Hindsight in 2020; a decade of writing

Since I haven't blogged in weeks, what better time than on the last day of a year, and a decade, full of ups and down, books and breaks. The 2010s were pretty good for me, book-wise. I self-published two novels, Every Time I Think of You, and its sequel, Message of Love, which won a Lambda Literary Award, and was a Finalist, respectively.

I also self-published my short story collection, Forty Wild Crushes in 2016, and in 2018, Beautiful Dreamer Press published my sixth novel, Now I'm Here. I still love typing that, "my sixth novel." So many frustrated writers never finish one, let alone get it published.

In work writing, I got to interview dozens of performing artists for the Bay Area Reporter, my pleasant, fun and challenging day job.  Features ranged talents like Cazwell, Carol Cook, Peaches Christ, Debbie Harry, to Ross Mathews and Sister Roma.

For the past three decades, aside from a few wacky and tedious temp and freelance jobs, I've been rather lucky to make a living as a writer. Again, a rare thing, and one that I cherish.

Like you, I've lost a few friends, but gained some as well. I've burned a few bridges, but built a few others, and you know, I can swim.

2020 24 hours to go
The good news to look forward to are not one, but three literary projects. While I don't consider it bad luck (I don't really believe in luck, per se) to mention the projects outright, I will hint that they're two audioooks and my seventh novel. I suppose I should add those into 2019 accomplishments, since the audiobooks are in production with a talented narrator, and the seventh novel was finished this year.

While going through some old family photos with my brother over the Christmas holiday, I was heartened to see a Christmas Day photo when I was nine (see first photo). Huddled over a tiny manual typewriter, my little fingers started typing away, making what would become small handmade book gifts foisted upon family and friends.

And while, like luck, I don't believe in fate, something in me has always wanted to tell stories. People ask how one can become a writer, and I'm hesitant to offer advice. I simply could not not be a writer.

I'll link to a few New Year's Eve posts which excerpt me fourth and fifth novels.

In Every Time I Think of You, Reid gets a surprise visit from Everett, who's hoisting a champagne bottle in the snowy cold outside his door.

A few years later (in Message of Love), as the two bond and form a life together, in Everett' father's Pittsburgh condo, Reid shows his love on New Year's Eve by attempting a naked handstand.

I never had either experience. Sometimes I vicariously live through my characters, creating what might have been, had I found true love at a young age. 

For now, I'm counting the hours until it's closer to midnight, to gather with a few friends, one of them also an accomplished gay author. That is, if I don't get a text saying he's already gone to bed. That would be okay, because life and holidays aren't always as fabulous as expected. That's why we make up stories.

A look back through a decade ends up filtered. We try to forget the pain and loss, the fumbles, and focus on the good memories. Good writers do that. Great writers stir up the pain and loss as well. You'll see a new level of maturity in my next novel, I hope.

I also hope you make a decade's worth of good memories, starting tomorrow.

Author Q&A with Jim Provenzano - Now I'm Here and other novels

In my new Q&A with NF Reads, I share a few secrets about writing, book covers and creative inspiration.

An excerpt:

What are the real-life stories behind your books?
That’s a frequent question at readings. Reality and creativity are so blended that a pat answer could be ‘everything and nothing is a real-life story.’

That said, I have a few examples.

In Now I’m Here, my latest published novel, Joshua plays piano and gets a little bit of fame for playing a piano solo version of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I actually did play the song for a piano recital in high school, but Joshua’s later larger TV show fame is made up.

David was raised on a pumpkin farm, and I actually worked on an Ohio pumpkin farm, but only for one season. This shows how I take a small bit of my own life, and years later, grow those experiences into fiction.

What inspires your creativity?
A scene or story that simply will not go away often serves as a spark to writing. I’ve been writing since I was a child. I even made little hand-drawn comic books on colored paper as gifts for my family, which provided a very nurturing environment.

