A White Mexican Walks Into a Bar…

It’s been twenty months since David Louden released his second book, Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  In that year and a half plus he’s been busy working on a TV commission through NI Screen, buying himself some land, and getting hitched in Las Vegas, NV.  You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Louden voiced in his new book, White Mexicans, is a more mature, calm, peaceful man… but you’d be wrong.

CS: White Mexicans… what’s all that about then?

DL: It’s an LA term for the British and Irish who come over to Hollywood and take all of the LA acting and movie jobs.

CS: So this is a book about Hollywood?

DL: No.

CS: Care to share what it is about then?  How’d you get to it?  What’s it about?  Help me out here.

DL: Aaah… yeah… sure.  Ok, so when I finished Lost Angeles I really wanted to write the movie that they were discussing in the middle third… maybe it was a bit later, anyway… yeah.  I’m a lover of Exploitation cinema…

CS: Why?

DL: It cuts through the bullshit.  Exploitation cinema is more equal for starters.  There’s a higher number of women in lead roles, minorities in lead roles, disabled actors in lead roles.  Anyway, the movie… Swasucka… I really wanted to write it but knew that it would be a waste of fucking time.  Who’s going to make a Blax-Naziploitation movie about an African-American Hitler made in a test tube?  So I started writing another story instead.  I got one draft out of me but it was bollocks so I tossed most of it to one side and took the bits I thought had heart and used them as the framework for Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  I thought “this is the book that’ll connect with people”.  Lost Angeles did pretty well, I thought Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] was better so I was pretty sick about how piss-poor it sold.

CS: How bad was it?

DL: It was BAD, Clive.  It made me go away and think about my voice.  What I had to say and more importantly if anyone out there actually gave a shit or are they only interested in sexy vampires, and cuddly werewolves and shit like that.  So I started working on a Noir and after a first draft I thought “this is alright, this could be a movie”.  So I started reworking it as a movie.

CS: You told me about this.  It was long, right?

DL: A fucking monster.  (laughs) The cunt was like, 210 minutes.  I couldn’t edit it for shit.  So I thought, “ok, maybe not a movie… maybe TV”.  I pitched it to NI Screen and they gave me the money I needed to develop it and in the end I handed in a six episode mini-series.

CS: That doesn’t explain much about White Mexicans though.

DL: Well I’m getting to that bit, fuck.  Script rewriting is a tired, boring, lonely land to be stuck in.  I started writing short stories to kill the boredom while at the same time I started a second draft of the project I’d started after Lost Angeles, but from a different direction.  Eventually I had enough for a novella and when I noticed that many of my short stories tied into either the same characters, the same themes, or even just the same world, I wondered whether a novella-short story hybrid could be interesting.

CS: And is it?

DL: I thought Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] would be a book people wanted to read.  How should I know?  You read it.  You tell me!

CS: Ok, so we’ll forgo a synopsis on the short stories.  What’s the novella about?

DL: Narratively, it’s Doug in Los Angeles.  Life has taken its toll, money has dried up and he’s living hand-to-mouth in the Motel for Movie Stars.  He takes a gig writing a movie for Winston…

CS: Swasucka?

DL: No, a different one.  But to tell you what it is, is to bugger up the first bit of the book so you’ll just have to read it.

CS: But it is an Exploitation movie?!

DL: Totes.  Aside from that, its about a lot of things.  I’ve tried to tie in some of the BIG picture arguments that have been going on in the media, the world, everywhere.  Notions of identity.  Relationships.  The usual hypocracy, bigotry and all that.

CS: That’s definitely a big one here at the moment. 

DL: The whole world is one big diseased asshole.  You’ve got Police in America killing men based on the colour of their skin.  You’ve women being persecuted for wanting control of their own bodies.  Here (in Northern Ireland) we’ve got the DUP and their callus cunt crusade against gay, lesbian, and transgender COUPLES… not just individuals!  They’re after them two at a time!!  Blood bans, adoption restrictions, marriage.  We’re talking the basic human rights here.

CS: But that’s them all over.

