Author Interview with Jake Zuurbier about "The Love Life of Some Guy"

We've interviewed author and artist Jake Zuurbier about his upcoming book "The Love Life of Some Guy", a coming of age story about a bisexual guy, navigating being a teenager and young adulthood through the lens of his relationships (and situationships). His book will publish June 15th, it will be the fourth book in his fiction repertoire––and a damn good one. We spoke to him about his own experience as a bisexual man, his inspiration for writing, themes we can find in the book and more. Thanks to Jake Zuurbier for entertaining our many questions!

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself! Who are you, how did you get into writing, which work of

yours are you most proud of?

A: My name's Jake Zuurbier, born in The Netherlands––even though I only write in English. I've done studies in business and management, but my real loves are writing and creating art. If I could do those two things full-time, there wouldn't be a happier man in this world than me. I started young, I used to write short four-line poems and stories that were only a couple of pages long since I never finished them... Luckily I grew out of that, I'm now a soon to be four-time author with the upcoming release of The Love Life of Some Guy. Finishing a book is one of the most satisfying things there are; stories take an incredible amount of work and time, so when it's finally entirely finished, it feels like Sisyphus has finally rolled the stone up the hill. Though, because the nature of writers is to write, the stone will eventually roll down again. But for the time being, I'm incredibly satisfied to have finished my fourth fiction book.

The work I'm most proud of is still my debut book, it's a very experimental type of writing style that you do not see often, I left the sentences choppy and 'drunk' on purpose to mimic the state of mind that the main character is in. You can tell just by how the sentences are written whether the main character is in a good headspace or not, and that was a very fun thing to figure out how to do. The story itself is also still one of my favorites!

Q: What’s the book about? Tell us where the story takes us.

A: This one follows the life of a young bisexual guy, the story spans roughly two decades from when he's just a child to age twenty-three. It dives into what made him the way he is, told heavily through the lens of his relationships, situationships and everything that falls somewhere on that spectrum. I'm god awful at trying to explain what a story is about without spoiling it, though, so I'll insert the blurb here:

"The Love Life of Some Guy is a raw, darkly funny coming-of-age novel diving deep into nearly twenty years of trying—and failing—to figure out love. Through a string of relationships, situationships, and missed connections, one young bisexual man stumbles his way through identity, intimacy, and everything in between.

Told with sharp humor and unflinching honesty, this is a story about growing up, craving connection, and slowly realizing that love isn’t something you can find in others until you begin to find it in yourself."

It's ehh... that.

Q: What are the most important themes you wanted to get out into the world with this

book? Did you struggle to incorporate them into the writing?

A: I wanted to focus on a couple of things in this book. Firstly mental health, it's been a thing in my own life as well, and it was therapeutic to write this some guy's story around themes I struggled with too. Secondly of course sexuality and shame, I think there's a lot of worth in talking about that in a story like this. I also wanted to include themes like the red pill thing where young boys get lured into the trap of alpha male ideaology; finding yourself as a young person; the importance of community and friendships; self image and body dysmorphia... I think I succeeded. It was a bit of a struggle sometimes, but hey, all that matters is that it's done.

Q: How long did it take you to write this book? Did you grow in your writing during this

time?

A: God, I started this story way back in 2022. I didn't have the same vision for it back then as I do now, and I'm glad I've finished it only now. It was on the back burner for some years because I wasn't sure if it was a story worth telling, but I think it has evolved over the years into something that is both enjoyable to read and hopefully something that younger people can take some 'life lessons' from. In quotes because I feel a bit pretentious calling them life lessons when I myself am still well under thirty.

After picking it up again mid last year after having released Darius, it has been smooth sailing as far as writing goes. I started at roughly five thousand words then and it has now rounded up to 90 thousand words. With edits and occasional re-writes, of course. I don't even want to think about how many words I have written in total while working on this project.

Q: The usual question is, of course, why people should read your book. We’ll get to that

later, but why would you read your book, if you hadn’t written it?

