human relationships and motivations are a constant throughout the millennia, and there is scarcely a story that could be conceived of that has not already played itself out in some historical context. There is much to learn from observing and understanding such things, much that can be usefully applied to my own work.
Teaching tends to be a rather time-consuming activity. Since retiring, I have been able to devote much more of my time to writing, and being taken on by the brilliant Jane Murray of Provoco Publishing has meant that I am finally able to bring my work to the reading public’s attention. I like to think that my ideas are original and that they do not readily fall into existing tropes and categories.
I am not a particularly physical being. I was always terrible at sport and have rather poor physical coordination (as though my body were organised by a committee rather than a single guiding intelligence!). I tend to treat my body as a conveyance for my head, which is where I really dwell. My writing typically derives from dreams. There is a sweet spot between sleeping and waking which is where my ideas originate. I always develop my stories there. When I am writing it feels as though the content of my dreams becomes real through the agency of my fingers on the keyboard. I love the English language, the rich majesty of its vocabulary and its rhythmic possibilities. My arrival at this stage could hardly be describes as precocious. However, at the age of sixty-two, I feel that I have arrived at a place where I can create work of value that others may appreciate and enjoy.
Please tell us about your current release.
A Moment in Time tells the story of Alex Trueman, a teenager who daydreams himself unwittingly into the strange world of Intersticia. This is a world outside of ordinary time that exists in the slender intervals between instants. From Alex’s point of view the world around him freezes into immobility. At first it seems that he alone is free to wander the hushed streets, with their motionless cars and people. But he is not alone. Alex soon discovers that he shares this world with others. There are a few dozen fellow dreamers who share his fate; amongst them pretty brunette Kelly and the rebellious outcast, Paulo. Presiding over them all is the enigmatic Ganymede, an irascible vagrant, who distributes food to his dependents and sets them perverse tasks to perform in return. Alex soon finds that he has rare skills in Intersticia. Uniquely, he can affect the motionless world of ‘Statica’ around him. He can open doors, help himself to food and move objects. But this forbidden activity soon sets him on a collision course with Ganymede in which the very existence of his new friends is put at risk.
What inspired you to write this book?
Although very far from being a scientist I have always been interested in science, and in Time in particular. I think lots of good books emerge from writers setting up situations and asking themselves, ‘what if?’ This book emerges from a daydream of my own. Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop time at will? What possibilities would open up? If you’re stuck in a boring meeting you could simply stop time, get out a book you’re enjoying and read it to your heart’s content until, you feel ready to set things going again. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I know that many writers work within popular genres that establish a kind of conceptual framework for story creation – vampires, dragons etc. I wanted to create something entirely original, something that no one has ever thought of before (quite a challenge given the full scope and majesty of English Literature!). I like to think that I have done so, with my world of Intersticia, but that may simply be a reflection of the limited scope of my own reading. I am perfectly happy to be corrected by those who know better!
Excerpt from A Moment in Time:
The next day was Saturday. Alex awoke in a decidedly optimistic frame of mind. On Sunday, his grandfather was taking him to an air show at the local RAF base. He had been looking forward to it for weeks. But there was Saturday to get through first and the afternoon of that day meant going shopping with his mum. This was undoubtedly a hardship. Still, the golden anticipated glow of the following day reached even as far as Cardenbridge Mead, the rather seedy shopping precinct in the centre of the town, whilst he trailed with his mum from one shoe shop to another. There were only three shoe shops left in Cardenbridge, given that most of the smarter shops had migrated to the big new shopping centre at Collingwood, a few miles to the south. By this point, stopping time had become almost an obsession for Alex. He daydreamed extensively in all three shoe shops whilst his mum tried on what seemed like a significant proportion of their stock. It was in Wardworths, one of the bigger shops in the High Street, however, that Alex finally rediscovered his gift. He was queuing with his mum at the checkout, clutching a vacuum flask and a pack of batteries. It was stuffy. A pig-faced girl at the checkout cast her eyes upward in frustration over something and rang the bell for her supervisor. Alex shuffled his feet. He thought of the air show and suddenly he was swooping upon the assembled crowds behind the control column of a Spitfire Mark IX. Hauling back on the stick, the throaty roar of the mighty Merlin engine loud in his ears, Alex pulled into a slow barrel roll. A moment later and he was over Normandy in 1944, a Messerschmitt 109 abruptly sliding before his gun sights. So absorbed was Alex in the movement of this unfolding drama he hardly noticed that Wardworths, and everything in it, had ground to a halt. At length, with a start, he realised that all was still around him.