DL: Oh absolutely.  They’re trying their damnedest to build a two tier society.  Them and then everybody else.  We can do whatever we want though… as long as it’s ok within their outdated binary understanding of the world as interpreted through a three-thousand year old text which they don’t even bother sticking to most of the time!

CS: You’re passionate about this.

DL: Fuck passionate, I’m fucked off!  You’ve college kids in America raping young women and being paraded across National News as the victims.  “These poor men’s promising athletic careers have been ruined by this incident”… ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!  You’re a god-damn rapist!!  You don’t deserve sympathy.  You deserve chemical castration and then a beating with cinderblocks.

CS: And all this is covered in White Mexicans?

DL: It’s maybe not as clearly underlined, but yeah.  There are some issues that are hammered at and others that are left to you to mull over.  The full title is White Mexicans & Other Short Stories That All Definitely Happened (astrix) and then an amendment that specifies that I’m full of shit about them… you know… all…

CS: Definitely happening!

DL: Right.

CS: So this book isn’t biographical?

DL: It is and it isn’t, Clive.  I mean I did live on the Oldpark Road as a kid and I did have a childhood dog, and there are characters who exist but the overarching narrative of White Mexicans is less true than anything before.

CS: How was that to write?

DL: Different.

CS: And what was the reasoning behind it?

DL: Well after Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] sucked cock in the sales department I looked around at all this sexy vampire malarky.  I knew I couldn’t write a story like that, I’m just not built that way, but I could write about writing a story like that.  So I did, and in a way, the book is very aware that it is a book.

CS: Am I in this one?

DL: No.  You’re in the TV show.  And if it does well you’ll have your own Funko Pop so be nice to me.

Some of the short story extracts from White Mexicans are available to read through Literally Stories.

White Mexicans is available in Paperback and on Amazon Kindle from Monday 13^th July 2015.  Lost Angeles and Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] can be purchased now.

Down to the Bone - with Clive Scully

Last year I sat down with Clive Scully to talk about Lost Angeles and the egotistic/self loathing nature of the writer.  Now, with a fresh book to whore, I’ve sat down with him again to go over the progress of the past year and to discuss the idea of a bone idol.

CS: Hello, again.

DL: Hello yourself.

CS: So the last time we chatted you told me you were going to name a character after me…

DL: [opens two beers] Right.

CS: …and I thought it would be a main character but it turns out to be a barman who’s in like three pages.

DL: [chuckles to himself] Yeah, I kinda stiffed you there man.  I didn’t mean to but if it’s any consolation I’m really lazy with names so there’ll be another Clive coming up shortly and you can be that guy.  How’s that?

CS: [takes a beer] Better I guess.  So answer me this, what’s a bone idol?

DL: Straight into the plugging, I like that.  You’ll make someone a good whore one of these days.

CS: Thanks.

DL: I’m from a stretch of tarmac in North Belfast that’s referred to as The Bone.  It’s working class in ethos…and only moderately working in practice but it’s got this real sense that art, and creativity, and expression are for other people.  It was kinda difficult to overcome that but I always wanted to…even as a child.  And I felt conflicted about it Clive, I felt like I wasn’t a good little bone-head for wanting more than a clock to punch twenty times a week or a disability that was hard to disprove, or a street corner to sell bad marijuana on.  But I did.  I wanted more, so a bone idol is someone from The Bone that wants more from life.

CS: So the book, Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is about your childhood then?

DL: More or less.  I mean, if anyone knows me there’s bits they’ll read and go that’s bullshit and bits that smack of oh fuck I remember that but that’s what it is.  It’s basically Doug Morgan’s life from the age of three up until he hits about nineteen…thereabouts.

CS: The last time we talked you were working on something completely different, what happened there then?  Did Doug call to you?

DL: No.

CS: Care to elaborate?

DL: I didn’t want to write another Doug Morgan exploit.  I was a little tired with all the emotion that Lost Angeles kicked up so I started writing this third person piece about a woman who comes home to Belfast to bury her father and gets caught up in this mystery but my fucking computer ate it and after three months of writing I was left with nothing. 

CS: Fuck man, that sucks.

