Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 2

A Beautiful Song (Excerpt From Midnight)

A great song is like a message in a bottle showing up on your doorstep and ringing the bell. It sounds off and gets you out of your chair and brings you to the doorway of surprise. It’s written specifically and only to you, and somehow it’s finally found you.

When particular tunes have come this way—unexpected, like a hitchhiker on a desolate road or echoes in a barren desert—they’ve prompted me to create. To figure out how to use them, even in temporary ways. I’m selfish that way, making it only and always about me. The spark is lit and all I want to do is find my latest batch of fireworks to show off to others.

When these songs come by my side, they’re sympathizing with my plight and summing up the feelings I can’t say. And God knows I can’t sing them. But I dream I can, and I long to shout them out and hum along with the singer. Often I do, in the confines of my car with the windows mercifully shut.

A storyteller has a million ways to tell their tale, and a filmmaker has even more weapons at their disposal. But a musician is so limited, so suppressed in what they can create. So when the familiar becomes fresh and original, it seems like a treasure suddenly found, and you bury it deep inside your heart. A beautiful song tells its own tale because it’s speaking about you.

Finding My Voice

In fall of 2002, I was working on the edits for what would become my fourth work of fiction called Three Roads Home. I call it a work of fiction instead of a novel since this book contained three novellas. Even now this sort of book is unusual (unless you’re Stephen King, who regularly releases novella collections). The three stories I wrote featured couples at the crossroads. “Somebody” might be the most personal. 

I don’t remember all the details about working on the revisions for Three Roads Home, but I know I added a short section to “Somebody” that became pivotal in my journey as a writer. Reading it now, it feels amateurish and doesn’t truly achieve what I was trying to do. But it was a first for me as an artist. This was maybe one of the first moments when I simply poured out my heart and soul onto the page of a story. I did this with the help of a song I played over and over. 

Up to this point in my writing, I had always played instrumental music while working. I still do. Writing to songs with vocals and lyrics is difficult and distracting. Yet for the first time, I decided to let a love song inspire the scene I was creating. That song was Coldplay’s “The Scientist.” 

Earlier that summer on August 26, Coldplay released their second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head. Many still consider it their finest album. I had only heard a couple of the popular songs from their first album, Parachutes, and only knew the band from their “Yellow” video, the one with the guy walking in the rain on the beach. But their second release truly was a rush of blood to the head, from the searing opener “Politik” to the pulsing “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” to the anthem of “Clocks.” Amidst these energetic songs sat “The Scientist,” one of their classic love ballads. 

I don’t know if I had seen the video for “Clocks” before I wrote this little scene in my novella, “Somebody.” The video is memorable for its reverse-motion style. (Interesting fact: Chris Martin took a month to learn how to sing the song backwards in order to film this.) All I know is that I loved this tune and that it went perfectly with the scene I was writing. It was the moment when the boy and the girl say their goodbyes and then depart, still thinking of one another, asking themselves that important question of “What if?”.    

I didn’t think about this scene but rather simply went with my emotions. The words that poured out were fragments and pieces. One-word paragraphs. Short, incomplete sentences. Italicized, broken thoughts. 

The structure of “Somebody” was already a bit ambitious. There is the main narrative told from Charissa’s point of view in third person that unfolds from a Tuesday night at 9:50 p.m. to Wednesday morning at 7:47 a.m. Then you have an excerpt of an email that follows each section, something that I like to call an interlude. Mixed in with these are sections entitled “Charissa” and “Trevor” that summarize the couple’s backstory from each person’s POV. To change things up even more, Charissa’s section is told in first person while Trevor’s is in third person. Confused? It sounds that way, but it’s pretty easy to follow. Convulted and unnecessary? Maybe. But I was young and wanted to try out everything.

This particular scene I wrote comes near the end of the story, when Charissa’s and Trevor’s narrative comes together. And I just couldn’t help myself when I switched the narrative from past tense to present. In my mind, this was a montage of emotion and memories and interior monologue, all summarized by the key line in Coldplay’s “The Scientist”: 

“Oh, take me back to the start”

So I wrote out a farewell scene.

He looks up to the sky, piece of the jigsaw night appearing. 

Not far behind, heading toward the expressway, heading west toward her home, she looks out at the passing traffic. 

Steps. 

Lanes emerging. 

A train car waiting. 

A two-seater convertible cutting them off. 

Railroad tracks. 

Four car lanes. 

Miles. 

Years apart. 

Start. 

A word lingering in his mind. And in hers. 

Start. 

Back to the start. 

Back to the start of it all. 

Years removed and destinies apart and roads traveled and yet this night arrived with a timely, predestined intersection. One more step, one hesitation, one minute earlier or later—

But no. 

Their paths crossed. 

That’s about half of the scene. No, this isn’t an attempt to sell a book. Looking back, I know now that if there is one particular style and voice that I prefer, it’s this. Writing in present tense with short sentences mixed with slices of thought and action. I believe I did this well in my YA series, The Solitary Tales. 

Years later, I began work on another work of fiction that eventually became the novel I titled Midnight. It’s both named after and inspired by the Coldplay song. It’s been finished for a while now, and I plan to publish it in some form in the near future. Every chapter I wrote was written in this particular way, being inspired by a song and just writing something based on this. There’s a very loose plot in Midnight, but the novel is an experiment of sorts. It’ll be fun to see what readers think of it.

“Something Sacred”

(An excerpt from Chapter 12 in Bono: From the Sheer Face of Love)

Bono believes that some songs are premonitions, summing up the feelings inside that something is about to happen. Perhaps albums are premonitions, too. 

The title of the album All That You Can’t Leave Behind comes from the spoken line in the beginning of “Walk On.” The song becomes adopted into an anthem by a hurting nation. “Love, in the highest sense of the word, is the only thing you can always take with you, in your heart,” Bono says about the song. “At some point you’re going to have to lose everything else anyway.” There is also God’s telephone number on the black-and-white cover done like a piece of graffiti. “J33-3” referring to the passage from Jeremiah. “Call to me and I will answer you.” And an unshakable faith in 

“When I Look at the World.” There is Bono’s fortieth birthday and the new millennium. All of these things are thrown into U2’s new album and it’s hard to make sense of it at first. 

That is the thing about songwriting; sometimes you’re the last one to know what you’re on about. 

One September morning during a break in the tour, Bono and his two- year-old son, Eli, are lost on the back streets of Venice. They walk into the American hotel to ask for direction, and Bono sees the news footage of the plane flying into the Twin Towers in New York. Everything changes that day. 

U2 starts the Elevation tour almost a month later in the US. Bono and the band witness a country that is completely traumatized just like they are. 

“These are our friends,” Bono says. “This is a country I love. They were wailing in shock and grief and loss. And the same process of keening that I had used for myself, singing the songs, they were starting to use, and we became very close with our audience.” 

Once again, the songs take on a whole new significance. U2 witnesses audiences going on an emotional roller coaster with the band, perhaps none greater than when they play in Madison Square Garden in New York. One thing U2 has always cared deeply about is the belief that people aren’t statistics. So the idea comes to roll the names of all the people who died or were missing on a screen behind them while U2 plays “Walk On,” but there is a lot of hostility in the band’s management and circle. 

“You can’t do that in New York,” they say. “That’s too much.” 

“No—we must do that,” Bono argues. “That’s how you honor people because no relative wants to believe they lost a statistic.” 

The emotions are high throughout the concert. When U2 plays “Where the Streets Have No Name,” the lights come on and ten thousand people watch them with tears streaming down their faces. Bono tells them they look beautiful and creates a line for the future song “City of Blinding Lights.” 

“I always believe the music is a transcendent thing, a healing thing,” Bono says. “I just didn’t think that I would have to depend on it as much as I did this year. . . . I think if we hadn’t been on tour, if we’d been at home, this would have been a very hard year for me. I’m grateful to this band and grateful to our audience, but more so to the God that’s in the music— whatever piece of God you find.” 

>>> 

If a song is any good, you never really do know where it could end up. 

Bono walks through the crowd singing “Beautiful Day” and wearing a big smirk to cover the terror inside his soul. This is maybe the biggest moment of U2’s career, twenty years down the road; their Ed Sullivan moment live before millions watching. He steps through the audience flocking him on the field at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The earphones and microphone he wears are radio-controlled. With a cameraman filming in front of him, Bono feels people slapping him on the back and reaching for him, and he knows the tiny wires of his earplugs are vulnerable. 

