A Beautiful Sight

Here's a little snippet on the first gay marriages in New York, from an article by Chris Hawley of the Associated Press:

Some people waiting to wed clutched bouquets and wore tuxedos or wedding dresses before they were ushered into the clerk's office for a license and a ceremony in one of the building's simple chapels.

The first couple to marry in Manhattan were Phyllis Siegel, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, who have been together for 23 years. Kopelov arrived in a wheelchair and stood with the assistance of a walker. During the service, Siegel wrapped her hand in Kopelov's hand and they both grasped the walker.

Witnesses cheered and wiped away tears after the two women vowed to "honor and cherish" each other as spouses and then kissed.

Oh, man . . . *sniff*  Why'd it have to take so long?  Why's it taking so long elsewhere?  People who aren't moved by this are, I swear, made of stone.  And I sure as shit don't mean moved to anger or self-righteous indignation.

Two More Small Fish In an Ever-expanding School In an Ever-shrinking Sea

News from the publisher front. Abercrombie Zombie will be loosed by Dreamspinner on August 10.  (Seems like forever since I've had a release, but that's probably because Visible Friend ended up more or less . . . invisible.) Anne Cain is once again the cover artist, and I hope to get my first look at what she's come up with by this weekend.

DSP has also accepted The Zero Knot (that's the contemporary from which I posted this excerpt) and scheduled it for publication in September or October.  This novel could be issued in print as well as e-book format, although I'm not sure of that yet. As the story stands, it's several thousand words shy of the 60k-word minimum. Don't know if I'll be asked to expand it or not.

My WIP, A Hole in God's Pocket, could also end up being novel-length. Too early to tell with any certainty, though.

Have you been keeping up?

With the Hot Summer Days stories at the Goodreads M/M Romance group?  (I put a link in the post title.)  What do you think of them so far?

I've only managed to read one every couple of days or so, because I've found that reading two to four stories every day kind of muddles my mind as I work on my WIP (too many different styles, characters, themes, etc.)  So, I'll probably be playing catch-up well into next year.  :)

The whole thing has been a phenomenal effort on the part of writers as well as the group's moderators, and that in and of itself impresses me no end.

Latter Days, the Movie

Have y'all seen this film about a young Mormon missionary and L.A. party boy who fall for each other but don't have an easy time?  I just watched it.

It's a touching movie with engaging characters and more than enough angst, even for the seriously angst-addicted.  And the love/sex scenes are truly beautiful -- some of the most visually and emotionally satisfying I've ever seen in gay cinema.  I liked the storyline too, for the most part, because I've always been drawn to its two main themes: attraction between opposites and the influence of religion on people's lives.

But I had my moments of discontent.

The biggest came at the end.  I found the plot's resolution very unsatisfying.


*SPOILER AHEAD*

Considering Christian believed Aaron to be D-E-A-D dead and had been plunged in deep mourning for a while, and taking into account all kinds of other stuff to boot, the young men's reunion required far more than a ten-second, wordless hug. It needed buildup; it needed the kind of substantive emotional content that's conveyed via facial expressions, tears, exclamations/questions/answers, an appropriate setting, and some really adroit editing.  As it stands, the scene isn't only terse and flat but lacks believability.

*END BIG SPOILER*

My other beefs were relatively minor. The declaration of love came too quickly. It's possible -- and, I think, preferable -- to show characters developing a deep emotional bond without prematurely marching out the L word.  And what was with that hideously medieval rehab facility designed to turn gay boys straight?  While I know the CoJCoLDS has its own "reparative therapy" program, I seriously doubt 21st-century Mormons anywhere, even in Idaho, resort to the tactics depicted in this film.

I'll watch Latter Days again, though. It's certainly worth future viewings.

Home of the Brave

Last week, an ordinary, nineteen-year-old guy with a shy smile was the focus of attention in a tiny Midwestern town -- a village, actually. Many of its 750-or-so residents showed up at the high school gymnasium to pay tribute to him. Many watched or were in his parade, including a huge contingent of motorcyclists from the central part of the state.

I was in town that day.

The village is our county seat, and the boy's name is Ryan, and he was a local kid who'd been killed by a roadside bomb, one of those insidious IEDs, in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan.  The gathering at the high school was his memorial service. The long parade was his funeral procession.