DS: Copious amounts of cock, Clive.  It sucks major dick.  Anyway, I started rewriting it but every line I punched out was bullshit.  I preferred the original, I couldn’t remember what the words were exactly but I just knew I preferred the original…it was probably its energy.  So I stopped.  [drinks beer and stares off somewhere for a moment]  I started thinking what do I want to write?  And I started thinking about Doug again, and about how even though I gave him an ending it wasn’t the ending to his story because he’s a fucking misfit…

CS: Are you a misfit?

DL: I was.  I was a broken toy for sure, now I don’t know.  You’ll have to ask someone else that question.  Anyway, I got thinking about what happens to misfits when they try to fit in and I kept thinking about road movies because traditionally misfits are forced out on to the open road in these movies because they have no place in society.  This got me thinking about Jack Kerouac, which got me re-reading On The Road and by about sixty percent in I had decided I was going to write a completely fictional Doug Morgan story.  It was about Doug trying to make it in LA, working on Swasucka and chaperoning this old exploitation actor around town.  This guy is a god-damn degenerate but he gets to talking about his life, about his kid…this kid who must be forty now and living in Oskaloosa, Ohio.  She’s got the sickness.  She’s an alcoholic like her old man so Doug and this guy, George, set off across country during a two week break in the movie shoot to visit his daughter…and that’s it.  East to Oskaloosa.

CS: Sounds great, how’s it coming along?

DL: It’s dead, Clive.  It’s dead like Hemingway, like Dylan Thomas.  I got a draft out of it.  I was working on a way of making it feel real so I mirrored Doug’s relationship with George to Doug’s relationship, as a child, with his dad Jack.  It didn’t work.  I let the missus read it and she was kind but it was pretty clear that East to Oskaloosa was a dry cumshot…

CS: Nice.

DL: [winks] So I set it down and I went back to reading.  I read Bad Boy by Jim Thompson and Bukowski’s Ham on Rye back to back and suddenly remembered working at a dog track as a kid.  I mean I had completely forgotten about that and suddenly I could smell the kennels again.  I sat down and read East to Oskaloosa again and she was right.  It was bad.  Formulaic bullshit but the earlier moments between Doug and Jack had some heart in it.  So I pulled them all out and got to thinking about my childhood.  The conflict between art and work, relationships between parents and kids and what happens when even the slightest connection is seemingly impossible.  I got to thinking about the fears I grew up with, my fear that I was inevitably growing up to be just like him.

CS: I think we all fear that.

DL: Some of us worse than others baby, my old man was a piece of shit.  I got the idea into my head that starting a novel mid-sentence would be cool.  Like we’ve just dropped in on someone so I sat down over Christmas through Easter last year and worked my way through the remains of East to Oskaloosa.  I wrote page after page of new stuff and eventually came up with a first draft that would ultimately become Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].

CS: I got a Ham on Rye feel when reading it.  Was that something you were striving towards?

DL: Striving in the sense that it was the quality level I was shooting for but it wasn’t an attempt to replicate.  There’s always an internal conflict between striving to achieve high-art in the two tone mundanity of the everyman life and packing in as many dick jokes as possible.  Not many people achieve that but Hank could do that in his sleep.

CS: How are sales?

DL: In the toilet, though Lost Angeles was selling pretty well for a while.

CS: [opening two more beers] Oh yeah?

DL: Yeah.  December was pretty good actually.  Made a few greenbacks from it and obviously I’ve the compilation thingy…thank you for that by the way.

CS: You’re very welcome.  So if Doug Morgan is kinda you, is Jack Morgan kinda your dad.

DL: Yeah.  I mean, there are more friendly interactions between Doug and Jack than there ever was between me and my old man but I found it interesting to go back and showcase how someone like Doug could be made.

CS: Like nature versus nurture, huh?

DL: With dick jokes.

CS: The book is split into three parts, and there’s three important deaths in the piece.  Was that intentional?

DL: The three deaths were intentional because they’re real and it goes to highlight how Doug is incapable of holding on to real connections.  I was trying to figure out a way of demonstrating time passing without writing two years later and having a story end and then a page with part II written across it felt like a nice, clean break.