All one person has to do is pull the wire, and I’m off-air. 

Then he’ll hear nothing and be off the air while a billion people watch. 

Thankfully Bono makes it to the stage and sings the first of three songs U2 is performing at Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002. The past year has been extraordinary for Bono and the band as he tells the press before the big event. 

“You’re never the author of your success anyway, but fate really took hold of our album and really changed those songs. And I suppose post–September 11, to have our album mean so much to people who were not U2 fans has made this year very special to us. And to be here at the Super Bowl—and to know this is the very heart of America—I think it feels right for us to be here.” 

After “Beautiful Day,” U2 perform “MLK” while the names of all those lost in 9/11 fill the massive banner in the center of the arena behind them. The solemn tune then turns to a familiar opening riff from Edge’s guitar. This is the song they play when they need God to walk through the room. 

Once again, they’re asking the audience to step outside of themselves and imagine the possibilities. 

Do you want to go on this journey together, to the place of soul, the place of imagination, that other place? 

As Bono moves across the platform with his head down, he quotes a psalm. 

“‘O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.’ O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.”” 

Bono yells, “America” and raises an arm to the sky, then begins to sprint around the stage while the world runs with him. “‘I want to run, I want to hide . . .’”

This music . . . 

A transcendent thing. 

This music . . . 

A kind of sacrament. Something sacred. 

As he so often does, Bono changes a lyric in the song.

“‘I’ll show you a place where there’s no sorrow or pain, where the streets have no name.’”

Then he quotes the Beatles song by singing, “Love, love, love.”

Life and death. Love and hate. Light and darkness. Twenty years running, the theme behind this band remains the same.

“Whenever you see this kind of darkness, there’s extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter,” Bono says. “Not to sound too corny, but there’s a real opportunity here for a whole new way of seeing the world.” 

Home Sweet Road

I love discovering new music. Not through seeing some new band performing on The Today Show or hearing some friends talking about how much they love one particular artist, but rather through exploring music via streaming. I know there’s lots of love for Spotify, but I’m forever devoted to Apple ever since they introduced that revolutionary thing called an iPod. Apple Music is a place where I can do deep dives late at night and discover new artists. 

This was how I came across JOHNNYSWIM. 

In the summer of 2014, I was finishing the third book in my teen series The Books of Marvella entitled Awe. Since that YA series has a love story involved, I did what I always do—let music inspire and inform the tale. So I explored Apple Music. Not the playlists selected by someone else. No way. I found albums that looked interesting, that were in selected genres, that were related to other bands I liked. This is how I found beloved acts like London Grammar, Phantogram, SOHN, and yes, JOHNNYSWIM. (All caps baby.)  

JOHNNYSWIM’S FIRST ALBUM, DIAMONDS

I fell in love with JOHNNYSWIM the first song I heard. It was probably the song I chose to use as part of a playlist for Awe: “Closer” off their 2014 album, Diamonds. It’s an emotional ballad where Amanda Sudano seduces you with her raw passion singeing her voice and her lyrics. But then I discovered “You and I” where Abner Ramirez leads with his soulful sound and blends perfectly in with Amanda. And then I found “Don’t Let It Get You Down” and it was suddenly a feeling of “Oh ooh oh ooh oh ooh oh, Oh ooh oh ooh oh ooh oh.” Like so many people, I couldn’t believe these two were husband and wife. What?? Then I saw pics of them and noticed that they looked like models out of a fashion magazine. They’re too good to be true!! 

Little did I know how accurate that statement would be. 

Lollapalooza 2014 in Chicago. The place where 100 bands come for 3 days and nights and perform in front of thousands of sweaty concert goers in sweltering July heat. One band I absolutely had to go see was JOHNNYSWIM. They were performing on Friday afternoon, so I found their stage in the sanctuary of a wooded section of Grant Park. I arrived early enough to be close to the stage. Amanda and Abner blew me away. The energy and excitement in the pair made me fall in love with them. Out of all the bands I saw that weekend, they were my favorite. 

Lollapalooza 2014

Fast forward to November 2019. An agent sent me an email with the following question: “We’ve been working on a major trade book with the band JOHNNYSWIM in recent months. Have you heard of them?” I sent the agent a video of the band I’d taken at Lollapalooza. Of course I’d heard of them. I LOVED them! Working with them would be an incredible opportunity and an absolute thrill. 

That opportunity and thrill ended up coming true. I was able to meet Amanda and Abner and help them with their book, Home Sweet Road. Being the true artists that they are, they wrote every word of the book. I helped with the shaping and organization and structure. Getting to know them didn’t feel like work. It felt like a fan who had won the opportunity to hang with JOHNNYSWIM. 

I still feel like that. 

One of the best moments during the process of working on the book was when they texted me a pic they had taken at that Lollapalooza show. It was a selfie they took at that show with the audience in the background. They joked by saying “Our first picture together,” that I was somewhere in that crowd. It took me 3 seconds to find myself. 

Yeah that’s me in the middle of the crowd.

As the pic shows, I was definitely having a great time and loving every second of this show. 

Home Sweet Road just came out. Check it out. Buy a copy. And listen to their music. They are an incredible band. They are authentic and emotional and utterly talented. In the process of helping them write their book, they became friends and kindred spirits. I never would have imagined texting Abner in the middle of night about shows dealing with time travel, but then again I never would have dreamed of working with them in the first place. 

“Me”

“Me”

(A chapter from Midnight )

It’s not like I don’t know myself and that this search for those many somethings is supposed to be all about my inner journey to find my mysterious, missing self. I’m not missing and I’m definitely not mysterious. I’m just Spencer.

But let me start with me. The narrator. Imagine my voice is Morgan Freeman and I know you will absolutely love this story. Morgan’s voice has that effect.

People love to rain down praise on my work, but I think I’d be simply soaked if it wasn’t for my hidden weapons. My truly endless supply of music.

I believe it’s an art to match a sound bite of a musical track with moving images that don’t belong to you. I’ve done this for the last twenty years. I’m not rounding the number, either. It’s been twenty exact years that I’ve been working with movie trailers in one form or another. Somewhere in those two decades, the time was right and the opportunity existed and I simply got lucky. 

My name is Spencer Holloway. Since I’m a ghost I might not have many sit-down shake-the-hand sort of meetings where I introduce myself, so assume I’m doing this now. I’m forty-something. Over forty. Did I already tell you my age? And speaking of which, do ghosts age? Do they celebrate birthdays? I don’t know. I have no answers for you. I’m detailing all of this in order to try to figure some answers out.

My career trajectory isn’t worth detailing. I guess some details will spill out here and there. But the journey went from I really want to be Steven Spielberg but I guess I’ll do this to So I guess that’s not gonna happen but I’m a lot better than all of them to How in the world did that happen?

Dreams can be strange things. They’re never fully formed. They’re single snapshots in your mind, while the living-out-the-dream becomes a miniseries.

I’m a Chicago guy. Grew up a little bit of everywhere before settling down in a Chicago suburb. My office or offices or whatever you’d like to call them ended up being in Chicago. During the heyday. But since then I moved out to be closer to where I live. I’m in the suburb of Appleton. That’s where my offices are. We live in the neighboring town of Geneva. Or lived there. That’s where my family still lives.

Ugh.

This stuff bores me.

Look. In about five seconds I’m going to go into some dark space and be confronted with the demons of my past while slaying the dragon. Just wait.

Four.

Three.

Come on, Two.

One.

Yeah.

Okay, maybe not. Maybe I’m still standing here rambling on.

Maybe it means something. I don’t know.

I’m not Frodo. Or Bilbo. Or any of those.

I’m not carrying a ring.

I’m no comic-book character (and please don’t get me started on the state of comic movies in cinema because I will blow a gasket . . .).

So yeah.

Look, blah blah blah. Successful or not. Life or not. I died. End of story. But I’m still here. Ah, intriguing story.

Let’s just move on, shall we . . .

I mean—I have to move on. Right?

Right?

November 31

            Wait a minute. There’s no such thing as November 31. 

            “An artist makes his own rules,” the voice from afar tells me. 

            Yeah, I guess so. 

            “It’s a new day, Nolan.”