How do you deal with creative block?
I do something else. I don’t consider non-writing periods as a ‘block,’ as much as times when I write elsewhere; at work, on my blog (www.jimprovenzano.blogspot.com), or when I assign myself an interview at work. 

I love my job, which sometimes includes interviewing performers and celebrities. Being forced to condense an interview and briefly yet accurately tell their story, on deadline, aids my other writing.

In the ‘90s, I spent my early years growing the early drafts of several novels. By 2011, I’d planned to get back to Now I’m Here, but the first spark of inspiration for Every Time I Think of You came to me in a dream. At first, I cranked out what I thought might be a nice short story, then by dawn, went back to sleep, knowing it would become much more.

I kept imagining more scenes, and since I’d struggled for years with previous works, I gave myself a deadline; 500 words a day, and nine months to finish.

It became a very exciting year. With three published novels, I had more confidence, but also imagined a singular audience. It was like riding a bicycle, knowing it could work, that the two main characters, even secondary ones, fascinated me, especially when my brain decided they would do things I hadn’t expected.

Read more at www.NFreads.com

Naming; the Seeds of Character-Building

As Halloween celebrants set about carving up pumpkins in creative ways for the holiday, consider extracting the many seeds from the gloppy guts of your purchased or homegrown gourds. Yes, they're tasty when baked and salted. But for me, those seeds represent another form of organic growth, related to the very important artistic process of writing, particularly the naming of characters.

In the early drafts of my sixth novel, Now I'm Here, at first I used names of actual people to solidify my initial inspiration. A few find/replaces later, I found a somewhat biblical theme under-riding that work-in-progress. Thus the name Joshua for my main character. The piano-playing teenager becomes somewhat zealous in his devotion to music, particularly the rock band Queen.

In these thematic essays, I've focused on the marvelous Freddie Mercury, and the music aspects of the work. With Halloween only a few days away, let's turn to Joshua's love interest, David Koenig.

Omitting the real name of the cute high school acquaintance on whom I had a crush since grade school, let's bump to the second name I gave the character; David. One day, as I stopped at a local small grocery store, I saw bags of edible seeds on display. As kids and as an adult, I had enjoyed home-baked pumpkin seeds, but seeing that bright red, yellow and green bag so clearly displaying the name, I chose the new and final name for my farm boy.

I thought of the biblical couple Jonathan and David, but that felt too obvious. In search of a last name, I pored over my favorite source, Egerton Sykes' Who's Who: Non-Classical Mythology. 

It was in that book that I found perfect names for major characters in my first novel, PINS. Donald Khors' last name, while a known contemporary name, also represents the Slavonic god of health and hunting, and takes the image of a stallion. Many of the names in PINS reflect the equine metaphors and the actual wrestling team name, the Colts. Each of the several cars in the novel also bring horse breeds into the story: Bronco, Mustang, Pinto.

The fun in finding such correlations serves to narrow the symbology of a story while revealing a sort of true nature to a character. While in the writing process, when trying to figure out how a character should or could behave, I found a point of focus by recalling the symbolic/real name.

For David, however, I couldn't find a name in Sykes' book that fit him. I knew I wanted a Germanic or Norwegian name, since many of the southern Ohio farming families of the era had ancestors from those countries. This brings up a character's family history, an essential part of thorough development. Even if it's not included in the published story, an author should know his or her background, at least for a few generations (orphans and supernatural creatures excused, perhaps).

This is why I find so many pop-oriented books, gay romances in particular, to be lacking. It's all set in the 'now,' with little sense of history (unless of course it is historical). When you can't feel a sense of the grounded nature of a character, they seem flimsy and less believable.

Koenig sounded right when I discovered it from poring over a phone book from Ohio that I'd saved for decades in a box of other research materials for Now I'm Here. An online search confirmed it.

König is the German word for king. While David is by no means royal –he's humble, shy, even reclusive– he does 'rule' the fields where his father's pumpkin and corn fields are annually harvested. It seemed organic, true, ethnically logical, and a little bit sexy.

