From Concussions to Characters: Alex Muka’s Long Game
The CHOW Interview: A former college athlete turned software engineer opens up about discipline, doubt, and the decade-long journey to his debut novel.
Welcome to this month’s The Chow, where one Clueless Hack on Writing talks to a Creative Hero on Writing about inspiration, process, and the prospects of writing. This month’s guest is Alexander Muka, who is a father, a husband, and a writer in Red Bank, New Jersey. (Any more bio info you can provide?) In July, he released his first novel Hell or Hangover.
Alex, welcome to The Chow!
[AM] I really appreciate it, man. I feel like I’m more on the Clueless Hack side rather than The Creative Hero side, but thanks for having me anyway!
[VW] So first off, we’re having this interview during the World Series. Full disclosure, I’m a lifelong Dodger fan from the West Coast. You are an unabashed Yankees fan in New Jersey. It’s been a year, so I hope the pain has subsided a little. Please tell me what’s going through your head throughout the fifth inning of Game 5.
[AM] Interview over…
Kidding…
This might sound crazy, but my daughter started crying at the bottom of the 4th. My wife was already passed out, so I went upstairs and held my daughter’s hand until she fell asleep, and when I came down, the game was tied. I rewound it at a commercial and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But I thank my daughter for saving me from that pain live. She has a great sense of timing.
[VW] I know, that was pretty rough to come out of the chute with a question like that.
[AM] Even with that awful ending last year, for some reason, I wanted the Dodgers to beat the Blue Jays this year. I’m usually a fan of underdogs, but Guerrero Jr. got under my skin. I’ve been doing “Theeeeeeeee Blue Jay Loose” around my house in my best Guerrero Jr. accent ever since. I’m petty when it comes to sports fandom.
[VW] I bring it up because I think there is something to say about sports-loving fiction writers. We know about drama and the moment. For me, I channeled all that passion into Lose Yourself. How about you? You were a Division I-AA football player at Monmouth University. How does sports fuel your passion for writing?
[AM] I don’t know if sports fuels my writing all that much, but back in my college days, when I liked to smoke a bit of weed, I noticed that I couldn’t watch movies high. I remember sitting down to watch American Gangster, high as balls, and I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this isn’t Frank Lucas. It’s Denzel Washington pretending to be Frank Lucas. The only thing I could watch high was sports because it was real. There was no faking what was going on. I think the one thing sports did for me in terms of writing was being acclimated to a disciplined schedule. At least for me, I need a schedule to get my writing done. 4:30 AM, every day, no matter what.
[VW] What is your writing origin story? When did you start writing and enjoying the process?
[AM] It was sometime in college after I stopped playing football. In my latest Substack post, I wrote a little piece about concussions and how they can affect creativity. I’ve had my fair share of concussions, and I don’t know why or how or from who…but the opening lines of Hell or Hangover just fell in my lap one day, and I fell in love with writing immediately. I haven’t stopped since.
[VW] You’re currently employed as a software engineer and lead a team for technical sales and product management. How does the creative process that comes with writing fiction balance with your very technical career?
[AM] If I don’t write in the morning, I suck at my job. Now that I think of it, if I don’t write in the morning, I suck at just about everything. It’s almost like my subconscious has been working all night on something, and if I don’t get it out in the morning, I can’t focus on anything else. What I love about my job in terms of writing is that I don’t have all day to write.
I have my time in the morning, and I have to get it done. In general, I’m a lazy fella. If I had the whole day to write I’d probably put it off and read with a beer in my hand instead. My job keeps me honest.
[VW] Tell us a bit about your debut novel, Hell or Hangover. It’s a story that a few of us have experienced, but maybe forgot or want to forget after a night on the town.
[AM] The main gist is Lou Kennedy, a man-child with no real interest in settling down, thinks he’s met the girl of his dreams out partying one night. He wakes up the next day, and Marissa, the girl, is nowhere to be found. After furious online searching, he can’t even find an Instagram handle. He starts to spiral, searching for this girl with the all too real possibility that he’s made the whole thing up, that he’s drunken and drugged his brain to smithereens. It’s a fun, booze soaked, seven-day sprint through the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, and Manhattan following Lou on his search for the girl and, in turn, himself.
[VW] This is your first novel. What made this story the one?
[AM] When the opening lines popped into my head, the story just wouldn’t let me go. I started writing it during my own heavy drinking days, and it felt very real and very timely. Part of me wishes it had been published back then, but agents weren’t all that interested in it. Another part of me is happy I didn’t publish it back then. Ten years of on/off editing made it the best it could be, much better than when I wanted it to be published. I thank @VanessaOgle and @AdamPearson for that.
I think the main reason my first book had to be this one is because I’m fascinated with how my generation’s dating scene was shaped by the internet. Lou first starts to go nuts because he can’t find Marissa online. Everyone’s online. Everyone has Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. That was a big part of dating when I was in the game. The book really captures the insanity of millennial mating rituals.
But, if I’m honest, it was probably the autobiographical elements of the book that made this one have to be the first. A half-Hispanic, half-white manchild drinking his way through his mid-twenties is right on the nose for my life.
[VW] You took 10 years to write HoH. What made you want to start it, and what motivated you to keep at it?