            Yes it is. 

            “No, I mean it literally is a new day since November 31 has not ever happened. Ever.”

            Unreliable narrator humor again. 

            As I sit up on my bed, I look over to the other side to see if I’m someone else. Maybe my beautiful wife is sleeping next to me. Maybe my children will come careening and crashing into our bedroom. Maybe I’ll be going off to a real job that pays real money that pays real bills. But no . . . I’m still on my own. 

            In the kitchen, there’s another handwritten quote waiting for me. 

            “Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer.” — Ray Bradbury

            I turn the back of the note over and I see the same handwriting. 

            Story of my career—Travis 

            Ah. I finally know who’s been leaving me these notes. The big mystery that’s not a mystery anymore thanks to the deux ex machina known as Travis Thrasher. 

            I reread the quote and think it’s a good one. It doesn’t have to apply to writers, either. It can be any artist he’s talking about. Hell, it can be a bookstore owner. 

            An ironic thought passes through my mind. 

            Can anybody see me as anything other than a character now? 

            I know that writers are supposed to have their characters “come to life.” In a weird way, this has been the opposite of that. 

            For a whole month, I’ve realized that I’ve been in this white box, framed in Microsoft Word with the page number and word count just below me at all times like my shadow. Music has always been playing in the background. I’ve been moving around, uncertain and unsteady, trying to figure out where to go. 

            Maybe I’ve arrived at the destination. But since it’s November 31, at least here in this story, maybe the destination doesn’t matter. 

            Maybe it’s not about the word count but the work that comes. 

            Maybe the point isn’t about creating some amazing plot, but rather igniting some adolescent passion, the kind that prompts someone to even attempt to make a career out of this artform. 

            I look at the time and know I need to head out soon to get to HH. 

**

            There’s an empty spot near the bridge over the Fox River, so I decide to park there. As I step onto the sidewalk with my tote bag over my shoulder and coffee mug in hand, I spot a big bird flying high above me. 

            Not Big Bird but a big bird. 

            It’s a red-tailed hawk, soaring in a circle without effort or energy. Flapping its long wings several times, then continuing to glide. So majestic and serene. So perfect in so many ways. 

            “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning–the sixth day.”

            I don’t recall memorizing Genesis 1:31, but it was indeed very good. Exceptionally good. 

            As I walk to the bookstore, I wonder about the significance of the red-tailed hawk.     

            “It’s a symbol of freedom and flight,” Travis tells me. 

            I don’t find it weird anymore hearing his voice. It’s like a literal voice speaking from the Heavens. Or maybe just my coffee mug. 

            “It says somewhere that seeing a hawk symbolizes a creative being. When you encounter a hawk, you should let your creative spirit flow.”

            “So is this self motivation?” I ask. 

            “No. It’s for you. Your creative spirit can come through anything. Like you were just thinking about.”

            “So this is my daily motivation?” 

            “Sure,” Travis says. “Let’s call it that.” 

**

            Mid-afternoon and work is slow and anxiety is high.

            Life always comes back to the same thing. The same subject and the same struggle. 

            Time.

            We fight the ticking clock and our tepid spirit. We battle against the distractions of the day and the doubts of the night. We feel longings and desires deep inside our heart but life forces us to bury those and lumber on. 

            So many talented souls keep their voices silent. They are too busy, too tired, too giving, too realistic, too timid, too anything. They let all the toos of the world convince them to not create. 

            “If I can do this on a daily basis, so can you,” Travis says. 

            Yes, that’s true. I’ve met him, so I know this is a miracle. His chief tool is his brain, so if he was able to have all those books published with such a limited toolbox, imagine what talented folks can do. 

            “That’s called false modesty,” he tells me. “Pretending to have a low opinion of my abilities, but really I’m the one writing this, right?” 

            Maybe I don’t have to put quotes about the comments coming from Travis. Every single word is coming from me. 

            Nolan is as much me as Ethan Ware from The Promise Remains. The wide-eyed dreamer wanting to write the great American Novel. Nolan is an anti-hero just like Sheridan Blake from The Watermark, the guy haunted by one past mistake that changed his life forever. 

            Semi-autobiographical in so many ways. 

            Ethan Ware has become an award-winning adventure writer while Sheridan Blake has become a movie composer. Dreams fulfilled. They’re still living their lives in their own ways. So is Jake Rivers. So is Colin Scott.

            They all represent me. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never had a breakout book. People need heroes to root for. 

            Yeah, but there’s Chris Buckley. The character that might be the most like you. 

            Maybe that’s because the teenaged Travis was a hero. The adult version sometimes forgets the call to adventure, or simply decides not to take that call. 

            I left North Carolina my junior year of high school, full of doubt and hope. Going to a new state and a new school. Changing cultures allowed me to change my character once again. I refused to be the shy guy. I didn’t want to be the outcast. I needed to fit in somehow and in someway. 

            11 schools. 13 houses. 10 different locations, all so different like Germany and Australia and Florida and New York state. 

            All those moves and all that uprooting. It made me a writer. Books and movies took me to other places, to other realities rather than my own, places I wanted to escape to. My imagination burned to tell my own stories, and the words always—always—revealed pain and hurt. I couldn’t help circling back around to introspection, to insecurities, to isolation. 

            I wrote for myself for so long. I still do. 

            Like a character ultimately finding his creator, I’ve been making myself the hero for so long. Not because I’m heroic, but because I need to find answers. I need hope. I need love. I need adventure. God, do I need redemption. 

            “Hey, uh, Travis?” Nolan interrupts. “Can I have a few final thoughts myself?” 

            I’m sorry. I didn’t just break the fourth wall. I disintegrated it. 

            I’ll shift back narrators and leave the parting thoughts to Nolan. Let’s give him a hopeful ending. A “Compass and Guns” moment. Cue Thomas Newman. 

**

            Inside this bookstore surrounded by my beloved books, I think of the stories that have moved me, the endings that have felt bittersweet. Then I think of all those books I’ve started but never finished. 

            Maybe it’s more difficult to write than to sell writing. I have a product to pitch. Writers have a white space to fill. Page after page after page. 

            It’s strange to think of being a part of that page, those imagined ideas, that intricate story.  

            If we know a creator is watching us, will we act different? Will we try harder, act braver, run farther? What if we spent our day trying to honor him, trying to impress him, trying to serve him? 

            Instead, we run away and search for answers to mysteries that don’t need solving. We wander around seeking affirmations to insufficiencies we don’t have. We try to find a story that’s already been written, and in doing so, we forget to tell our own.  

            Maya Angelou said “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 

            So I wonder . . . what is the untold story inside of you? We all have one. It might be our own story about our life. Or it might be set in a mythical land far, far away. 

            Stories. They make life a little more livable.

            They also help us figure out how to live a better life. 

            Today my goal is to provide a decent word count. I will strive to make them interesting and engaging. I will seek others to communicate with, to live life with, to talk to and to walk alongside. 

            I want to be worthy of the story inside of me.

November 30

            Morning light muscles through the blinds making me pay attention. I don’t pay attention to much these days except for myself. Maybe thinking less of me is a good thing. A necessary thing. 

            I head outside and feel the chill. See the frost of my car. Watch the world pass by one more time on my way to work.  

            I notice as many things as I can. Maybe this will be my last opportunity to see 

them.

            After I park and look out over the river, the words of the strange stranger circle in my head. 

            “The reality, Nolan, is you might eventually slip away. Forgotten about. Stored away in some safe place. Perhaps to be revisited again. But probably not. You will be an interesting idea that never went anywhere because you didn’t fight to stay alive.”

            Stored away in some safe place. 

            Just like a writer’s words stuck in a document or in the pages of a notebook. Unfinished. Unpublished. 

            “But they served their purpose,” Travis said. “They were practice. They helped me get to the next book I wrote.” 

            But have I served my purpose? 

            A startling thought arrives as I stare at the sky.  

            Am I worthy of someone telling my tale? 

            Do I deserve to have my story be told? 

            Will I watch and wait for something wonderful to come my way? 

            I don’t know. 

            I have no idea. 

            Mysteries aren’t interesting if you don’t care whether the hero or heroine will live or die. 

            The mystery isn’t whether I’ll see December 1. The suspense is why it’s taken me this long to realize the truth about this life.     

            About my life. 