All national and state flags were at half staff. Each lamppost bore lengths of black and yellow ribbon tied into a bow signifying "gone but not forgotten." Those dozens upon dozens of bikers, few of whom actually knew Ryan, were gathering in the only places either appropriate or large enough for them to gather -- the mortuary parking lot and the supermarket parking lot just down the street.

Of course I understood why these events were taking place -- the rituals meant to honor the soldier, the organized outpouring of respect for him -- but I'll be dicked if I can figure out why they had to take place, why this sudden, senseless death happened at all.  And why thousands of similar funerals have taken place all across the nation.

The U.S. hasn't sacrificed its young citizens to a "good" war since the 1940s -- a war with a clear goal, a war that could substantially and permanently change the world for the better.  On Independence Day, it's especially difficult to reconcile the ideals of the Founding Fathers with the senseless carnage we've been engaged in all too often since the Revolution.  Far too many brave men and women have died or been scarred for no discernible reason. Far too many will continue to die.  I don't know why our leaders can't pull their heads out of their asses and recognize lost causes when they see them, conflicts in which we have no business meddling: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan, with many smaller ones in between.

Why can't we at least pick our battles more wisely?

If only the Fourth of July could still be a celebration of one of the good wars. If only it didn't now come bundled with so much grief . . .

The Most Incredible Book I've Read in Years

When I come upon a book that leaves me reeling because of its sheer excellence, I will pimp it like a well-paid PR agent. Excuse me for doing a quick copy/paste from Goodreads, but I can barely think straight right now.

If you're overly sensitive and/or require romance and happy endings, don't go near this novel.  There's nothing "traditional" about the complex love story detailed herein. But if you want to read a superb work of contemporary fiction (not just gay literary fiction, because a novel this exceptional transcends all genre boundaries), grab it up fast. Our craft does not get any better than this. Just make sure to read it while you're alone.



The Brothers Bishop by Bart Yates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot remember the last time a book left me sobbing at the end -- especially one that had me chuckling well past the beginning.  The whole day is shot for me. This is a painfully profound and brilliant piece of work, the most affecting I've read since The Madness of a Seduced Woman, and "awarding" it a handful of stars seems both presumptuous and demeaning.

My biggest question is, how did Yates manage to write this without lacerating himself to shreds? Goddamn...


View all my reviews

WIP Up

A contemporary titled A Hole in God's Pocket.

You may not know this, but Wisconsin has the fourth largest Amish population in the U.S.  Since I moved to this part of the state about fifteen years ago, I've frequently encountered these quiet, humble people at local auctions and flea markets; I've passed their farms, and their buggies, on innumerable country roads.  For a while I've wanted to create an Amish-born hero.

However, I didn't want to make him a simple, naive, virginal creature. I wanted him to be five or more years into his rumspringa and well acquainted with the ways of the "English" world -- so familiar, in fact, that he's become disillusioned and somewhat jaded.

The less experienced protagonist will be a guy from a very different background: wholly modern and more sophisticated, more steeped in education and the spirit of inquiry. Yet, at their heart, the worlds these young men fled will prove surprisingly similar, possessed of the same kind of allure . . . as well as the same severe restrictions on personal freedom.  And there won't be anything cut-and-dried about the decisions the protags will have to make.

So, this won't be "The Awakening of a Sweet Amish Boy" kind of story.  It's likely to be more "The Potential Downfall of the Sweet Amish Boy." (I won't say more about the other H lest I scare everybody away before the story's even written!)  I'm excited about it but I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.  :)

P.S. I've been working on a free read about Jackson Spey being reunited with his mother and introducing her to Adin, but . . . it's really hard for me to submerge myself in more than one story at a time!  :-/

Hot. Not.

Okay, where do I start?  The majority of people who read as well as write in this genre have one thing in common: We really, really like the male anatomy. (Well, not every aspect of every male's anatomy, obviously, but you know which kinds of men I'm referring to.)  I'll tell ya, I nearly swooned when I first laid eyes on the cover of precious_boy. In fact, many pictures I see around our "community" make me stop dead in my tracks for an ogle and maybe even a brief fantasy. It's perfectly normal for gay men and straight women to react this way. Nature says so.