A: The title would pull me in. I like titles that are a bit odd, and I think this title is definitely a bit odd. The fact that it's marketed as a coming of age story instead of a romance would pull me in too, I think. Even though I've written romance before, it's not a genre I read a lot in. This, to me, would be more interesting. There's still a ton of romance in the book, but it's used as a tool to guide the character to change instead of it being the main thing. And the cover, of course. I fucking nailed it, in my own humble opinion.

Q: So… Why should people read your book?

A: I think it's genuinely an enjoyable read––my beta readers have told me as much too! So if you don't want to take my word for it, take theirs. It's funny in parts too, the writing style is similar to the style I'm using in this interview. It's a bit dark at times, but nothing too horrible, I don't think. There is some really, really good romance there, even if some of the relationships are straight horror (or, ehh, bisexual horror). Not too much spice, but the character growth of the main character makes up for it. It spans twenty years, so you're really getting all of him.

Q: Are there any characters that you wrote parts of yourself into? Or did you detach

yourself from the story to write from an entirely different perspective?

A: Oh yeah. I'm a bisexual man myself, so I had a lot of experience to draw inspiration from. I had to detach myself from the story as I do with all my books, but there's definitely some of me in the main character. People who know me personally will be able to tell.

Q: Are there any scenes or plot points you cut out because they just didn’t work?

A: Many, yes. The difficult thing about writing such a long period of time into roughly 350 pages is that you have to cut down on the smaller things that still matter but won't matter as much as the bigger events. It was very tough to make him a well rounded person with so many chunks of time missing, but my early readers have told me they don't miss anything as far as continuity goes. There were more relationships that I had to cut because it was just getting too much, but I might reuse their essence in other, future books. I wrote more scenes for his childhood too, but had to cut it down to what it is now for a similar reason and decided to really focus on the love life aspect of it, that way the information of what happened in his childhood is still conveyed, but it is not too long-winded.

Q: Where did you draw inspiration from, when you were looking for outside inspiration?

Did you do a lot of research? Did you look for pictures with the right vibe?

A: I didn't look for a lot of outside inspiration, to be honest. It wasn't a heavy research one like my debut novel, nor a very scenic one where I wanted to look up pictures on pinterest like I did with Darius. I didn't have to world build like I did with Erisseth either, it's the most straight forward one so far. There's a lot of inner work I had to do on the characters, but I just made it up as I went––the great thing about being a writer. I have experience with depression and bisexuality myself, so creating a character with those two things wasn't too difficult.

Q: Did you have alpha/beta readers? If so, what was the advice or comment that stuck out

most to you, and helped you develop your story better?

A: I did! I had some lovely beta readers, I mainly wanted to get their input on whether the flow of the story was good or not because I tend to get really stuck in the story and can't tell if everything flows nicely, and if it wasn't too boring. I have drawn out books' beginnings in my time being a writer, so it's important to me that readers stay engaged throughout.

The comment that stood out most was one from a friend of mine, Jay. She had written notes down on the PDF version, and the comment "ofcourse you did" was one I laughed out loud over. It was regarding something the main character did that I planned to get that exact reaction, so to see her having written that down was very good for my confidence as a writer.

Q: Are there any easter eggs in your story, or things that you’d only see if you read the

book a second time?

A: I don't know about easter eggs, but there are characters mentioned earlier in the story that come back later more prominently that you may only recognize when you read it a second time.

Q: Rapid fire word association. One word (yes, you’re allowed more for titles) to describe

your book for different topics. Here we go. 1: song, 2: different book, 3: color, 4: meal or food,

5: weather type, 6: environment (forest, cinema, kitchen, etc.), 7: mood.

A:

1. I'm not in love by 10cc

2. Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe

3. Yellow

4. Macaron (from a scene in the book)

5. Spring

6. Beach

7. Confused

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about you or your book?

A: I hope to have convinced you to read the book! If I'm very lucky, I'll even have convinced you to read my earlier books too.

Q: Lastly, where can people find you and your book?

A: You can find me on my website, where you can see my books and my art; you can find the new book on this very website under the books tab in the store, and all my books including the new one are on Amazon, most of them are on Kindle Unlimited too.

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