            I step over the strands of sunlight as I head to the bookstore. For a moment I stop and look over the stone road. The chill chased with the warmth staring down on me feels good. 

            It makes me feel real. Like belonging to something. 

            Some kind of story. 

            Some kind of creator. 

            Someone interested in me, in where I’m heading and what I’m doing.  

**

            Tying up loose ends today. I mean. . . if this really is the last day of my life, then I should at least try for some kind of closure. 

            Or maybe you can do the Bill Murray Groundhog Day approach and kidnap Punxsutawney Phil and driving us off a cliff. 

            First I text Dermot. 

            Last day of the month. How’s the story? 

            It doesn’t take him long to text back. 

            Incredibly behind on #NaNoWriMo, but just having a project I’m working on as much as I can feels very good. If I don’t finish in November, I’ll finish before the year is up I’m sure.

            Feels like I’ve read this somewhere before. Maybe in a Tweet somewhere. 

            Good for you. Keep writing. Hope you finish and send to that agent. 

            I think about who else I can text. Business is slow. I’m about to send a message to my mysterious lady friend, Lexi, but I stop myself. 

            Some things in life only serve as distractions to discovering the important parts. 

            “Red herrings,” I say. 

            Some things and even some people are red herrings in our stories. They mislead and distract and make us deviate from our true purpose.         

            I wonder what other red herrings have popped up in my life lately. Have they all been red herrings? Or did they all serve a purpose in helping me find out who I really am? 

            Jack. . . Cameron. . . the John Ryder fella. 

            Some story threads can’t be closed, a text tells me. 

            I look and see that it’s coming from Travis.            

            Some have to remain open for lots of reasons.

            I pause for a moment, then begin to text him back. 

            Why’s that? 

            Because those are all part of a bigger story. A story that needs to be told by others. You were just able to see some of the billboards.

            Okay, so maybe things aren’t going to come to a full closure today. I’m not going to argue with the boss. 

**

            So how does this all end? It’s late afternoon and the sun is disappearing and I keep checking my body to see if I’m slowly doing the same. But I’m still all here. 

            I have more questions. So many questions.

            I need more answers. Just a few will do. 

            So I walk over to Thrasher’s office. I’m hoping he hasn’t gone home. For some reason, I don’t think he has. I feel like he’s still there, working, writing, typing. 

            Sure enough, the lights are on behind his office door. He opens it after I knock. 

            “Wait,” he says right away. “You’re still here?” 

            He looks alarmed and distressed for a few seconds, then his expression turns to a dim-witted goofy grin and he laughs. 

            “I’m just kidding. Come on in.” 

            I don’t want to sit down in the chair and talk as if I’m having a counseling session. I just want to know a little more truth. 

            “What happens after today? I mean—what am I supposed to do today?”

            He nods. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I’ll leave the decision up to you.”

            Travis appears to be amused. 

            “What’s so funny?” I ask. 

            “Nothing. It’s just—I’ve had lots of fun ideas on how to end this.”

            “Enlighten me.”

            “Sure. Of course. Well, we can have a happily ever after sort of ending,” Travis says. “I picture you at your bookstore–”

            “I’m closed for the day,” I tell him. 

            “Yeah, yeah. But you could open up again. I see this pretty blonde walking into the shop and picking up a random book. She’s lost, looking for her boyfriend who is a trader on the Chicago stock exchange.”

            “No,” I say. 

            “What?”

            “This isn’t a Hallmark film,” I say. “I refuse to end like that. Next thing I know you’ll give me a little bastard of a boy who sings Christmas carols and has to stay with me over the holidays.”

            “That’s a great idea,” Travis says with a chuckle.

            “Next idea.”

            “Well, we can do a dramatic cliff-hanger, what-the-f sort of ending. Like you can get a sweet message from Lexi to meet her, then when you arrive you see she’s been sacrificed and is dead.”

            “Damn,” I say. “That’s terrible. That’s like the worse ending ever. No author would ever do that.”

            He looks at me with that amused, boyish smile. 

            “What?” I ask. 

            “Are you joking?” he says. 

            “No. Unless you want me to joke. But I don’t think I’m joking.”

            “Okay. Well, yeah, let’s don’t kill off the girl at the end of the book. Terrible idea. Dreadful. We can have the dramatic twist.”

            “Didn’t we already have a pretty big dramatic twist?” I ask. 

            “True.”

            “So then have I fulfilled my mission?”

            “Your mission?” Travis says. 

            “My assignment? My purpose?”

            He thinks for a moment and nods. “Yeah, I believe you have.”

            “But how? Because I’ve gotten to November 30?”

            This seems to wrangle some sort of reaction from Travis. He’s bothered by my comment. He walks over to his desk, sits down, then clicks on the mouse and looks at his monitor. 

            “Time is a funny thing, Nolan,” he says to me while still staring at the screen. 

            “Why’s that?”

            “My life for the last nine years has been all about time. The ticking clock. Deadlines and late fees and late checks. I’ve been running to try to catch up, but I’ve never been able to.”

            “I’ve been trying to simply figure out what the hell is going on,” I say. 

            “Yeah. I’ve been doing that too. But here’s something that I just got emailed. A quote from someone I’m working with. It said this: ‘It matters to know that we all have a story. It matters to know that the story matters and there’s power in there.’”

            I nod. “That’s a powerful statement. Who said that?”

            He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

            “But you said it’s someone you’re working with.”

            Once again, I have to hear that stupid laugh of his. 

            “Yeah, well, that’s true. I just don’t know the name because I’m working with him in 2020, not 2016.”

            What? 

            This is not right. This is unfair. 

            “So a voice from the future gave you that quote?” I ask. 

            “No, not ‘a voice.’ I gave me that quote. It was uttered today. Well, not today. It was said four years from now.”

            “Are you telling me we’re ending with a time travel story?” 

            “No, no, no,” Travis says. “It’s just the truth. He sent me this quote via email. But I swear I don’t know who said it.”

            “My head hurts,” I say. 

            “Mine too.”

            “I’m going to take off now.”

            “And go where?” Travis asks. 

            “Wherever you want me to go.”

            “Characters have minds of their own,” he says. “They really do.”

            “Okay, fine,” I say. “I’m going to go to Aruba.”

            He shakes his head. “Sorry. Never been there. ‘Write what you know.’”

            We both laugh. 

            You say laugh a lot, don’t you? You have people smile quite a bit, don’t you? 

            “Shut up,” Travis tells me. 

            I forgot that he can hear my interior thoughts. 

            “Okay, so I’ll go back to my apartment and have a night cap and contemplate life and death and Christopher Nolan movies.”

            “Yes!” 

            “Hold on,” I say.         

            “What?” 

            “Did you just use an exclamation point?” 

            “Yeah, so?” Travis says. 

            “Those are from the devil and you know it. We can’t use quotation marks. They are worse than f-bombs.”

            “Fine.” 

**

            If I was any normal human being, I would be looking at old photos and watching old videos and thinking about my life. But I’m not normal and I don’t have all those old mementos to pine over. So all I can do is sit here in my bare apartment contemplating the journey of the last month. 

            The journey is everything, Nolan.

            The voice. My voice. His voice. 

            “Is that supposed to be motivational?” I ask. “Because that sounds like one of those cheesy motivational posters.”

            Or maybe a blog. 

            I wish my brain had an off switch. I wish I could just flip it and then become normal. Watch tv without all these thoughts. Walk down the sidewalk without all these voices. Work at my desk without all these questions. But the switch doesn’t work, so I’m stuck with that voice all day long. 

            A voice that whispers to me. 

            A voice that wants me to talk to him. 

            A voice that gives me instructions. 

            A voice that sounds like a loving father. 

            Woah, where’d I go just now? 

            It’s late. Very late. Almost midnight. I have a weird déjà vu, as if something like this has already happened. At least in a Travis Thrasher book.          

            Oh, well. End on a character meeting his demise by the date. 

            Maybe the journey is everything. Maybe it has served its purpose. Maybe it’s provided some much-needed inspiration for an artist needing fuel and fire. 

            A ding makes me grab my phone. It’s Dermot with another writing quote.

            “You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless — there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” — Ernest Hemingway

            I laugh. “Yeah, I guess that’s true, Papa. And Dermot.”

            And Nolan. 

            And Travis. 

