Author Guest Post with Martin Dukes, A Moment In Time

Alex Trueman has just turned fifteen. He’s a typical teenager, sometimes a bit spotty, other times a bit nerdy. He’s not exactly popular, but he’s not one of the ‘cool’ kids at school. His tendency to daydream doesn’t help him to become one, either. But, being cool isn’t as good as the talent Alex discovers he has – stopping time. Yes, that’s right, stopping time!

Welcome to one of the Novemebr 23rd stops on the blog tour for A Moment In Time by Martin Dukes with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Daydreams and Dreams in General

There is, I think, a tension between observable reality and our inner world. The notion that our body contains a spirit, soul or numen is certainly as old as written history and probably as old as humanity itself. We instinctively feel that the evidence of our senses may not tell the whole story of our existence and that what we think of ‘ourselves’ has a more profound and enduring reality. Philosophers and psychologists have spilt oceans of ink in their writings on this theme. Religions are built upon this principle, and in more recent times it has been a rich seam for writers and movie-makers to mine. The Matrix series of movies were built around the premise that Reality is an illusion, and that the whole of humanity’s bodies lie dreaming in billions of life-sustaining pods. Another angle is presented in Inception, where we see a sleeping person’s dreams explored and manipulated in order to alter a person’s behaviour in Reality. The concepts here are infinitely rewarding for creative exploration.

But how do dreams differ from daydreams? I would argue that daydreams are rather more susceptible to the individual’s control, rather less vulnerable to the darker side of our psyche, that sometimes manifest itself in those dreams we experience when asleep. Who ever heard of a ‘daymare’? My own, very prolific, experience of daydreaming brings with it a very pleasurable sense of disassociation from observable reality. I feel a sense of distance from the world and my mind is free to wander in any direction it desires, guided only by the impulse of the moment. This state of mind is very similar to that I experience when writing. The same sense of detachment from reality permits the creative impulse to take charge and for the inner self to speak through the keyboard, almost independently of the physical self. In my experience, daydreaming and writing are closely related experiences.

The dreams we have during our sleep are very different. Once our surface consciousness is extinguished, our mind continues to work at a deeper level, inaccessible to our control. We are told that in deep sleep, our brain reviews and makes sense of the day’s experiences, and the body repairs itself. On the verges of deep sleep, as we enter and return, there are times when our minds are particularly active. It is here, when we walk the verge of sleeping and waking, that ideas are born. This is my experience. I do not assert that everyone has the same. When I am in search of a solution to a plot hole, or am unsure of where next to take a story, I find the answers in this place on the fringes of consciousness. Sometimes I cannot take the next step to deep sleep, because I am so anxious that those elusive ideas will slip away from me and be lost forever. Part of me knows that I keep a pad and pen next to my bed, in order to be able to trap such fugitive notions, but sometimes my unconscious mind forgets this, and deep sleep remains beyond my grasp. It is easier when those ideas come within reach on the further side of deep sleep, when I am on the edge of waking. Here they may remain accessible for recording, as my eyes twitch open.

So what are stories, if not crystalised dreams? They are the product of our stored-up experiences of life, those essential building blocks of narrative that our imaginations will use to construct new edifices of fancy. For whenever we write a book, we create a world. That world emerges from the strange magic that we call imagination, and as writers we wish to share it with others. That is one of the great delights of writing and of reading; the wonder of slipping away from Reality for a while and exploring words that others have built. I wrote this poem about books that explores this theme:

Books

Those books we carry in our hearts
Wherever we may go
Are passengers, companions
That we shall always know.
When days are sunk in stygian gloom
And limbs are leaden bound
They open casements to us where
Enchanted realms are found.

In ancient times and modern,
In truths the world reveres
Immortal voices from such books
Speak out along the years.
The bards who sang at their king’s hearth
To capture and enthrall
To conjure faerie dragons to
Enchant the darkling hall,

Spoke to the leaping flame in us
That flesh may not confine.
To walk the dreams of others
Is to tread the verge divine.
To scale the peaks of vision
And to dwell within the page,
The eloquence of books becomes
The bard song of our age.

Life’s burdens grow upon us
With the long march of our days,
Eyes are dulled and clouded then by
Time’s sure slow malaise,
But nourished in our beating hearts,
The books that we have read
And the more that we bear with us
The lighter is our tread.

About the Book

A Moment in Time
by Martin Dukes

Published 23 October 2021
Provoco Publishing

Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 281

Alex Trueman has just turned fifteen. He’s a typical teenager, a bit spotty, a bit nerdy and he’s not exactly popular at school, not being one of the ‘cool’ kids. His tendency to day-dream doesn’t exactly help him to be cool. either! But being cool isn’t as good as the talent Alex discovers he has – stopping time.

Yes that’s right. Stopping time!

Well, for everyone except Alex, that is, who finds that whilst everyone else is caught in a moment in time, he is able to carry on as normal. Maybe not quite ‘normal’, after all, he’s able to stop time, and whilst that’s not exactly as good as a certain ‘boy wizard’, it’s pretty close!

The only trouble is that reality for Alex isn’t always what is seems, and being plunged into an alternative can be a bit tricky, not to mention the fact that he makes an enemy almost as soon as he arrives, which tends to cause a problem.

Will Alex Trueman, nerdy daydreamer, be able to return to reality or will he be stuck forever in his alternative? Is a moment in time enough for Alex to discover the superhero he needs is probably himself?

A Moment in Time is the debut novel of author Martin Dukes, and is the first in a series of Alex Trueman Chronicles, which take the reader, along with Alex, into a bedazzling world of time travel, alternative reality and flying sea creatures. His further adventures include the past, possibly the future and definitely a fight to save reality itself.

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Excerpt

Seen up close, Cactus Jack was a rather scruffy middle-aged man wearing torn jeans and the famous T-shirt by which he was known. He had close cropped hair and about a week’s worth of greying stubble. Cactus Jack was nothing out of the ordinary to look at except in one respect. Morlock and Minion had eyes like sparrows. Cactus Jack had no eyes at all. Where there should have been eyes there were simply expanses of smooth skin. Morlock raised a hand in vague greeting as Cactus Jack strode past. There was no hesitation in his pace, and he showed no sign of having even noticed Alex’s existence. This was fine by Alex. He felt the iron grip on his heart relax as Jack splashed heedlessly through the river and followed David into the scrap yard. Alex had a feeling David would soon be coming back. The scrap yard was surrounded by a high, chain link fence on its further side, and the gate was locked. Sure enough, David tumbled out of bushes into the river a little way downstream. Moments later he was back with Alex, clutching his ribs, his legs torn by thorns and barbed wire. It was clear he was exhausted. Alex wondered how far David had already run with Cactus Jack in pursuit.

“Got… to… hide,” he gasped, his eyes darting about madly until they fastened upon Alex’s skip. This he clambered into, even as Jack reappeared between a stack of gas cylinders and a pile of broken wooden pallets. It was no use. David was doomed.

About the Author

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.

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Giveaway Alert!

Martin Dukes will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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