Now I'm Here cover photo shoot

I've humble-bragged here and elsewhere about having worked on a pumpkin farm for a few months in between colleges in 1981. The exhausted, overworked 20-year-old me at the time had no idea those grueling yet satisfying experiences would gestate into parts of what would be my sixth novel. That younger me was still dreaming of the idea of a first novel, in between all the labors.

That's just one story of one name, with a few tangents. I could go on about the nature themes in my two previous novels, Every Time I Think of You and Message of Love, but the two main characters' names, Reid Conniff and Everett Forrester, are pretty obvious.

My second novel, Monkey Suits, refers to Egyptian ruling class versus slave culture (the first and near-final scenes are set in New York City's Metropolitan Museum's Temple of Dendur; pretty obvious!), and when you read it, you can figure out how the four main character's names and natures match the four elements.

For Cyclizen, it's not only about a bike messenger and AIDS activist, but the name puns refer to mythical centaurs, Hercules, and a few other creatures.

This isn't done just to be clever, but to provide me a guide to focusing the story, and keeping the process fun.

But back to pumpkins! Have you saved the seeds? Rinse them, soak them in salt water, or sweeten them with cinnamon or pumpkin spice if you like.

You may not notice the pumpkins on the book cover, but since we shot it in May 2018, I'd saved a few small and big ones from October 2017! One can't just go out and buy pumpkins in Northern California in Spring.

And when you reach the last chapters of my latest, Now I'm Here, I hope you'll enjoy a bittersweet pumpkin and Halloween-related moment in the novel.

And please, do post reviews on Amazon, GoodReads and elsewhere. It's a way of sharing, but also helping get the word out on independent authors' stories.

Happy Halloween!

PINS 20th Anniversary; Wrestling with the Publishing Industry

This week is the twentieth anniversary of the publication of my debut novel, PINS, a wrestling coming-of-age story about patron saints, headlocks, crash diets, thrash metal, dogpiles, nutpulls, and only the occasional assault.

It's been a long fascinating journey from those first scratches of writing (I started with Chapter 16, by the way) to having not one but two high-powered agents fail to sell the book, then 56 rejection letters, most brief, a few quite educational, to self-publishing the book the old-school way by starting a sole proprietorship home office, shipping cartons to wholesalers across the country while having a stack of cartons serve as a hard makeshift sofa in my living room, to creating ebook, stage and audiobook adaptations, and even getting a German translation. This was all while actually wrestling for 14 years and winning a few matches.

Yes, to paraphrase SNL actor Garrett Morris' baseball-playing character, 'wrestling's been very very good to me.'

The story follows Joey Nicci, a 15-year-old Catholic boy and his family after they've moved from Newark, New Jersey to the small nearby suburb of Little Falls. Joey's crush on his wrestling teammate Donny "Dink" Kohrs leads him to joining Dink and a few other teammates in increasing dangerous activities that lead to the death of a teammate. While Joey narrowly escapes jail, the second half of the novel focuses on his outcast status, and a layered religious theme, to the point of Joey's near-martyr-like near-death.

And yes, it is spelled PINS, not Pins. That word/acronym takes on multiple meanings in the novel, including one (spoiler), a different term for juvenile delinquents used in the New Jersey state court system of the time: Person in Need of Supervision.

That's just one of the many research tidbits that helped shape the novel, while I was simultaneously writing others, since 1991 when I inherited a tiny Mac and stayed up too many nights struggling with them all, like a garden of prose (not unlike the scraggly garden next door to my early 1990s East Village apartment where it all began) after watching, and videotaping, a few TV shows about a violent crime (The Hail Mary murder), a wrestling team gang assault (covered on The Phil Donahue Show) and being haunted by the atmosphere at a Queens protest after the murder of Julio Rivera, to whom the novel is dedicated. 