            Go straight on through to the end of the damn thing. 

**

            hold on

November 29

            The text dings me awake. I look at the message on my phone. 

            Who is this? 

            It’s from him. The guy with the made-up author name. 

            I stare at my phone and it doesn’t make sense. It’s almost seven in the morning and it’s November 29.        

            I was literally about to do something and now boom it’s a new day. 

            Why are there huge chunks of my memory that just go blank? As if I’m being shut out—

            Or maybe turned off. Like a computer.

            I let out a breath. I was hoping that if this did happen, if I did actually wake up and find it was a new day, I could claim that my big twist reveal was all some dream or fantasy. But the text from Travis Thrasher makes it clear that I’m either still in that dream or that this is a very real nightmare for me. 

            I think about texting him back, but decide that I’m going to do something very old-fashioned: I’m going to go out and find his office and knock on his door. Then I can see if I’ve lost my mind or if he lost his by creating someone like me. 

**

            I kill time by drinking several cups of coffee. 

            Of course you do, Nolan. Characters love to drink, don’t they? They drink coffee and alcohol, and then they put alcohol in their coffee. It’s part of the life of a character. 

            I open my fridge to make some breakfast, but I don’t find anything inside it. I mean—there’s almost nothing. Three bottles of beer, some milk that looks suspicious, some creamer. 

            All stuff you drink. Of course the milk is spoiled. So predictable. 

            I just can’t believe there’s no food. I know I went to the grocery store sometime recently. I think. Right? I think I’ve eaten something in the apartment in the last few days. Or maybe I’ve just summed it up in a sentence, but haven’t really actually eaten food. I don’t know.

            Writing out a paragraph description of a character eating breakfast? Nope. That would get cut. 

            Part of me almost can hear the voice inside my head that I’m talking to. Almost. 

            Why no food? It doesn’t make sense. 

            Okay, fine. 

            When I look back in the fridge, I realize there are a few more items. Items that just magically appeared out of nowhere. Let’s see. 

            Come on . . . Get this over with.

            I can take my time with breakfast. I don’t want to go visit the author too soon, do I? 

            There’s a carton of Eggland’s Best large eggs, a package of Land O Lakes unsalted butter, and some Sargento 4 State shredded cheddar cheese. I take out all of these and then grab three of the eighteen eggs, gently cracking them with one hand and gracefully tossing the shells in the sink. 

            Dear Lord this is terrible. Adverbs? Really? Gently cracking? This prose is gently cracking.  

            I laugh as I open the pantry and find the can of La Costena pickled jalapenos and the Mission super soft flour tortillas. 

            So very descriptive. Are you trying to be funny? 

            Soon I’m standing eating my breakfast burrito and watching the scrambled eggs starting to spill out onto the ground. 

            Where’s your dog? You need a dog.

            I guess someone should have added a trusty man’s best friend a long time ago. Now it would just seem wrong. 

            Just as I’m about to say something with interior monologue, I realize I can’t. It’s almost as if it’s been shut off. I can share my thoughts, but not those inner thoughts that come out with italics. For some reason, it feels like someone else is using my self-talk. Shouldn’t that be off limits? 

            No way. Nothing is off limits here, Nolan. And cool way to talk about interior monologue. I love it. If we lost someone with the boring description of a breakfast burrito, then they lost out on the creativity of me hijacking your inner discourse. 

            “Get out of my head,” I say out loud. 

            Is there any other way to say something? In quiet?  

            “Shut up.”

            I’m telling myself to shut up. Or I’m telling my writer to shut up. So do I have to actually go see him in person to talk to him? For him to hear me? For us to have a two-way conversation? 

            Most certainly, Nolan. It will make for a far more interesting scene. We’re coming to an end pretty soon. Hope you enjoyed that very yummy breakfast.

            I look around the kitchen but don’t see the burrito anymore. Nor do I see any of the food that I used to make it. I do however see a coffee mug on the counter. I take a sip, then look next to the Keurig and see the bottle of Baileys. 

            I guess this will be my real breakfast. I sure need it. 

**

            Before I leave the apartment, I look around at the bare space, so blank, like a canvas that’s simply been framed with an understated color. 

            Where are all the pictures? Photos of others, photos of a life? 

            Maybe if that was a decorating choice, it would be acceptable. But this is not some minimalistic design I’m going with. It looks like everything has been hobbled together at the last minute without much thought. 

            Like my life. 

            “At least I’ve got my interior monologue back,” I say. “My inner mojo.” 

            One of the biggest problems I have had all month is the lack of memory, the absence of a history, a barebone backstory. 

            Even if it’s never put down on the page, a character needs to have a past. The writer must create with this knowledge close at hand. 

            I imagine it looks like an iceberg with 90% of its mass unseen underwater. It should be the same for that people we create. 

            We? 

            Whatever. Singular, plural. I get it. We get it. You get it. 

**

            David Bowie’s Low plays in my CD player. My 2007 Mazda CX-9 has seen better days, and I haven’t set up the ability for my iPhone to play through the stereo. I know it’s an easy thing to set up or hook up, but I’m fine with my Bose system. I burn a new disc every month to blast while I’m driving. I don’t remember buying this Bowie album 

            of course you don’t

            but the case sits on the passenger seat next to me. I listen to a couple of the songs, but I’m not feeling it. The wrong mood. The soundtrack needs changing. The song needs to set the scene. Maybe not for the reader, but for the writer. I switch the disc since it’s a six-disc changer (and those used to be cool) and David Byrne’s “ahh!” greets me. Talking Heads’ Remain in Light starts to play. 

            For some reason I must have had Brian Eno on my mind. He produced both of these albums, just in case you don’t know and maybe slightly care. I put on track two. 

            “Lost my shape, trying to act casual

            Can’t stop, I might end up in the hospital

            Changing my shape, I feel like an accident

            They’re back to explain their experience”

            If I was writing a novel, I could never put all of this into the text due to legal reasons. Unless I was a personal friend of David Byrne or had written something the band loved. The frantic, frenetic sound matches the lyrics of the song, “Crosseyed and Painless.” 

            “I’m ready to leave, I push the fact in front of me

            Facts lost, facts are never what they seem to be

            There’s nothing there, no information left of any kind

            Li-lifting my head, lo-lo-looking for the danger signs”

            Ah, yes. This is my song. 

            “The lyrics discuss a paranoid and alienated man who feels he is stressed by his urban surroundings.”

            So says Wikipedia. Thank you for that instant cut and paste definition. 

            As I get to Appleton 

            or should I just called it Batavia?

            I turn up the volume. David Byrne is my life coach. 

            “Facts are simple and facts are straight

            Facts aren’t lazy and facts aren’t lame

            Facts don’t come with points of view

            Facts don’t do what I want them to

            Facts just twist the truth around

            Facts are living turned inside out

            Facts are getting the best of them

            Facts are nothing on the face of men”

            Facts. I’ve seen so few of them lately. 

            Snap out of it and back to the fiction. 

            I decide to drive around a little more. Maybe I’m avoiding meeting with someone who I still don’t fully believe exists, someone I can’t fathom actually exists when I don’t. It’s like the expelled student avoiding the meeting with the principal.     

**

            As I park at the stone building, I’m wondering what a movie scene should sound like where I knock on the door of the guy who actually invented me. Should the scene be ominous and have some sort of brooding Cliff Martinez score behind it? Or maybe it should sorta sound like Nancy Wilson’s work in Sky Blue. 

            Um, that’s Vanilla Sky, and don’t you see how unoriginal your writer just so happens to be? 

            It’s weird to walk around feeling like each step needs to have a soundtrack scoring it. 

            I recall Nancy Wilson’s exquisite guitar-drenched anthem called “We Meet Again” which was the theme for Jerry Maguire. A personal favorite film.

            His or yours?  

            Doesn’t matter if he’s saying how much Nancy’s theme for Jerry Maguire meant to him or if I’m saying how much it means to me. I hear the song playing.

            “I know the language of your laugh. Tripping over circumstance. I know the story of your walk. I taste the sugar and the salt.” 

            Ah, yes. 

            The sugar and the salt. 

            And here I thought I would be hearing and listening to “Elevator Beat” from Vanilla Sky.        

            Maybe this story won’t end with me jumping to my death off a roof. 

