“A Moment of Life” follows a Victorian-era couple who embark on an intimate journey uncovering shared beliefs and lasting intimacy through their profound conversations in the midst of everyday life. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

My readers probably already read it in my Author’s review that there was one particular moment in 1989. when I was 24 years old and when the U2 record “The unforgettable fire” got into my hand. First glance at the timeless black and white picture of Moydrum castle (central Ireland) on the record’s cover, instantly overwhelmed me with some intense nostalgic “déjà vu” mood and I felt the need to express that mood in the form of a personal written word. That is when I got the idea for this story because, for a moment, I saw two people sitting on the walls of a castle and enjoying a beautiful day. Well, I boldly began to write my story using pencil and paper (there were no personal computers and Internet in 1989) but I was too young and very inexperienced at that time to write this story properly. Fortunately, the inspiration for this story never left me, so I managed to finally use this inspiration three years ago to finish it.

Why is the main setup “…an unwilling pair is persuaded to see how they were made for each other”? To be honest, I don’t know. It just came to me that way. When I started to write this story, I didn’t have a clue how the story was going to develop and how it was going to end. In the very beginning I had only Albert, Helen and Magie. All the other characters just jumped into the story later and immediately took their role like hockey players during flying substitutes. It was probably a very similar process to art painting. When some painter draws the first lines on canvas, I’m not sure that he knows exactly how his work will really look at the end of painting.

Your characters are compelling and well developed. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

All characters in this story came from my mind and experience, but the two main characters, Albert and Hellen, both come from my heart. There is a lot of myself in Albert’s personality and a lot of “perfect woman” in Helen’s personality. Helen is sensitive, wit, intelligent and most of all brave. Actually, her character is my personal tribute to all women, because I think that women are generally much more interesting as a person then men. Especially when you deal with some intelligent woman, such as Helen e.g. If you compare some intelligent man and intelligent woman, I can bet that the woman would be much more inspiring and amusing then man. Why? Well, that’s just my opinion (experience), but this may be also because women always use their whole brain, simultaneously using left and right hemisphere at same time, while men usually use just half of their brain, in some kind of switch regime, using one hemisphere for serious work and the other one only for fun and pleasure. Finally, women also use their hearts much better than men and also understand and accept their feelings much more properly.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

There are seemingly a lot of themes in this short story, such as what is love, what is passion, what are our personal fears and inhibitions, who are deep and who are shallow souls and also a fact that what is good and what is bad is quite relative as well. But the main theme is “A moment of life” itself. Our life is not just circumstances and events that happen to us. Our life is actually the feelings and impressions that we experience inside ourselves when we live through these events and circumstances . One can attend the most interesting events or can enjoy the company of the most interesting people, but if he doesn’t experience those events and people as it should then it’s just a waste of time for him. On the other hand, someone can literally experience a real “Moment of life” while just watching “how grass is growing”. That’s why this story is dedicated to all people that have rich inner life and who can intensely experience inside of themselves even some apparently harmless and banal situations and conversations and turn them into an exciting experience, that is, a moment of life. Watching Helen and Albert from the side, it seems that they are just relaxing on the balcony and chating laisury, but at the same time, they both are experiencing inside themselves the most exciting moments of their lives, the moments that they certainly will never forget. I personally think that these real “Moments of life” are the one of the most accurate measurement units for the richness and poorness of our lives.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

In the meantime I’ve already finished another book called “Fox on the run”, but it’s not yet translated to the English language from the Serbian. This is something completely different from “A Moment of Life” and the story is placed in a modern urban Serbian area (Belgrade), but also mixed with some very traditional Serbian mileu. The main character is a TV star guy with the surname “Lisica” which actually means Fox in Serbian. Therefore the title is “Fox on the run”, but it doesn’t have anything with some fox animals. Additionally, for the title for this book I was also inspired by the song with the same title played by UK glam rock band Sweet, which was one of my favorite bands at the beginning of my “Teenage Rampage” (Sweet) age. I should also mention that I take part (with “Fox on the run”) in one competition for unpublished new stories organized by one of the Serbian book publishers. Result of the competition will be in November this year and that is the likely timeline when I’m going to publish this new book on Amazon. Until then, I hope I will find new readers worldwide, especially after the wonderful Literary Titan review of my first book.

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