The author in 1999. photo: Rick Gerharter

Old-Schooled
By May 1997, as a graduate in the Master of Arts English/Creative Writing program at San Francisco State University, an early version on the other-titled manuscript was my thesis. But it wasn't the only novel I was working on. 

I must have really annoyed my fellow novel-writing classmates when, instead of submitting the same reworked manuscript as others did, I switched gears and shared works-in-progress of what would become my third, fourth and (hopefully seventh and eighth) novels. 

But the wrestling novel soon became my main focus. You can read a hardbound embarrassing early version of PINS at the university's library (a requirement for completing the degree). But even then, I had some intense interactions with a few wrestlers, both good and bad, that would change the story even more. 

It would be nice to say that things would have been more successful if either of my two high-powered agents had sold PINS by 1998. But in retrospect, it wasn't finished. It wasn't even called PINS. 

Farm Living; Is It the Life for Us?

While my sixth novel Now I'm Here focuses on Joshua, a piano-playing prodigy and Queen fan, it also includes almost equal focus on his boyfriend David who is raised on a farm in southern Ohio in the 1970s to 1980s. While the town of Serene is fictional in my book, it's based on my own farming experience, and that of real gay farmers.

This Labor Day weekend, I'm thinking about the joys and struggles of contemporary LGBT people in rural areas, and the current insane political environment's effect on their livelihood.

According to a recent USA Today feature, nearly 4 million LGBT people live on U.S. farms and rural communities. This and other recent articles reflect the finding of a groundbreaking study by the Movement Advancement Project, Where We Call Home: LGBT People in Rural America.

“The report by the Movement Advancement Project puts a spotlight for the first time on a sizable segment of the 19 million LGBTQ people in the USA – or 4.5% of all adults and 10% of youths – who don’t congregate on the coasts or in major cities.

“Rarely do we see images of LGBTQ people in rural areas, and when we do, they are portrayed as the only one there and stick out like a sore thumb or a target of violence,” said Logan Casey, author of the report by MAP, a think tank that researches LGBTQ issues. “It’s a stereotype that’s not the case.”

Two LGBTQ authors in the mix: Jim Provenzano & Meg Elison

Here's a smart Bay Area Reporter Q&A in which I'm paired with best-selling author (and my new coworker) Meg Elison! Her 'Road to Nowhere' scifi trilogy is terrific.

From Arts Editor Roberto Friedman: "One of the perks of our job has been having access to some of our lifelong heroes in gay life & letters. Over the years we've been able to meet and interview some heavy-hitting authors: Edmund White, Alan Hollinghurst, Colm Toibin and Dennis Cooper only start the list. But another side of arts journalism is in knowing up-and-coming voices in gay literature. Right now Out There is working alongside two colleagues who also moonlight as well-read gay authors.

"Multi-talented Jim Provenzano is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of six novels and a play based on one of them, PINS, that has been given local and regional productions. His latest novel, Now I'm Here, a story of first love, is available in paperback, Kindle and Kobo ebook editions (Beautiful Dreamer Press).

Charismatic Meg Elison has published the much-awaited conclusion to her Philip K. Dick Award-winning "Road to Nowhere" trilogy with The Book of Flora,"available in trade paperback and eBook (47North). 

Science fiction and fantasy devotees ate up the first two books in the trilogy, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Book of Etta.
 
Read the full dual interview here:  https://www.ebar.com/arts_&_culture/books//280352

Read Meg Elison's books here: http://megelison.com/

Great Book, A-hole Author: Should we judge writers for their work and their lives?

author Dale Peck

Ernest Hemingway was an alcoholic animal-hunting macho lout. Gertrude Stein supported fascism. Nicolas Sparks owns an allegedly bigoted Christian Camp. And now we have Dale Peck, a gay author whose bitter essay on openly gay Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was so reviled that its publisher deleted the Op-Ed within hours of publishing it. But should we judge such authors' works by their behavior outside of their literary works?

One could start with the earliest classic stories by Homer and judge Greek culture for its dubious ethics about sexual relationships between men and boys.