CS: The last time we chatted you were struggling with this idea of wanting to be a writer.  Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is clearly you exorcising this demon.  Do you find it easier saying I’m a writer now?

DL: No.  I mean, yeah I’ve allowed myself to come to terms with it a little more but there are still times when I’m a fragile little child about it.

CS: For example?

DL: [chewing on his finger nails] Like when someone I actually know in the real world stumbles upon my dirty little secret life.  That’s a real panic attack moment.  I want to rush home and burn the internet to the ground.  I was having beers with a friend and he said, so what’s this about a book?  I freaked out and made him promise he wouldn’t read it.  I told him, it’s a piece of shit, stay away from it.  [laughs] Or when I’m getting ready to release something new. 

CS: You get the fear when Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] came out?

DL: The brown shorts were absolutely being rocked when Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] came out.  I had read and re-read and re-wrote and tinkered and finally got myself to a point where I found it tolerable but the second it was in the public realm I read two lines and fucking hated it.  I was Venom spitting, bone crushing, ball tighteningly frightened of anyone reading it.

CS: What do you do when that strikes?

DL: When Lost Angeles was first out there and I hated it, I drank.  Now I know it comes with the territory.  I still drink, but this time it’s recreational rather than medicinal.  I posted a short story on my blog called Death RRP $19.99.  At the time of writing it I thought I was God with a fourteen-incher.  Then I posted it and someone read it and I felt like a fraud.

CS: And do you still feel like a fraud?

DL: I am a fraud.  We all are.  Every day we climb out of bed to work towards fulfilling someone else’s dream for money we’re defrauding ourselves.  Every day we punch a clock we don’t want to punch, take a meeting we don’t want to take, have to apologise for something we don’t feel sorry for, simply because the customer is always right.  You ever read Laurence Lipton’s The Holy Barbarians? 

CS: I can’t say that I have, no.

DL: Do it.  It’ll make you understand the trade off.  Yes, sure I have to work for a living but that doesn’t mean I can’t also do my own thing while I’m doing it.  Lipton and those guys stole time from their employers all the time.  Sneaking to the can to write a poem, or a short story.  There’s beauty in that.  I’m not always proud of what I do [for a living], I’m not always proud of what I write but at least it’s honest.  Lost Angeles I can read now and it’s a documentation of who I was then.  Who I was in 2012 when it was pushed out.  The fears I hate, the emotions and scars I was working through.

CS: And what about Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l]?  Have you worked through the issues of that?

DL: In its own time.  I’m looking forward to being proud of it.  I like the cover if that’s something.  I know we’re not meant to judge on that but still.  I think I’ve dealt with some.  I mean I’d be full of shit if I said yeah, nailed it.  Because I haven’t.  I’m not as retardedly backwards now as I was but I’m still not doing everything I could be doing to get Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] out there.  I still live the secret life and I haven’t even bothered with any readings or anything like that.

CS: Why do you think that is?

DL: It’s a confidence thing.

CS: You’re telling me you’re low in confidence?

DL: I’m an infant, don’t let my height fool you.  I’d love to be a public speaker, I’d love nothing more than to be able to be proud of what I’m writing.  But I don’t see it as something to necessarily to be proud of.  I still feel like I’m purging myself of something that needs to come out. 

CS: You’re going to have to overcome the public speaking issue soon though.

DL: Fucking right I am.  I’m getting married in April.  One way or another I’m going to have to untie my tongue and form sounds with my mouth.  That’s not as scary though because I know all the people that’ll be there.

CS: It says on your blog that Death RRP $19.99 is part of a work in progress called Short Stories That All Definitely Happened, is that what’s next?  A collection of short stories?

DL: Who knows.  I mean I thought my Belfast mystery thing was next [after Lost Angeles] and look how that turned out.  I thought East to Oskaloosa was next and that was slaughtered to make the foundations for Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  I like the short story, it gives you freedom to leap in, tell a quick tale and nip out.  It lacks consequence.  It might be next, then again I’m kinda working on a noir film idea set in Belfast and if that works out I might be busy with that.

