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Mark David Gerson
a book bubble about
The StarQuest
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author Insight
"A Full Package"
I had lots of fun creating Tom Dirqs or, rather, letting him reveal himself to me. My characters, you see, are real people. At least they are to me! I simply close my eyes and let them materialize. Sometimes, they show up fully formed. Other times, it takes a while longer before I'm able to get a clear picture. Although Tom Dirqs fell into the latter category, one thing was clear from the outset: He would not be Tom; he was Tom Dirqs. "A full package," as he exclaims to Q'nta. I'm a full package too: My first name isn't Mark; it's Mark David. You might think I named Tom Dirqs as some sort of statement about my own compound name. You'd be wrong. I don't name my characters any more than I create them. They are who they are. "It's not Tom Dirqs I want to be," he insisted to me when he first showed up on the page. "It's Tom Dirqs I be." I loved him for that because it's the same for me: It's not Mark David I want to be; it's Mark David I be!
Book Excerpt
The StarQuest
“Are you all right?” I panted as we lay drying on a more accessible stretch of shoreline. Tom Dirqs’s face and clothes were caked in mud.
“Right as rain,” he muttered, turning his back to me. “Don’t I be looking it?”
“What just happened? Why did I have to eat that flower?”
“All in the past.”
“Fine. Who are you? Where are we?”
He coughed up some water. “If you look just right, you can be seeing past the end of this world, clear through the next and well on into the one beyond that.”
“What?”
“You be done with Karà Haitu,” he declared.
“What?”
“I said—”
“I know what you said. I just don’t unders—”
“Tom Dirqs.”
“What?”
“Tom Dirqs. My name. Not that it be making no difference. Not no more. Not nohow.”
“Glad to meet you, Tom. I—”
Tom Dirqs jerked up to sitting and stabbed me in the leg with a pointy finger. “My name,” he said, enunciating each letter, “be Tom Dirqs. A full package. TomDirqs. TomDirqs. TomDirqs. Would you want me to be calling you Q?” He pronounced it Kuh. “Would that be satisfying you? Would you answer to that?” He harrumphed.
“I’m truly sorry, Tim Dirqs. I didn’t mean to offend you. If it’s Tom Dirqs you want to be—”
“It’s not Tom Dirqs I want to be,” he insisted. “It’s Tom Dirqs I be.”
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