            Crap. Sorry if I spoiled an ending. But seriously, you can’t spoil something that screws around with your head. 

            Thrasher’s office sits inside a building that looks a little like some kind of prison building from Shawshank Redemption. Tower Business Center. Batavia, Illinois. Not Appleton. There’s a record store across the street and I remember the write-up on The Books of Marvella series (lame-OH series name). There’s a Fascination Street Records in Appleton. Ah, how original. He only had to look outside his building to come up with an idea. 

            That’s called laziness. 

            I climb out of my car and walk to the entrance of the building, and I almost miss the vehicle a couple cars down from mine. When I spot it, I stop and then start examining it. 

            It’s a black Mazda CX-9, and it looks exactly the same. I spot broken passenger seat mirror. 

            Does mine have the same thing? 

            I’m not even going to bother to check. I’m sure they’re identical. Or practically identical. His Mazda just seems to have more nicks on it, and more noticeable flaws and features. 

            Facts. Not fiction but facts. 

            I open the door and enter the office building. This should be very interesting. 

**

            On the list of businesses on a board right as you walk inside, there’s a listing that says both his name and his publishing house. Seriously? How can a publishing house exist inside this prison-like office building? It’s actually quite swanky and retro inside, but still. Travis Thrasher as a tenant is fine but Lucas Lane Publishers? What have they published anyway? 

            I climb up the set of stairs and head to the office door on the corner before the hallway splits in two. Sure enough, his name is on the door. I knock. Laughing. I’d pinch myself but that’s corny and clichéd and actually I’m not sure if I’d feel anything. 

            There’s a slight delay and I think about taking off, but then I hear shuffling. The door opens and there he stands. 

            The first thing I notice are the eyes behind his glasses. They look tired. Serious. And a bit annoyed. He’s dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. 

            Is this the writer writing about himself through written-out thoughts? 

            I don’t even try to make sense of that last question. 

            “Hi,” he says. 

            I see a large office full of books. A bookshelf, another, and another. His big desk with the computer and another monitor on it. Another desk full of. . . books. A corkboard full of random different things like photos and bumper stickers and quotes and magazine pages and snapshots. And more books.

            “Are you Travis Thrasher?” I ask. 

            Of course he is and of course that’s a stupid question. 

            “Yeah,” he says. 

            He no longer looks bothered. He looks a little how I feel. 

            Bewildered. Baffled. Bewitched. 

            “I think we need to talk,” I say. 

            To him? To me? To us? 

            I don’t know how this is supposed to go. How it’s supposed to be told. 

            “Talk?” Travis says. “About what?” 

            “About me,” I tell him. “About your little story.”

            “What story?” he asks. 

            He’s not a very convincing liar. I can tell his mind is going a million miles an hour and he’s trying to hold on to every thought. 

            “Your story this month. The character you’re writing about. The one called Nolan.”

            “How do you know about that?” he asks. 

            The office smells like coffee. I just smile. Surely he has to know somewhere deep inside. Surely I resemble the guy he’s picturing deep inside. 

            I sorta resemble him. 

            “My name is Nolan. And this month has been really, really crazy.”

            He doesn’t flinch nor does he look at me like I’m lying. Instead, he gives me a goofy sort of grin, nods and ushers me into his office. I hear the door shut behind me. 

            The strange thing is that this office—this space—feels familiar. The stranger thing is that he doesn’t doubt that I’m here. Travis doesn’t question why I’ve showed up. 

            “Have a seat,” he says. 

            I sit down in a dark wood chair across from his desk that doesn’t match anything just like the rest of the furniture. 

            “You know who I am?” I ask.            

            “Of course,” he says as he sits in his leather armchair. “You’re taller and better-looking than I thought you’d be.”

            “I don’t look anything like you,” I say. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”

            “Of course you don’t. I’m not blind.”

            I laugh because this is kind of funny. The whole thing. 

            “I’ve been a bit lost this month,” I say. 

            “What a crazy month” he says. “The Cubs. Donald Trump.”

            “So Trump really won? Along with the Cubs? I thought surely that was something you made up.”

            “Truth is stranger than—you know.”

            “Stranger than your wonderful writing experiment?”

            He laughs and leans back in a chair that squeaks. “Mine? No—it’s not mine. It’s the world’s experiment. And experience. Someone came up with NanoWrimo so that you have motivation to write.”

            “So all this . . . This has been part of that NanooNanoo thing? Did you really need motivation to write?” 

            “I joke and say every month for me is a NanoWrimo,” Travis says. “Not that I’m writing fiction. Lately I’ve been doing more collaborations. This was a fun outlet.”

            “So how does your story end, Mr. Thrasher?”   

            “It’s a real name, by the way,” he says. 

            “Fine. A real name. Where’d mine come from?” 

            Of course, I already know. But the conversation we’re about to have is all between me myself and I. 

            “Christopher Nolan,” he says. 

            “Good inspiration.”

            “Fitting, right?”

            The chair I’m on feels loose, as if it might fall apart any second. I look at the legs and then back at him. I think he knows what I’m thinking. 

            Of course he knows. Because he’s thinking the same thing. 

            “You want to go get a beer?” I ask. 

            “Sure. I don’t have a boss to ask. But I hope people don’t see me talking to myself.”

            I chuckle. “Ah—unreliable narrator humor.”

**

             Picture an ordinary pub, any sort of pub set anywhere and decorated in Irish pubware, and that’s where we end up at. We sit at a table in the back. I guess the fewer people who can see him talking, the better. Since I’m not here. 

            Except you just ordered that Guinness, so . . . 

            “Where’d you come up with the idea for the story?” I ask.           

            “I have lots of ideas. Daily.”

            “So where’d this one come from?” 

            “I was corresponding with a guy on Twitter. A writer named Tom Farr. Someone I know via the social networks. And he’d posted something about NanoWrimo, so I sent him some encouragement. What I hoped to be encouragement.”

            “The Disney wish?” I ask. “The ‘if you wish upon a star?’” 

            “I was being honest. Telling him he could do it. And I was going to start Tweeting him story ideas when I came up with a really unique one.”

            “What’s that?” I ask.

            He looks at me and laughs.

            “You.”

            I know but still need to ask. “How so?”

            “I thought of a story about a guy who’s inside a NanoWrimo story and how he gets out.”

            “Does he get out?” I ask. “Is this The Shawshank Redemption and do I have to crawl through a hundred yards of shit to get out?”

            Travis bursts out laughing. “Yeah, that’s what I’d call most of the manuscript. A hundred yards of shit. But honestly, I don’t know how it ends for you. I just know that things are a bit better for him. He learns the truth.”

            “Ala right now?” I ask.

            “Yeah.”

            “Can’t he change things? Can’t you?”

            “Yeah,” Travis says. “But the goal has always been the same.”

            “What’s that?”

            “To finish.”

            “How far are you?” I ask. 

            “Last I looked, I was just over 36 thousand words.” 

            “That’s only two-third there,” I tell him.” And the month is practically over.”

            “You know who’s going to be completely disappointed?” he asks. 

            “Who?” 

            “Nobody.”

            “The hero might be sad,” I say. 

            “Is there a hero in the story?” 

            Ah, yes, we’re both being clever.

            The writer drains his beer. It’s some fruity IPA thing I wouldn’t spend ten cents on. 

            “I need to know something,” I ask. “How do I get out of this?” 

            “That’s not the goal,” Travis says. 

            “Then what is? 

            “To finish. To–””        

            “Yeah, Yeah. Finishing something. So what about this and you and me?” 

            He shrugs. Those tired eyes say a lot. 

            “That was the point. To get you here.”

            “And then what?” I ask. 

            He chuckles. “I don’t know.”

            “You haven’t figured it out?” 

            He shakes his head. Then adds “I figured you’d be nicer.”

            I laugh and so does he, but it’s a bit scary, this statement. 

            Shouldn’t my own writer want to keep me around? What if he gets bored with me? Or worse, what if he becomes downright annoyed? 

            Some strange, ominous, synth-sounding soundtrack begins to play in the background. It’s Tangerine Dream. Circa 1984. “Horizon” off the Poland album. 

            Of course I know this because Travis knows this. Because he just put the song on. 

            Is he listening to this right now at this very second while I’m thinking this? 

            My brain hurts. 

            “What do you want me to do?” I ask. 

