Tag Archives: gay writers

The Next Big Thing Project!!

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My friend and fellow author John Copenhaver recently tagged me in The Next Big Thing Project.

TNBT is basically an author chain-mail where you’re tagged to answer a questionnaire about you book — whether out in print or in development. The chain-mail rules are:

1. You have to answer nine questions about your book (or project).

2. You have to tag at least five other authors to complete the questionnaire on their website/blog, and put up their links.

I’ll be cross-posting my taggees’ questionnaires here as well. I think it’s a cool way to get to know the work of up-and-coming authors, and–of course–to enhance our profile.

So, meet the talented (and handsome) John Copenhaver who hooked me into this chain…

Author John Copenhaver

 

What is the title of the book?

Dodging and Burning.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

My inspiration came from two separate but connected events: My reading of Walter Benjamin’s analysis of photography, and my decision to come out of the closet as a gay man. Benjamin argues that photographs distort reality and only can be given value if paired with the right caption. Being in the closet is like being a photo without a caption. The only way to correct that distortion is to tell the story behind the façade. Dodging and Burning is the mystery behind a crime scene photograph, but more accurately it’s an exploration of the way photos can twist our understanding of others and ourselves if their captions remain unwritten, their stories untold.

What genre does your book fall under?

Literary Mystery.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I love this question, because I think about it a lot. Sadly, most of the actors I’d cast are dead. One of my main characters, Bunny Prescott, is based on Gene Tierney; in fact, other characters tell her that she resembles Tierney. But, to play fair, I’d cast Elle Fanning as Ceola (my earnest teenager), who has both gravitas and levity, Saoirse Ronan as Bunny (my love-confused debutant), who can be chilly and vulnerable, and Andrew Garfield (my wounded gay war photographer), who is wonderful at playing pained but not self-indulgent characters. I loved him in Never Let Me Go.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Two young women attempt to solve the mystery of the photograph of beautiful corpse only to discover that the true mystery lies in the heart of the photographer.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Three-years. Keep in mind of course I was working full time as an English teacher. It took several more years to whip it into shape.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?


It began at Bread Loaf English of English when I took a course called “Photography and Modernity.” It changed the way I looked at photography and, eventually, all visual media. Also, I read Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, a genre-bending novel, a masterpiece that skillfully weaves together low and high forms. And of course, my own personal journey out of the closet. My theme, as I see it, is the need for narrative. Images without narrative (or worse images with a false narrative) can twist our understanding of reality, pushing us further from empathy and deeper into darkness.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m represented by the fabulous Annie Bomke of ABLiteary and currently in search of a publisher.

For more about John Copenhaver, check out here.

Is Dumb the New Smart?

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A little social commentary, a little writerly update this week…

Is Dumb the New Smart?

It’s actually a political/pop culture trend that started under the George W. Bush administration, and the concomitant rise of celebrities like Paris Hilton.

But it reached its zenith with Sarah Palin and her recent commentary on Paul Revere. He made his famous ride, gun in hand, to warn the British:   we Americans have the right to bear arms.   Remember from history class?

Education is passe, intellectual inquiry is for assholes, and everything you needed to know, you learned at Sunday family suppers, between Church and rifle practice.

For a recent pop culture counterpart, see Charlie Sheen.

Writing Brief

In writing news, my manuscript wends its way to a climax and denouement (isn’t that a great word?).   I just finished up a murder scene (mwah, ha, ha, ha).

Excitement is building for Lambda’s 2011 Writers’ Retreat.   I’ve made my flight arrangements and sent in my photo/bio.

Lambda started a listserv for Fellows so we can share transportation and get to know each other.   I’m already amazed (and a bit intimidated) by the list of authors.   Lots of writers to learn from.

 

Rewrite redux

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Well friends, I’m back to the rewrite blues.  I spent the past week reworking the middle section of Part II (WHEN THE FALLEN ANGELS FLY), and I’m still trying to grasp the right plot point, construct the scene, tincture the perfect blend of show and tell.  Romance is brewing between Richard and Rafi, you see.  I was trying to leave that storyline alone, but it opens up so many possibilities.  It’s irresistible.  Yet excruciating.  I guess I could take that as a good sign.  Psychoanalytically, you could say I’m experiencing countertransference to my characters, tapping into what it’s like when you first feel the stirrings of attraction.

I’ve heard other writers say:  “If only my main character would tell me what to do!!”  I want Richard Carroll to explain himself.  Guide me through this thing between him and Rafi.  Let me know what it’s like to feel love afer everything he’s been through.  But Richard wears it close to the vest.  At least with me.  Maybe we’re having our own lover’s quarrel.  I ask myself:  “What did I do wrong?”  Have I mischaracterized him?  Taken him places where he didn’t want to go?  Heroes are tricky people.  They need constant reassurance, ego stroking, the right lighting to show off their best sides, shade when they crave privacy.  And they get grumpy when they’re misunderstood.

So what do I do?  I’m at the point where I’m about ready to leave this part of the story, move on and see what kind of trajectory I’ve established from giving Richard and Rafi some momentum.  Very physics-like, this writing thing, and it’s a process that can only be mastered by trial and error.  Richard is going to have to understand:  I may not always treat you right, but no one can love you like I do.