Jumping forward several centuries, similar critiques can be made about author Horatio Alger and his series of books about strapping young boys who enjoyed the support of rich older men. Sexual favors lurk between the lines in many of his tales. And the author, according to Wikipedia, in 1866, "had been charged with 'the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys.' Alger denied nothing, admitted he had been imprudent, considered his association with the church dissolved, and left town."

Switching gears to machismo in men of letters, Ernest Hemingway was known to drink to excess, shoot off guns and be abusive to women. Does that mar the legacy of classics like For Whom the Bell Tolls?

Gertrude Stein

As for lesbian poet Gertrude Stein, a pal of Hemingway, her sympathies for the then-growing Nazi regime are well documented. This article by Barbara Will for the National Endowment for the Humanities tells of the poet's support of the Vichy regime.

"Throughout her life Stein hewed to the political right, even signing up to be a propagandist for an authoritarian, Nazi-dominated political regime," writes Will. 

Also, "Most of Stein’s critics have given her a relatively free pass on her Vichy sympathies. Others have tried to ignore or justify equally inexplicable events: for example, Stein’s endorsement of Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934, or her performance of the Hitler salute at his bunker in Berchtesgaden after the Allied victory in 1945. Until recently, in fact, the troublesome question of Stein’s politics didn’t really figure in debates over her legacy—as opposed, for example, to the vehement debates surrounding Mussolini supporter and modernist poet Ezra Pound."

Will also mentioned Pound."The modernist writer Ezra Pound took a similar tack in his propaganda on behalf of Mussolini. In his book Jefferson and/or Mussolini, Pound credited Italian fascism with bringing back “Jeffersonian” economic and agrarian values to the modern world."

This, course, omits the facts that Jefferson, a politician and author, was also a slave-owner who fathered children with a female African slave. Are we to disdain Jefferson's eloquent writings as hypocritical? Should we tear down monuments to him, as many Southern cities and universities have done with statues commemorating Robert E. Lee and other Confederate historical figures? Need we remind adherents to the Civil War, waving their 'Old Dixie" flags from their truck beds, that the South lost the war?

ACT UP on 'Pose' - revisiting a pivotal day

As one of the 111 ACT UP members arrested in the Stop the Church action of December 1989, it was wonderful to see the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power included in the Season 2 premiere episode of the FX series Pose. The groundbreaking series focuses on the New York City ball communities of color, and transgender women struggling to make ends meet by building  chosen families.

I particularly loved seeing nurse Judy Kubrak (Sandra Bernhard) almost dragging a reluctant Pray Tell (Billy Porter) to his first meeting. Bernhard discusses ACT UP, and many other contemporary topics, in an expansive wonderful new interview for The Daily Beast.

The depiction of the group meeting was a bit simplistic, but served its purpose. It would be impossible to share the months of preparation that went into the Stop the Church protest, and the divisions within our ranks at the time over the action.

Other critiques and comments on the episode are included in a deft account by writer/editor Mathew Rodriguez for TheBody.com.

"Northrop did have some slight criticisms of the short depiction of the action in Pose -- mainly that it didn't capture just how big the demonstration really was. While there were hundreds of protesters inside, there were thousands outside protesting quite loudly. The protest included some of ACT UP's most well-known iconography, including artist and ACT UP member Ray Navarro dressed as Jesus and the poster of John Cardinal O'Connor next to an unrolled condom that said, "Know Your Scumbags."

Anachronisms aside (it took place on December 10, 1989, not in 1990). The episode is set in winter, a few weeks or months later, so that's a small quibble. I saw it as a choreographic version of Pray Tell’s participation and empowerment.

ACT UP meeting in 'Pose'

Laying down in the aisles was just one of many aspects of the protest, and I was among those, in an affinity group called The Order of the Carmelites, who reenacted laying prostrate in the aisle as the historic nuns did. A larger affinity group called The Marys did the same. Unlike the Pose version, it was not an inspired spontaneous action, but a carefully orchestrated series of movements.