            “Whatever you want.”

            “But you’re the boss. The one in control.”

            “I didn’t force you to come here and knock on my door and come on in,” Travis says. “You had a choice.”

            “But you made that choice for me.”

            “No. You made it.”

            “I’m a character,” I state. “I’m made up. Right? I don’t feel like it—I feel real—but I also don’t know crap about my life and a lot of parts of me life seem a bit—”

            “Forced?” he asks. “Like you’re trying to hard? Or like you’ve seen this scene before?”

            “Exactly.”

            “It’s not easy writing a book, Nolan.”

            “Yet you’ve written over 45 books.”

            “Published books,” he says with a mixture of pride and defiance. “I’ve written a whole lot more that will never be actually published.”

            “So where are those stories?” I ask.

            “In a file on my computer or zip drive. Or printed and sitting in my closet.” 

            “And nobody will ever read them, will they?”

            He shakes his head and looks at his empty glass. “Probably not. But they served their purpose. They were practice. They helped me get to the next book I wrote.”

            “What about this story? What about me?” 

            “I love the premise,” Travis says. “That’s the most interesting part of the process for me.”

            He’s about to go to the bar to order another round, but I stop him for the moment. 

            “Look—just tell me the truth. Is this really happening?” I ask. “I mean—for you. Is this real? This right here. Or are you imagining this? Or writing it?”

            “Good question,” he says. 

            “I’d love a good answer.” 

            “And I’d love a good beer.”

**

            Crap. Another transition. Another pair of asterisks to separate time and space. What more did I learn, what more did we talk about? What happened? How’d I suddenly get back here in my car driving back home? 

            And holy crap am I not fit to drive. Thrasher got me drunk. 

            The rain pelts my windshield as one of the songs on the playlist Travis sent me begins to fill my SUV. Vangelis plays his synths in the way only he could. The maestro himself, the man behind the epic Chariots of Fire score. The sound that could only be Vangelis. 

            As the song starts, I hear a voice speaking. 

            “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.”

            Suddenly I get goosebumps. 

            Are those real or imagined? 

            That voice . . . 

            “I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.”

            I shake my head. And laugh. And curse. And feel the emotion glossing over my eyes. 

            “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” 

            Lost in time. 

            Like tears in rain. 

            Lost. 

            Like words on the page. 

            Lost. 

            Like a deluge suddenly disappearing and becoming dry again. 

            The voice is from the dying replicant Roy Batty from Blade Runner. And just that alone is enough to make me get a weird “Isn’t it ironic?” quote from Alanis Morissette and also a déjà vu. But . . . 

            The guy who acted in that part is Rutger Hauer. The same actor who played John Ryder in The Hitcher. 

            Seriously.

            This makes no sense, yet at the same time it kinda makes all the sense in the world. In this world existing simply in the form of words on the page or on the screen. 

            You’re not made of DNA, Nolan. You’re made up of vowels and consonants. 

            I just hope I don’t have a lot of adverbs inside of me, because I know those really are bad things. At least according to Stephen King. 

            In the dark shadows of midnight, passing through the secrets of Appleton, I wonder if Stephen King is real. 

            Maybe he’s made up. Maybe it’s the stories he wrote that really and truly exist.           

November 28

            I spent yesterday sleuthing and thinking and writing down notes and listing out details about all the strange things that have happened this month. This time it’s not a mental list but an actual one written with blue ink on white lined paper. 

            I don’t get far at all, but seeds are sewn. Sometimes our subconscious is smarter than we realize. Sometimes we forget how hard it can work, how many hours it spends on the clock. Something deep inside of me gets unlocked, as if someone slipped a key into a slot and turned it. 

            Maybe it’s the movie I watched before going to bed. The trippy mind-f*** of a film. The one listed on that strange playlist: Fight Club.  Memorable quotes ring around my mind as I sleep. 

            “With insomnia, nothing’s real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.”

            Maybe I should have insomnia, because it feels like I’ve been dozing half this month. 

            “You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”

            This quote and this last sentence is the one that sticks. The one that stings, that shakes, that sounds the alarm. 

            Could you wake up as a different person? 

            A different person. 

            Maybe this is what has been happening. I don’t have amnesia but I’m two characters in one. There is some other me walking around living life and thinking they’re someone else while I’m Nolan stuck in some strange haze. 

            A different person. 

            When I wake up, I look at the emailed playlist once again. I look at the sender

            I sent it

            but the name doesn’t say Nolan Stewart. It’s changed. 

            I know I saw my name yesterday I clearly saw that I sent this. 

            Tyler Durden begins to speak up in my head. 

            “F*** what you know. You need to forget about what you know, that’s your problem. Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship, and especially about you and me.”

            Especially about you and me. 

            Split personality. That’s what’s been happening. 

            Nope. Guess again. 

            That’s it. There are two sides of me. 

            There’s only one. But keep trying. 

            It’s the playlist. The playlist. The email. I look at the email on my iPhone and click on the name at the top next to “From”. The first letter isn’t N standing for Nolan but rather T. The name isn’t Nolan Stewart. It’s Travis Thrasher. 

            There’s an address—no, two addresses, one a home and one an office—along with two phone numbers and an email.      

             I swear I sent this to myself. I saw my name. 

            I don’t get it. 

            “Stop controlling everything and just let go!” Tyler screams at me. 

            Okay, fine. I’ll stop fighting and doubting and playing mind games and just run with it. 

            So I Google this Travis Thrasher and the first thing that pops up is his website info. No Wikipedia but just his own page with the description that reads “This has been my dream since third grade, to help tell tales and shape ideas. I’ve been able to do that full-time for over a decade through writing fiction…”

            I get a sudden, sinking feeling like I’m falling, yet I keep going. I’m not dreaming. I’m awake. I tap on the link to discover more even though everything inside of me tells me not to, urges me to stop, wants me to just turn the page. I stay on it, at least for a few more moments.       

            Right away, I have doubt.  

            Travis Thrasher?

            Come on.         

            Even the name sounds phony. 

            “Thrasher?” 

            A guy who writes a novel about a horror writer called Dennis Shore has the name Travis Thrasher? 

            It’s gotta be a pen name, whoever this moron happens to be. 

            Also, didn’t he ever think of the nice way his name rolls of your tongue when you say “TravisT”? 

            Yeah. This is a travesty all right. 

            Along with the horror novels, there are love stories and Christmas stories and suspense and children’s books. And a lot of co-written books. To say this guy is all over the map is an understatement. 

            Half an hour passes, then an hour. My research slowly but surely starts to make sense. I write down notes. Names. Places. Book titles. Then I begin to make two lists. One is a list of things that I know are real. 

            Do you really know anything, Nolan?

            The other is a list of fictitious things according to Travis Thrasher. 

            For instance, Gun Lake is a real lake in Michigan. It’s also the title of one of Thrasher’s books. 

            Solitary is not a real place, but it is a made-up town in North Carolina. 

            When I write down the name Ethan Ware, I put it in the real category, but I also put it under the fictitious header. Then I spend twenty minutes trying to find Ethan Ware online, the adventure writer named Ethan Ware, and I find nothing. Nada. Not one thing. 

            Ethan Ware doesn’t exist. 

            I’m drunk but haven’t been drinking. I’m high and haven’t taken one drug. I’m flying but somehow I’m sitting on a couch. I’m dizzy but I’m not spinning. 

            I search for Breathing in the Smokies by Ethan Ware but get nothing. According to what I’m seeing, Ethan Ware is a character Travis Thrasher wrote about in his first novel, a Nicholas Sparks’ knockoff called The Promise Remains. 

            Go back to bed, Nolan. You’re hallucinating. 

            A character. 

            Don’t. Don’t even go there. 

            It turns out there’s not Dennis Shore either. Nor is there a Sheridan Blake who composed the music for one of Shore’s titles turned into a film. 

            I get another idea. 

            Don’t. Absolutely not. Just stop.

            I search for Appleton, Illinois. 

            Appleton is a ghost town in Persifer Township, Knox County, Illinois. 

             Phew. 

            Okay. I’m okay. I’m fine. Yeah, sure, they got the wrong info. I’m not living a ghost town in some strange township, but still. It’s real. 