CS: A noir in Belfast?  What’s that about?

DL: Everything Clive, it’s about everything.

Getting Lost With Clive Scully: Part III

CLIVE SCULLY is a journalist with lady fingers, but he's a good guy.  He has sat down with me over the last few weekends to poke holes in my inferiority/delusional narcissism complex and get to grips with writing, fears and why all I want to do it get lost.

CS: Hello again.

DL: Hello Clive.

CS: Dare I ask?

DL: I’m working it I am, I’m getting copies for the bookstore as we speak.

[Clive pours the drinks]

CS: So say it takes off, you got any plans for more Doug Morgan?

DL: Takes off?  Didn’t you say it was unpopular.

CS: I said it was unmainstream, but I know what you mean but you never know what’ll happen.

DL: Well yeah.  I mean it’s not like I’d be writing sequels.  It’s not a Jack Reacher character with a continuing arch and all that.  It’s more like Henry Chinaski or Arturo Bandini.  It’s kinda like an alter ego, and in it being an alter ego it let’s me channel experiences in life and even work through others, but also do things you wouldn’t necessarily do.  I remember David Lynch telling me about how he was cut off driving down Mulholland one night and what he wanted to do was run the fucker off the road and kill them but instead he went home and wrote Lost Highway.  Now that’s a movie.

CS: So it’s like purging?

DL: And a damn sight cheaper than therapy, that’s for sure.

CS: And you’ve got enough life and experience to write for Morgan like Fante did Bandini?

DL: I’ve screwed up enough yeah, and when you look at it Fante did four Bandini books, Bukowski did five Chinaski books…

CS: What happens when you run out of life?

DL: I’ll do something else.  It’s not like anyone’s reading them.

[Clive and Dave laugh]

CS: How’s the writing coming along?

DL: It’s good.

CS: Care to share?

DL: No.

CS: That simple?

[Clive pours the drinks]

DL: After I wrote Lost Angeles I told my fiancé about ideas I had for other things.  So I started them, all filled with enthusiasm and they turned to shit right in front of me.  It’s like I didn’t cook it for long enough before letting people in on it.

CS: And you need to do that?

DL: Clearly.  I didn’t tell anyone I was writing something new and the first draft has turned out ok.

CS: Just ok?

DL: The missus is impressed when I call what I write ok.

CS: I’ve really enjoyed hooking up for these chats.

DL: Yeah me too, pour me another drink there.

To read Part I click [here], to read Part II click [here]

Getting Lost With Clive Scully: Part II

CLIVE SCULLY is a journalist with lady fingers, but he's a good guy.  He has sat down with me over the last few weekends to poke holes in my inferiority/delusional narcissism complex and get to grips with writing, fears and why all I want to do it get lost.

CS: How’s your week been?  You get much done with Lost Angeles?

[Dave pours the drinks]

DL: Nothing man, less than nothing.

CS: That’s poor form Dave.

DL: I hear you, we ran out of oil and I had to take my pug to the vet.

CS: And that stopped you from doing anything with the book?

DL: No mum.

CS: So, the last time we were talking you got into some stuff about artistic guilt and it got me thinking.  Why didn’t you write under a pseudonym?

DL: Because I’m a stone cold narcissist.

[Clive laughs]

CS: I don’t see that.

DL: Shit, I didn’t see it either but here I am wanting to see my name on a god-damn Amazon page.

CS: So you’re a narcissist who’s ashamed of his craft?

DL: Complicated ain’t I?

CS: That’s one word.  I read your book.

DL: Oh yeah?  Do me a favour, don’t give me your opinion on it.

CS: Why’s that?

DL: Good or bad it doesn’t matter.  Good and I’m not going to believe it, bad and I’m going to want to beat you over the head with this bottle.

[Clive laughs]

CS: There’s no need for the bottle.  One of the things that struck me about the book was layers.  There are moments throughout in the present that echo the past, moments in the present that will be replicated at some point in the future.  In large sections it felt like a dream, like maybe the narrator is less than objective…less than reliable.

