Tag Archives: gay novels

Brief Wednesday Post

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It’s the Australian Open Women’s Semi-Finals tonight so I just have a couple of minutes to dash off my weekly update.  What does tennis have to do with writing?  Not much, I guess, although Maria Sharapova was the inspiration for one of my villainous characters.

The creative currents continue to flow as I write the third and final section of WHEN THE FALLEN ANGELS FLY.  I scaled a mental wall over the weekend, and I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m headed.  Right now, Richard is ransacking an attorney’s office for clues on why he was sent back to earth to help his murderer Lee Toback.

I’m moving nicely through Hanif Kureishi’s THE BLACK ALBUM, another book that was collecting dust on my shelf waiting for me to read.  Kureishi’s characterization is masterful.  Next up is a long overdue read of James Baldwin’s GIOVANNI’S ROOM.

Go Li Na!!  I love rooting for an underdog.

Best Gay Novels – My Picks

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Since so many of you have asked (ha, ha), I decided this week to post what I consider the best gay novels.  Well, at least the best ones I’ve read. I recently learned that the Publishing Triangle has a list of the 100 best gay and lesbian novels, and I’d only read eight of them.  The list leans toward older and more high brow authors like Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf so to defend myself (or more likely incriminate myself) I tend to prefer literature that’s more accessible (read: I’m a lazy reader). But I thought the list deserved a response from a semi-educated, gay-on-the-street point of view.  I couldn’t come up with 100 titles. That would be just too pretentious. And I’m not ranking the books either. That would hurt my brain too much.

Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai

The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket by John Weir

Hey Joe! by Ben Neihart

The Burning Plain by Michael Nava

Dancing on the Tisha B’Av by Lev Raphael

Saul’s Book by Paul T. Rogers

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim

Rewrite blues

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So I resolved to post a progress report on my writing projects every Wednesday.  This one barely makes deadline at 11:38PM EST.  I have an excuse.  I came down with a pretty bad head cold last week and am still getting back up to 100%.  I’ve got my box of tissues stationed by the keyboard.

My manuscript is up to 49.6K words / 194 pages.  That may sound like decent progress but here’s the thing.  I reached a scene where Richard’s relationship with his angel mentor Rafi takes a critical turn, and it just didn’t read right.  I realized I needed to go back and evaluate previous scenes between the two guys.  My diagnosis:  more rewiting and finetuning.  I’m trying to really get into Richard’s head.  Kind of frustrating since I thought I knew the guy after almost five months of “living” with him and charting out his life.  Oh well.  It’s part of the process.  This set me back about 50 pages so I’m actually further from the end of my manuscript than I was last week.

But hopefully the story is getting stronger.  Next week, I have two full days to devote to writing.  I’m hoping my pre-Thanksgiving post will be full of optimism.  Right now, Richard is once again immersing himself in psychology texts to figure out how to think like a psychotherapist.  But he’s not whiny.