[AM]I wrote the first draft in like a year or two in between hangovers. The other 8- 9 years were editing/getting my ass kicked by literary agents. But maybe this is a full circle moment for this interview…sports. Once you start something, you don’t quit it. It didn’t feel like I had a choice to just give up. I had to get my ass up every morning and get this story to be the best it could be. Maybe that’s where sports and writing have crossed paths the most in my life. When you decide on something, you have to take it to the end. Whether you win the championship or go winless in a season, you can’t just walk out.
[VW] I know you shopped HoH around a little bit. Why did you ultimately decide to self-publish?
[AM] I was tired of waiting, man. I just got a rejection like last month. I’d sent that query letter two years ago. I feel bad for agents in a way. You’ve got hundreds of people sending you their books a day, and each book is that writer’s dream, and you have to decide which ones are going to make you money because it’s your fucking job! But I had no idea self-publishing was a legit option until I read
Incel at ’s suggestion. I thought, and was told, that if you self-publish something and it doesn’t sell or you don’t already have an audience, you’d have no shot of ever getting an agent after that. I also saw a lot of self-published books that looked poorly made, were poorly edited, and, worst of all, were poorly written. When I held and read Arx-Han’s I realized you could do it the right way and sell a book that felt and read like a real book all by yourself. That was that.[VW] That cover is amazing, and rare for an indie book to have such a perfectly crafted book cover. How did you come up with that?
[AM]
is the cover/book designer. I found his services on Reedsy Marketplace. I could not be happier with how it turned out, man. It’s above and beyond what I could have ever expected for my book. One day I’ll see it on the shelves. I don’t know how, but I have faith. And the fact that it won’t look out of place in a bookstore is reassuring that I did it the right way.[VW] What is your “Why” for writing? What about the process propels you through the endless hours writing, re-writing, editing, marketing, etc.?
[AM] Boredom. Well, boredom and ideas and sentences building up in my head. If I don’t get them out of there, I turn into an ornery bastard. It’s better for everyone if I write and I have something to look forward to every morning. Otherwise, my laziness and affinity for a few pops would take over.
[VW] In this publishing space, it’s often difficult to break through, and it can be tough to stay positive. What do you point to and smile when you get those moments of doubt in this process?
[AM] The next book. The next book and my family. I could see myself easily becoming cynical if this book didn’t succeed during my twenties. I was teetering on cynicism when my book was getting rejected over and over. But at the end of the day, I am a pretty positive person. That’s not cool, but it is who I am. If this one doesn’t blow up, the next one will. If that one doesn’t, then it’ll be the one after that. And if it never happens, I have a beautiful wife and two amazing daughters, what else could a guy ask for?
[VW] What’s next for you?
[AM] The next book!
[VW] What do you think the Yankees need to do this offseason to break through and hoist their 28th World Series Championship, 30 years after the start of the Jeter dynasty?
[AM] Send all the scouts to the Caribbean. I want every Dominican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican prospect to be signed to the Yankees by the time they’re 12. It’ll be the Caribbean Yankees vs. the Japanese Dodgers for baseball supremacy every year. I’m here for it.
[VW] A true World Series. Thanks, Alex, for joining me today.
Side of Mustard
Thoughts on Hell or Hangover
I remember my 20s - vaguely. Was it like an episode of Friends? No. I was working my ass off, beginning my career as a sportswriter, while also meeting up with my girlfriend (now wife) on the weekends. But I do remember it as a time when an evening out was a thing. The stories that came out of being with friends at a bar until closing time far outweighed the hangover, pounding nails into the brain.
Muka’s Hell or Hangover is not exactly a celebration of that time in life, as it is a love letter to it. But it’s the kind of love letter that’s honest and real, sharing the truth we don’t want to admit about ourselves. Now in my 50s, my perspective is a little different, and I relate much closer to Lou’s father. The benefits of youth is the lack of experience and vice versa.
As Muka’s debut novel and as an indie author, he brings tight, cutting, and relatable humor. I especially enjoyed how the story is segmented into days and even time stamps to chronicle Lou’s descent day after day into various stages of being under the influence.
If you’re tasting the Salted Wetzel for the first time…
Welcome! I’m Vince Wetzel, author of FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES (2021), the award-winning LOSE YOURSELF (2024), and a third novel currently in that precarious editing phase of unreadable and mildly entertaining. This newsletter is my literary sandbox, emotional junk drawer, and occasional cry for help disguised as content. It features short fiction, fridge philosophies (you know, the good quotes you see someone important said and you wish you had come up yourself), interviews with authors who are far more interesting than I am, and random thoughts, reviews, and side bits that didn’t make it into my books because they were either too weird or too honest.
I’m a husband, father, and California dweller who enjoys falling asleep to televised sports that move slower than my writing process. I read compulsively, enjoy touring the brewery scene with my buddies, and occasionally pretend I understand world events.
If you’re looking for polished wisdom or life hacks, you’re in the wrong inbox. But if you enjoy fiction with bite, musings with heart, and the kind of humor that masks deep existential dread—pull up a chair. I promise not to overshare. (That’s a lie.)
Next week: Celebrity Documentaries are as prevalent as crack in Charlie Sheen’s house.