DL: Right.

CS: Was that intentional?  Where’d that come from?

DL: It wasn’t the first time it happened, then it was.

CS: Fascinating answer.

[Dave laughs]

DL: Yeah, wise ass.  Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey did it better than anything I’ve seen in years.  I wanted the narrative to fold over itself the longer it unravelled so you got to the point where you didn’t know up from a hole in the ground.  I wanted you to feel the uncertainty Doug felt, I’m glad you got that.

CS: It’s kind of picaresque.

DL: Yeah, kind of.  I mean it has an overarching narrative but the confessional feel I was telling you about is what’s given it that.

CS: A lot of the male characters are unlikeable.

DL: A lot of males are like that.

CS: So that is intentional.

DL: Men are assholes and women are crazy.  When you’re speaking in generalities these statements can be true but it’s when you boil it down to the individual and motives that you really start getting to grips with the narrative.

CS: Yeah, because for the most part Doug Morgan isn’t a “good” guy.

DL: Who is?  He’s a lot of faults, we all do.  He’s really fucked up and it’s not entirely his fault and it’s not entirely new damage.  There are things that come through childhood and genetics that we can’t factor for.  He’s an alcoholic…

CS: Speaking of which would you like another drink?

[Clive pours the drinks]

DL: Thank you.  So what was I saying?

CS: He’s an alcoholic.

DL: Yes.  He’s an alcoholic, he’s most certainly mentally unstable and he dangerous, not just to himself but to those surrounding him but what makes him likeable is that he’s blind.  He doesn’t mean to be dangerous or cause damage, he’s hurting and he doesn’t see how bad it’s got.  He’s a guy struggling to hold himself together so he can fall apart on his own terms.  We’ve all done it, and I think that’s what makes him relatable above all the other shit.

CS: Now you see when you put it like that you make me want to read it again. 

DL: Any chance of you buying a copy this time?

[Clive laughs]

CS: Tell you what, you get that book into the store you were talking about and I’ll buy one.

DL: You’re a stand-up guy Clive.

CS: You’re influenced by guys like Bukowski, and Fante…

DL: And Thompson too…recently.

CS: Hunter?

DL: Well yeah sure, but I was meaning Jim.  Have you read Bad Boy?

CS: No.

DL: Do it.

CS: Ok.

DL: I can lend it to you.

CS: No I think I’ll buy this one.

DL: Fucker.

CS: So you’re influenced by guys like Bukowski and those lot, but where’s it come from?

DL: My old man was a musician, he played banjo.  He was a deadbeat but he could play.  I think my mum was artistic too but she had kids and worked her ass off bringing us up so it kinda got drained out of her but she always encouraged us kids to write, and draw.

CS: What does she make of Lost Angeles?

DL: She hasn’t read it.

CS: No?  Why, are you making her buy it too?

[Dave laughs]

[Clive pours the drinks]

DL: No.  She doesn’t know about it.  It’s not a artistic guilt thing, it’s a “there’s too much fingering and drugs in it” thing.  I don’t think we’re ready for that conversation.

CS: What age are you?

DL: Thirty-one and a half, but it’s the half that makes all the difference.

To read Part I click [here]

Getting Lost With Clive Scully: Part I

CLIVE SCULLY is a journalist with lady fingers, but he's a good guy.  He has sat down with me over the last few weekends to poke holes in my inferiority/delusional narcissism complex and get to grips with writing, fears and why all I want to do it get lost.

CS: You’ve written a very unpopular book…

DL: Thanks Clive, you’re a lovely man…

CS: Ok, so unpopular isn’t the right word.  How about unmainstream?

DL: Is unmainstream a word?

CS: Would you prefer if we stuck with unpopular?

DL: Unmainstream it is.

CS: You’ve written a very unmainstream book.  Why don’t you tell us what Lost Angeles is about?

[Clive pours a drink]

DL: It’s about a drunk.  He’s beaten down by life, been dealt a few shitty hands and he’s gone off to Los Angeles to…well to kill himself.

CS: Sounds fun.