Meanwhile, I decided to catch up on some gay classics.  I tore through Neil Bartlett’s Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall and started Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance.  Dated stuff, I know.  But I feel like I need some reference points for my novel, the great American gay novel, I delude myself.

Funny, I tried to read both books years ago and couldn’t get into them.  In my twenties, I was a bit intolerant.  I couldn’t take a story seriously if it was about the archetypical “gay scene” – sex, drugs and cattiness.  I wanted to read stuff that reflected my own life or, alternatively, stories that took me out of reality completely.  Now, my mind has opened up, I think.  Bartlett’s story is full of gay cliche’s – tragic aging queens, sexual objectification (one of the main characters is simply called ‘Boy’) and grown men weeping at piano bars.  But beneath this rather uninspiring though perfectly believable scene (the book is set in early 1980’s London), there’s an engrossing love story between two men described in beautifully-written, sometimes shocking passages.  It’s sexy and sometimes challenging.  I’m still sorting out how I feel about the violence in the main characters’ relationship.  But it’s a book I would highly recommend.

What I did on Thanksgiving vacation

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So this was supposed to be the week I got a lot of writing done.   I knew there’d be Thanksgiving dinner prep work to do, but I figured I’d have at least two full days free and clear.

Then, the sinus infection.

I spiked a fever over the weekend, went to the doctor on Monday and started a prescription for an antibiotic.  I’ve still gotten some writing done here and there even if it’s not as much as I would’ve liked.  Lessee…I’m over 50K with my re-write, up to page 154 of 198, and Richard and Rafi are having a blowup over Richard’s training as an angel.    Fight scenes are fun to write, especially from the Richard’s point of view.   He’s a headstrong 22 year old who thinks he knows everything about life.  After this scene, I’m predicting smooth sailing writing-wise to the end of Part II in the novel.  Working on Part III during Xmas vacation?  We’ll see.

I also got my copy of Ganymede Stories One over the weekend.  Very cool to see THE VAIN PRINCE in print.  The anthology includes stories by thirteen gay male writers and reprints by Robert Louis Stevenson (The Adventure of the Hanson Cab) and Oscar Wilde (Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime).  The distinctly grandiose British language in the latter two is a trip.  As I read them, I kept thinking about the conventional writing wisdom:  “show, don’t tell” and “be sparing with your use of adjectives and adverbs.”  How our literary tastes have changed!   But I think RLS and Wilde both have a great sense of dialogue which  teaches us something about the craft of writing today.

For me, the other stand-outs from the anthology are Eric Karl Anderson’s Beauty Number Two and Sam Miller’s Breaking the Bough.   Anderson’s piece is about an upwardly-mobile, “domesticated” gay man in Los Angeles who is drawn to an HIV-positive leather daddy.  His casual curiosity turns into sexual obsession and a potentially dangerous encounter.  This story stayed with me for days though it was difficult to read.  I found the main character, his partner and their circle of friends entirely unlikeable.  They’re materialistic, looks-obsessed, bitchy queens, and it was hard for me to get behind such a brutal depiction of gay men.   In my mind, there are two dangers in writing such a portrayal, but I think Anderson transcends both of them in a rather spectacular way.  First, you could end up with a piece where the characters are so one-dimensional or villainized that no one cares about them.  Second, a more insidious danger is when the only context for the flawed characters is oppression, thereby multiplying the unlikeability of the characters by a factor of victimhood.  The Boys in the Band and Brokeback Mountain used the latter disastrous formula which is why I can’t stand watching either film.   IMHO, Anderson narrowly escapes either trap by showing us another side of his self-absorbed, cheating protagonist in a single, unexpected moment (I won’t give it away).

My other favorite Breaking the Bough also deals with gay domestic themes though of a decidedly modern variety.  Will and Ted have just moved into an apartment in Harlem with their daughter Lily and Lily’s lesbian birthmother Fannie.  The story is essentially about Will’s fear of losing Lily despite he and Ted’s carefully brokered arrangement with Fannie.  For me, the subject of gay families evokes a wealth of opportunities for conflict, drama and fresh points of view, but what I especially liked about Miller’s piece was his use of setting as a catalyst for character development.  Will is a well-meaning, culturally-exposed guy, but like most of us white, middle class folks, he has some racial hang-ups.   Miller handles Will’s internal conflict about living in a low income, Black neighborhood with subtlety and realism.   When discussing the problem of garbage-littered streets, Will offers to Ted:  “It gives the neighborhood character.”  To which Ted replies:  “It’s so like you to romanticize squalor.”  Those little details are what I really enjoyed in this piece in addition to the allegorical and suspenseful subplot about an arsonist at large in the neighborhood.

Publication Pre-Release!

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Just found out from editor John Stahle that my first publication is available for pre-release!  Ganymede Stories One, featuring my short story THE VAIN PRINCE, can be purchased on-line here.  My story made it into the anthology along with reprints by some lesser known writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Oscar Wilde.  (ha, ha)  Check it out and let me know what you think.