“Way to go,” he said, with a slow nod.
Alex went for a joyful wander around the shop. One of the tills was open and he could have helped himself to a handful of bank notes had he wished to. It was the same with the pick ‘n’ mix. He eyed the confectionery hungrily for a few moments before moving on. Alex wasn’t one of those boys who think a tiny theft is a thing of no consequence. After quite a short time he grew bored. He found, as expected, that everyone in the shop was completely rigid, hard as stone. As before, it was strangely difficult to move things, as though everything was held in place by powerful magnets. But once the force was broken, objects that had felt like stone became quite normal once more. He tugged at an improbably granite-like balloon until it came away from the grip of the toddler who had held it. Then it was suddenly feather-light in his hand. He carefully replaced it, and with a click it snapped into place, restored to stony rigidity. He swapped the contents of two of the handbaskets carried by people queuing at the till, but he had no particular grudge against anyone in Wardworths. The possibilities seemed limited here. It was simply much more fun at school. He pulled out his phone from the top pocket of his shirt and found it to be useless. It would have been surprising if there had even been a signal, but in fact the screen was quite dead. He shrugged. So, to get things going again…
Remembering previous experiences, Alex resumed his place in line, picked up his vacuum flask and batteries and gave his head a good shake. A minute or so later he was groggy from shaking his head and beginning to feel the first stirrings of panic.
“It’s okay,” he told himself. “This might take a little time. Patience is the thing.”
And it might have been, but whereas yesterday Alex had been too busy to feel even the beginnings of anxiety, here there was nothing much to do and lots of time to dwell on the consequences of being stuck outside of time. He stamped his feet. He paced up and down the shop impatiently.
“Come on, come on,” he said.
By what might have been an hour later, Alex was nearly sick with fear. His purchases were disregarded on the floor. For a short time, he took to jumping up and down, clutching his head.
“Oh, no!” he cried. “Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Stop saying everything twice, for God’s sake… What on earth am I going to do now?”
His voice echoed hollow in the eerily silent shop. “What am I going to do? Oh Jesus, help! What am I going to do?”
What exciting story are you working on next?
I have a number of writing projects in motion at present. Alex Trueman’s adventures have a long way to go yet, and more books are currently in various stages of production. The second is likely to be published next year. In addition, I have a gothic style novel (with a very dark theme) set in a version of the eighteenth century and another fantasy novel that has emerged from a map of an imaginary continent I designed and painted more than thirty years ago. That one has certainly been a long time in gestation!
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I always loved words and writing, even as a child. My first attempt to write a story with the explicit intention that others should enjoy reading it was when I was about eleven. I still own this, a rather battered, lined paper journal with my own illustrations and carefully managed hand-writing. This was the first in many many attempts, leading over decades to my first formally published work.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Having retired from my job as a teacher, I can now devote myself full time to my writing career. Naturally, writing seems pretty much inseparable from maintaining a presence on social media, nowadays. Accordingly, my day gets divided up between writing, social media and the kind of mundane life activities that everyone has to do. With regard to social media, I’m quite fortunate in having taught graphic design for thirty-seven years. This means that I can create static and moving images to promote my own work. I spend a lot of my time reading and have a particular interest in history. Some of my recent writing projects grew out of my interest in this field.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I usually write in a darkened room, one that is lit only by my computer screen. I suppose it’s commonplace that writers get their best ideas when they are either going to sleep or waking up. There’s a particular creative ‘sweet spot’ that exists on the fringes of sleep, and I keep a notebook at my bedside for noting down anything that comes to me at those times. I feel that a darkened room allows me to focus simply on the screen and the words in front of me and does something to replicate that semi-sleep environment.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I always wanted to be teacher and I always wanted to be a writer, so I guess things are heading in the right direction!
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
For many years I have suffered from ME, which means that I have very low levels of physical energy. Sometimes, even getting out of bed has been an effort, although things have improved since my retirement. Reading means that you can effortlessly travel to countless worlds that others have created for you to explore. Writing offers a similar escape route from the confines of the physical world but, in addition, enables me to shape and build the worlds that my imaginary self can explore.
Links:
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Thanks for being here today, Martin.