DL: It’s cheerier than it sounds.  When you’re at the bottom of a bottle you find humour in places, and a freedom that comes with a conscious decision that you’re no longer going to live by social conventions.  That you’re going to suck every moment of life out of it and enjoy it till it kills you.

CS: You’re clearly a big fan of the beat writers, did you channel any of them in writing Lost Angeles?

DL: I channelled the style.  I like the roman á clef style of writing and when you’re writing from experience it’s not entirely possible to channel another writer but when I was finished I started reading some Bukowski again and I could see a similarity with Women.  I was aiming for a confessional style of narration, one that would perhaps have the reader wonder “what’s he done to get him to this point” and with each confession think “was that it”?  I wanted each chapter to feel like a mile marker on Doug’s journey off the edge.

CS: You spoke of experience, is this all?

DL: No, not all.  Some, but not all.  There’s a lot that's real.  I spent a lot of time living in hostels and it’s interesting to see how people forget the rules of the real world.  After a while they stop applying to anyone with a backpack.  It gets a little wild if you’re in the kind of company that are willing to take the hands off the wheel just to see what happens.  And a lot of the stuff tied into the Belfast and Los Angeles relationships are real but it’s about finding that thread to sew through the narrative to make it one story, and that thread is fiction.

CS: Why this book?

DL: Honestly, I don’t know.  I never intended to write it, it just happened.  Suddenly forty thousand words were eyeing me from the typer and I wondered how much work it would take to finish it.  So I did.

CS: How’s it doing?

DL: Well it’s unmainstream as you said.

CS: I did.

DL: …and I’m a little too lazy to be ambitious so it’s not doing great.  I mean it was never going to be a book that would sit at the top of best seller lists, it’s doing ok in recent months.  I’ve been a little gun shy of late and haven’t been pushing it in ways that I probably should but that’s on me.

CS: Why haven’t you been pushing it?

DL: I don’t know.  I’m hyper critical and I’ve got this guilt…

CS: What guilt’s that?

[Clive pours a drink]

CS: Do you want one?

DL: Three fingers, let’s make it deep enough to paddle in.

CS: So what guilt’s that then?

DL: The part of Belfast I come from is very working class, very old fashioned.  You leave school, you get a “real” job that’s about punching a clock twenty times a week and don’t give a second thought to all that “artsy-fartsy” shite.  It was something that was drilled into me, and it’s caused a lot of guilt in me, a lot of guilt I can’t really quantify.  There’s a shame to wanting to do something artistic, and I find myself hiding away.

CS: Why do you think that is?

DL: Bad heritage Clive.  A lot of people in that area are forced to push the real self down and it shows by the amount of suicides that take place in those streets.  I know it’s bullshit but it keeps coming back.

CS: So why bother writing if it’s doing that kind of stuff to you?

DL: Because if I don’t, if I don’t I get a little crazy, and depressed, and on edge.  It’s something that I love but can’t love in public.  A sordid little dream.

CS: That’s a lot of conflict.

DL: You’re not wrong.

CS: So what’s this all about then?

DL: What?

CS: Me and you, and this.

DL: I’m trying, I’m pushing myself to be a little more confident in what I can do.  I’m growing as a person Clive.

CS: So do you think you’ll pull the finger out and start pushing Lost Angeles?

DL: I will, I will.  I’m writing at the moment, but I will.  There are a few people currently reading it on GoodReads and the reviews coming back have all been positive so I think I’m going to need to.

CS: Looking forward to seeing it.

DL: Me too.  When I was being proactive a bookstore had agreed to pick it up.  I liked the idea of seeing it on shelves, representing the Ls of literature.

CS: And then you bottled it.

DL: Epic amounts of bottling.

CS: You’re a little fragile aren’t you?!

DL: I’m a god-damn child Clive.

CS: So what’s the new thing you’re writing?

DL: It ties in perfectly to the bullshit we’ve been talking about.  Working class guilt, writing aspirations and bad heritage.  I’m naming a character in it after you.

CS: So another unmainstream offering then.

DL: I prefer to think of it as unpopular.

CS: I’ll drink to that.