            I search for Appleton, Illinois and Travis Thrasher. A Facebook post pops up. It shows a picture from a book and then has this note attached to it:

            Five years ago when I was working on the final book for The Solitary Tales called HURT, I was thinking ahead to another small town similar to Solitary, North Carolina that was infested with evil. So in that YA series, we had The Adahy Bridge. And in my latest YA series taking place in Appleton, Illinois, we have something known as the Sykes Quarry or “S. Quarry” as shown here. You can’t say I’m just making this stuff up as I write. There is a plan in place. At least a plan of sorts!

            I soon learn Appleton, Illinois is from another teen series Thrasher wrote. 

            “The Books of Marvella,” I say out loud. “What a stupid series name.” 

            I discover that the last two books of the four-book series were cancelled. Due to sales. 

            Big surprise there. 

            So all these things are made up, then. Invented. Figments of this guy’s imagination. So that must mean–                 

            Shut up. 

            I must be made up, too. 

            This is insane. 

            I think of the man who called himself John Ryder coming in and warning me. 

            “That’s one question you have to answer. I can’t answer it. But I’ve given you plenty of clues already. It’s easy if you simply allow yourself to accept that this—this shop, your average body and face and life—are not, in fact, real.”

            He was right. 

            Everything I know—everything that’s there to know—is not real. 

            “I can’t promise I’ll be back around, Nolan. That’s your decision to make. But make it fast. Act fast. Make something happen and make it interesting.”

            Make something happen. 

            Make it interesting. 

            So this insanity—I’m accepting it. I’m going with it. I’m not really sitting in my apartment and putting on ESPN or watching an anti-Trump news station or a slightly-pro Trump one. I could just drink the night away but honestly, there’s no reason why. 

            I’m living a made-up life in a completely invented town. 

            They should just cue up the Hans Zimmer score for Inception right now. A guy in a dream within a dream. That’s me. Except I’m a character in a novel inside a story universe. All belonging to one person.

            I have another thought. Even more crazy than the last.  

            Maybe you’ll be canceled, Nolan. Maybe you won’t even come to the end of your sad, pathetic little tale. If you can call it that. 

            “But make it fast. Act fast.”

            The creepy guy was right. I have to do something fast. I have to create some action and drama and do it now. 

            Not now but now. 

            Is that a saying I thought of or he did? 

            Then the strangest, most bewildering thought wraps itself around every single part of me. 

            Is Thrasher writing my story or am I? 

            Haunted isn’t the word to sum up how I feel. Hollow. Brittle. Befuddled.

  I can keep going but I don’t have time. 

            I have a solution. 

            I need to set up a meeting with my maker. 

November 27

            “Everything In Its Right Place” is playing. 

            Again? 

            On my iPhone alarm. 

            Dingling along like the warm synths should sound. I wake up and have a weird déjà vu. Has this scene already been played out? And why does it seem so familiar? 

            It’s a foggy Sunday morning and I’m not sure why I’ve woken up so early since it’s not like I’m taking my children to church or something like that. I make some coffee and check out ESPN and scroll through my emails when I see an email that has “Story Map” in the subject. I open it up and see this long list of items next to numbers. The top of the page simply says November, then has a “1,667” underneath it. 

            What’s this all about? 

            I read through the numbers. 

            1. Everything In It’s Right Place

            –Wakes up something off. Cliches of looking in mirror

            Obviously this is referring to the song. Which is strange. 

            2. Half-Remembered Dream

            –Memories—thoughts of creator—something coming—waahhh

            So maybe these are songs that are being listed. This one is the opening track for Inception by Hans Zimmer. 

            3. Hand Covers Bruise

            –Argument with woman (where’d that come from?)—Threat from stranger

            Now I know these are song titles. This is opening track for The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. 

            What the hell is up with the whole descriptions afterwards? 

             4. Nightcall

            –Followed, dead body, feeling watched, amnesia

            I suddenly feel this weird sense of falling. Not only feeling a déjà vu but feeling a bit of voodoo as well. 

            5. Maybe You’re My Puppet

            –Stranger comes tells him a clue—name—another character from another story—“our” time isn’t finished

            6. Dreaming of Fiji

            –Dreaming of wife, family

            This has to be some kind of storyline of sorts. Like it said, a story map. But about what exactly? This makes no sense.

            Except it has some echoes. 

            7. No Surprises

            –Pay Attention! Focus on mystery of who you are! 

            Another Radiohead song. 

            8. Closer

            –Chased, rushing, cliché drama

            Nine Inch Nails. 

            Good playlist. 

            9. Mad World

            –Ominous people, watched, date continually in mind

            Obviously this story must be suspense. With a love for 80’s music like Tears for Fears. 

            10. Let’s Go Crazy

            –Losing his mind. 

            Or Prince. 

            11. Come Undone

            –Big clue, goes to PLACE, door locked. 

            Now it’s becoming a game of whether I can identify the song. Of course I can. This one is Duran Duran. 

            12. Blade Runner Blues

            –Angst, Am I Real, what’s happening

            Great selection off the Blade Runner soundtrack. I love that there’s not plot mentioned. Just feelings. 

            13. Choice

            –Action, mysteries

            Ah, I’m suddenly stumped. I checked my phone and it takes me several minutes before landing on “Choice” by Orbital. 

            14. A Dream Upon Waking 

            –Fluffy crap—middle of novel

            Another one I look up. It’s from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack. I’m wondering if somehow I got Dermot’s story map for his book, though I hope anybody would come up with a better version for a middle of a novel over saying “fluffy crap.”

            15. The Wretched

            –Spooky scary (makes no sense)

             Like this list? 

            Another Nine Inch Nails song. Dark and spooky scary. 

            16. What is Fight Club

            –Clues again to WTT—knocking

             Clues to the what? 

            17. Walkaway

            –sees vision (wife)—she walks away

            Fight Club. Check. Meet Joe Black. Check. Two Brad Pitt films put next to each other. Know the soundtracks well and love them. 

            18. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

            –WHAT IS HAPPENING??

            I should ask the same to whoever left this bit of gibberish for me. 

            19. Black Mirror

            –More scares

            Arcade Fire. 

            20. Piano Man

            –sing-a-long drunk time

            Well, this is good. Everybody needs a Billy Joel sing-a-long while completely wasted. Have no idea what this would look like in a novel. 

            21. The Changing Lights    

            –Glimpses of reality—almost there

            The one song up above—“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”–is one I recognize now. Ulrich Schnauss. And this one is Broken Bells. All songs I dearly love. 

            But I didn’t remember telling anybody. Did Dermot search my iTunes account? 

             22. Heartbeats and Worry

            –Terror

            23. Dream is Collapsing 

            –Things vanishing-what is happening to his world? (writer’s block)

            So is our main character a writer? What a cliché. 

            24. Love on a Real Train

            –Inspiration—follows it—like sex on a train

            If these are chapters then maybe I’d want to be in Chapter 24. 

            25. Who is Tyler Durden? 

            –Clues, freaking, other characters

            26. Pulling Back the Curtain

            -Climax—realizing the truth—debates about destroying himself

            Another I have to look up. The only song that comes up with this title is from The Game. An underrated David Fincher classic. Back-to-back Fincher cuts. 

            27. And I Will Kiss

            –Not giving up—RUNNING! 

            28. Tears In Rain

            –Maker distraught after being broke—confession

            29. Compass and Guns 

            –Why write  

             The Shawshank Redemption. 

            30. Time 

            –Character coming back home—count finished

            –knocks on door and sees guy

            –it’s me

            The last few selections have come from movies. Blade Runner, The Shawshank Redemption, and Inception.  

            The craziest thing about this email is that it came from myself. I sent it to myself in the middle of the night. Something I sometimes do to remember a To-Do item. But this? This story? I never came up with an ounce of it. It does feature all the songs I love but still . . .  

            Still.  

            I look over the list. There’s nothing else to specify what this is about and why. And the fact that it came from . . . from my address, that’s strange. It’s not me. No. 

            No, I’m not the unnamed narrator from Fight Club and no I’m not imagining a best friend named Tyler Durden.     

            I check my phone and look under playlists and sure enough, there it is. 

            “November 2016”

            The playlist contains every one of these songs listed. Exactly like the email. 

            When did I put those together? 

            Creepy, crazy. 

            Bizarre and random storyline. 

            But amazing playlist. Absolutely amazing. 

            It must have come from me.