Get To Know The Writer....
Christopher McQueeney from Wander Without Being Lost
I met Christopher when he stopped by and left a comment awhile back. Thankfully, I visit back! Christopher's writing is moving and powerful. I invited him over to share a couple of his pieces and a little about himself. Please welcome, Wander!
When did you know you wanted to
pursue writing seriously?
After reading Chapterhouse Dune for
about the fifth time I knew I wanted to be an author. The way Herbert
spun words into worlds and spun worlds into a tapestry of intrigue
and challenge got my mind spinning, although I didn’t start
seriously writing until less than a year ago.
What project(s) are you working on
now?
I have an auto-biography tentatively
titled
Halflife, and what is turning out to be a novella,
This
thing I became after, a drama about a man and his struggles upon
finding that he has a very short time to live…
What factors most influence your
writing, and do they change over time?
You know I have seen that question
posed to other authors over the years, and in my mind I played out
what I would say, never actually thinking that I would really get
that opportunity. For now my writing is strongly influenced by my
adventures into adulthood. I sure hope that changes over time, grows
broader.
Suburban man or nomad?
Trust a romance writer to ask this in
such a way…Both I would say. Ten of the last eighteen years I
didn’t live in one place for more than six months.
You write a wide variance of emotion
into your pieces. As a romance writer I appreciate this skill, for
evoking an emotional response from readers is my goal. Does this
come naturally to you, or is it something you have to work at?
When I read, after the first line or
two the words disappear and I see the story play out in my mind…the
same is true with my writing. I am feeling all those emotions while I
write. Sometimes that is a hard thing; let’s say I am writing a sad
scene, or an angry one, I am being brutalized by those words while
they are coming out. On the flip side of that coin I get to laugh
while writing the fun ones or have the full body giddy down to the
toes flush from the sexy ones.
There are four basic personality
types, lion (leader, aggressive), beaver (industrious, precise),
otter (playful, relaxed), and golden retriever (faithful, sensitive).
There are also introverts and extroverts. How do you see yourself?
For example, I'm a lion/beaver mix with otter tendencies (I love a
laugh) and an extrovert.
I would have to say I have all of
those tendencies at times but for the most part I am a lion/golden
retriever and an extrovert.
Success...What does it look like to
you?
Food in the cupboard, gas in the car, a
good book to read, and a life being well lived. Those may not sound
like big things to some, but coming from where I have come from they
are huge. If those happen I will be content, although I wouldn’t
turn down a good book deal and a new car!
Tell us something you've always
wanted to do but haven't had the opportunity.
I want to go opal mining in Australia,
zip line in the rain forests of Brazil, surf in South Africa, and go
cliff diving in Mexico.
Nadja, here are pieces of mine -
pick which you would like to use. And I want to say
thank you for this!
The energy
of the universe
© Christopher McQueeney
I’m not sure what year it was that
this happened, but happen it did.
Walking out of the
local Albertsons a couple months ago a man asked me for thirty three
cents. His clothes were filthy and stank slightly. His hair was hand
combed and dirty. My first reaction was a slight sense of revulsion;
I say slight and I mean that. I’ll explain, and with a hope this
never has to happen to me again, at several points in time in my life
I have been homeless. So when I say I was slightly revolted it was
because of where I have been; not because the state he was in. To be
asking for that specific amount of money meant only one thing. He
needed a drink.
I was about to tell
him that there was a better way to live when I recognized him. We
used to party together. Now don’t get me wrong he wasn’t a close
friend of mine, more like a friend of a friend. But I think I drank
and did drugs with him a couple dozen times. I remember thinking that
dude can put the drink and drugs away just like me. And like me he
would burn hot than disappear for a while…normal behavior for
people like us (the kind of person I used to be).
I have to tell you
something about him, and this was the only reason I gave him the
thirty three cents, also the reason I didn’t try to talk to him. He
wouldn’t remember me, probably barely remembered his own name.
About fourteen years ago some extremely strong drugs hit the streets,
first meth, and then LSD. Being in the same circles we had access to
the same supplier. Almost like mirrors we both got spun out, for
about a month, and then the LSD showed up.
This shit was
strong, the body high was amazing, and the visuals were fucking
unbelievable. After about a week solid of tripping I was still in
pretty good shape. Ok I got to say that I thought I was doing pretty
well; I weighed about one hundred and fifty pounds, and at six foot
four I looked like the walking dead. So thinking I was the fucking
LSD master with a mind like a steel trap I decided to take about four
times what I had been taking, and to wait about a half hour and take
as much again. That is the problem with drug addicts, insane shit
makes perfect sense.