But more and more, when I read people's reactions to/comments on stories in our genre (and I mean in Yahoo groups, at Goodreads, etc.), I'm struck by the focus on heat level. A whopping big bunch of readers seem really, really fixated on the sex in m/m romance, and it's kinda-sorta starting to irk me. They claim not to want PWP, yet . . . they do seem to want it.  And the kinkier the better, and to hell with the quality of the writing. It's getting to the point that when I see the word HOT! starting off or summing up somebody's reaction to a book, I cringe.  This is probably the reason I've been asking not to have chesty covers on my books, starting with Electric Melty Tingles and Fugly and continuing through all my Dreamspinner releases (save for precious_boy, because of that character's occupation).  My cover artists probably have fits when they see my requests.     

The best books I've read in this genre have either had no on-page explicit sex or only a relatively small and plot-appropriate amount.  Their emphasis was on world building, storyline, and/or characterization. They were multidimensional. I don't think I've ever read a sex-saturated book, or even a sex-heavy book, and been impressed by it (aside from James Lear's stuff, which, for a number of reasons, is in a class by itself).  In fact, the last thing I'm likely to remember about my favorite m/m fiction, or any fiction, are the sex scenes.

I guess I'm bringing this up because I hate seeing our genre defined by its ability to appeal to readers' prurient interests.  (I know, I know; the phrase prurient interests sounds so freakin' 1950s.  Bad word-choice, but I'm on a roll so I'm not going to change it.)  Of course sex is one of the most basic facts of life. It's a driving force second only to survival. Better yet, it's FUN -- way more fun than resorting to cannibalism to stay alive --  and an integral part of intimacy.  But I lose my happy face whenever and wherever I encounter a lopsided emphasis on it, and slavering over it, as if other types of human experience are only inconsequential adjuncts to the Pursuit of Orgasm. My happy face really goes south whenever I think of m/m romance being perceived as porn for straight chicks, and straight chicks strengthening that perception at every turn by judging the value of m/m romance -- romance -- based on its sexual content.  That's when all those politically-correct types who huff about "appropriation" and "objectification" -- people I've tried my best to ignore -- start making disturbing sense.

Am I stirring a tempest in my own teapot? Or has anybody else noticed and been bothered by this?  

And More Updates

Abercrombie Zombie will be released in mid-August.

The Zero Knot, my coming-of-age WIP, now looks like it could top 55k words. I still haven't decided where to submit it.

One of the genre's most talented and accomplished authors, and a guy for whom I have enormous respect, left an incredibly flattering comment on my Facebook wall (is that what it's called?) about Visible Friend. Blew me away.  I never dreamed he'd read my stuff.

I could go on and on about magnanimous authors who take the time to praise the work of their peers when they have nothing to gain by it. There's a huge difference between this kind of support and specious or self-serving flattery, both of which exist in abundance in Bookworld. Sincerity is hard to come by. That's why I value it so.

Inspired by the photo below, I'll be writing a free story for the M/M Romance group on Goodreads.  It's not as if I'm the only person writing a free story.  A full trainload of authors are writing free stories based on pictures submitted by readers, and the whole batch of fics will be assembled into a "Hot July Days" anthology.

That is going to be one big-ass, Atlas Shrugged-size collection; I think the number of contributors stands at 110.  o_O  Getting through it will require the patience of Job, so I suspect most people will cherry-pick pieces that appeal to them.

Given the nature of the picture I chose and the ideas it's given me, my story will likely be short on sex.  I'm in the mood for something like that. And since I don't have to worry about "writing for royalties," which I pretty much suck at anyway, I'm not concerned about displeasing heat-seeking readers.  Besides, I have a strong feeling there'll be more swinging dicks in this antho than in the entire Chinese army. Readers will likely need some kind of breather so they don't pass out.

A Big Surprise

Thanks to the incredibly thoughtful A.J. Llewellyn, I just found out that the site Seriously Reviewed has designated Bastards and Pretty Boys one of their "Seriously Unforgettable" Best Stories of 2011.  (Click on the post title if you don't believe me.  Hell, I don't believe me.)  I think B&PB was published in September 2009, which accounts for my shock.  (Now, if I could just figure out how to get people to read Visible Friend.  Hm.  Maybe I should rewrite it with some slave-boy kink added to the drug addiction and convince DSP to reissue.  Heh.)    

The Doldrums

I am in them.

Can't seem to make any real headway in this biz.  I think I fall into some substance category between wheat and chaff.  Dust?  Hell, beats me.  I'm feeling kind of swallowed up in this genre, and confused about readers' standards.  It's getting pretty depressing.  I don't know how to write what lots and lots of people will like.  And talk about.  And remember.  Just don't know how.

Don't.  Know.  How.  And maybe can't.