So I drop all of
this acid and proceed about my day, and I remember almost none of it
except for the culmination. My memory kicks in I was sitting in a
Lazy boy chair talking with a couple of friends, Will and Ben. Will
was tweaking (on a large amount of meth) and Ben was tripping balls
on shrooms. We were in the middle of a conversation about the
different levels of consciousness brought about by different kinds of
drugs. It is amazing looking back how deep some of the conversations
on drugs are capable of being. Now I could go into the spiritual or
metaphysical aspects of this but I won’t. One minute I am hip deep
in intellect and the next I wasn’t even able to form a coherent
thought! I could see the energy that was flowing between everything,
in colorful particle streams…and I could feel the colors!
Even trying as hard
as I can I can’t remember much more about that night, or much over
the next three weeks. One thing I do remember was sitting on my front
step and watching the grass grow and the street lamps drip light.
This may sound strange but I think that the only thing that brought
me back from the brink of permanent insanity was telling myself
almost constantly that IT’S ONLY THE DRUGS! Will came over every
day to check on me. “Dude, are you still tripping man” he would
ask, and I would say yes “but it’s only the drugs”. Than he
would ask if I had taken anything else and I would say no, and we
would smoke some pot and he would leave. He wanted to know if I was
still taking more LSD. I wasn’t, it just wouldn’t wear off!!
Of course
eventually it wore off or I would be a drooling idiot with filthy
hair, and dirty clothes, sitting outside of the local Albertsons
begging for thirty three cents for just one more beer. That would be
all I was capable of. Yeah I knew that man, I gave him the money, and
I didn’t try to talk to him. I was lucky enough to come back, he
wasn’t. Fourteen years later and he is still out there on the edge
of reality where you can see the powers of the universe flow…a
place where the human mind is too small to handle safely.
Chris McQueeney 1/18/12 12:39 PM
Just a
little bit further
© Christopher McQueeney
“Just a little
bit farther,” she said to me “it’s just ahead.”
We had been walking for about fifteen
minutes. I had no problem with that, but she seemed to feel the need
to reassure me. It was cute in a way, but completely unnecessary.
The truck was about a mile and a half back, parked at the edge of the
Thompson’s field.
This has always been one of my favorite
areas to explore, and she knew it. I love the way the fields and the
woods interact. The small fuzzy margins where it isn’t field and
not quite woods just felt right to me.
I hadn’t seen Kristi for months. Then
she shows up on my step this morning looking nervous, excited, and
very beautiful. “Hi Cal, I know it’s early, and we haven’t
talked in months, but I need some help and you are the only person I
can trust” I have always had a soft spot for a damsel in distress,
and it didn’t hurt that she was just about a ten in my book,
petite, slim, blond pixy cut hair, and a face that was angular
without being severe. And her voice, sexy and sweet at the same
time…God she does it for me!
Before she started talking I knew I
would do whatever she asked of me, I always had. And I don’t regret
it! I have had people ask me before why I let her do what she does to
me, and my answer has always been “it was worth it”.
“I’ve missed you, and I…” she
starts to say then stops herself abruptly. “There isn’t much
time, will you help me?” she asks after a heavy pause.
“Of course, I’ll help you Kristi.
You know that I will always be here for you”
“I found something at the Johnson’s
place that I need to show you”
“Ok, let’s go. What did you find?”
I shot over my shoulder as I went to the kitchen to get the keys to
the truck.
“You will have to trust me; I don’t
have the words to describe it.” As I came back into the room she
smiled nervously and continued, “You’ll see when we get there”.
With that she put her arms around me and laid her head on my chest.
“I knew I could count on you Cal, only you.”
Those words felt so good. I had been
waiting months for them. She broke the embrace and walked to the
truck and got in. That was how things went with us, always straight
to it.
“Just ahead” she says her voice
strained as she climbs over a fallen tree. “Do you see how it looks
like the trees form a cave?” just ahead it did look sort of like a
wooded cave, the trees and grass formed a cavity about ten feet
across that narrowed the further back it went.
“Yeah I see”
“That is where it is, towards the
back. Go see and tell me what you think” she sounded very excited,
but her face looked worried.
So I walked forward, down the small
incline. At first the branches were well above my head but about
twenty feet into the trees they started to get uncomfortably close. A
few feet further the strangest feeling overcame me. It felt like I
was walking through vertigo filled glue. I tried to turn around and
cry for help when the world fell out from beneath me.
The last thing I remember is seeing
Kristi through the field grass that was somehow growing up around my
head. She was smiling, and it was the coldest thing I have ever seen.
“I knew I could count on you Cal, she
said as the world went dark, “I knew”….
Chris McQueeney 3/11/12 9:07 PM
The above story is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to actual people or places is purely coincidental.
Chris, I want to thank you for coming by today and sharing your work with us. I look forward to reading more from you in the future. Visit Chris and see more of his work!
Wander Without Being Lost
~ Nadja