Of course the most 'scandalous' moment in the action (not included in the TV show), and covered by media as 'an outrage,' was that of former altar boy Tom Keane breaking a sacrament wafer at the altar.

The other shots in the Pose episode portrayed the screaming and arrests, which were not as lengthy inside as shown, except for the then-irascible Michael Petrelis, who instead of following the silent die-in theme, chose to stand atop a pew seat and repeatedly shout "Stop Killing Us!"

But these critiques are minor when one considers the gift of including this momentous event through an artistic lens in a hit TV show.

My own fictionalized account in my 2007 third novel, Cyclizen, included all that, but most specifically, being carried off on a stretcher by NYPD (in basic caps; the riot gear and helmets were worn by police outside, not as depicted in Pose). Like the show, my own depiction is personalized and literary, not documentary-style.

One overhead shot of Pray Tell being carried out with others on a stretcher echoed my own experience, a sort of epiphany, that what we were doing was not only right, but a Christian thing to do, like Jesus chasing the money-changers out of the temple.

The episode could have included a few shots of historic news footage of the thousands outside the cathedral, which ended up having a larger impact over time. ACT UP leader Maxine Wolfe says as much in a documentary about the action. But the Pose script took on a more personal version, that of Billy Porter's and others' characters finding a way to fight back.

Still Standing: Elton John's living legacy, and other music lost and found

Fans and critics are raving about the creative and mesmerizing Elton John biopic Rocketman, and comparisons to other rock star movies have led some to say it's what Bohemian Rhapsody could have been. Seeing the film with a musician pal and an appreciative audience at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco led me to recall how Elton John's music shaped my piano-playing as a teen, almost as much as the music of Queen. Freddie Mercury and his band's music took precedent as an inspiration for my sixth novel, Now I'm Here. But now I regret not giving Elton enough devotion.

As John, cutie Taron Egerton takes us on a wild journey through John's childhood, early starts in playing for other musicians, and his eventual rise to superstardom.

Rocketman's dreamy Troubadour scene

Among the best scenes are the dramatic and fantasy-styled moment when John's American debut at LA's Troubadour nightclub wowed new fans almost overnight. 

The floating magic moment when it all clicked for the singer-composer is only one of many dreamlike fantasy musical numbers that recall the rock and pop music-filled films Across the Universe and Moulin Rouge.

John's LA debut at The Troubadour is recounted in this sweet article in the LA Times.
Variety compares box office and the PG versus R ratings of the two rock biopics. 
 And the GQ review takes the film to task, yet admits its success in comparison to the Queen biopic:

"In the same way that Bohemian Rhapsody presented the superficial, sanitized version of Freddie Mercury—the one that the living members of Queen wanted the public to see—the Elton John we get in Rocketman seems cleaned up and doctored to be a movie subject."
  
I'm not sure how 'cleaned up' it is, with a musical orgy and the coke-snorting addiction depicted in Rocketman. For a wonderful account of more real events in John's life compared to the film, read the Time Magazine feature.

Rocketman vs Bohemian Rhapsody

I've Seen That Movie Too
Like Bohemian Rhapsody, we see a gay man face his inner conflicts and the ups and downs of the closet. Both have seemingly obligatory orgy scenes, with BoRhap's limited to a murky leather bar. Rocketman's dance club "sexy" nightclub scene approaches a camp level of the Canadian cult classic The Apple.

In this Daily Mail feature, Elton John and director Dexter Fletcher (who filled in for Bohemian Rhapsody when Brian Singer flaked) discuss the 'realness' of the story amid all the wonderful musical numbers choreographed by Adam Murray.

Unlike the story of Mercury, whose sexual exploits are kept mostly off-screen by the prudish script of Bohemian Rhapsody, John's fantasy biopic gets a passionate and realistic yet brief love scene amid all the dreamy music numbers, which are intentionally out of order. Time magazine recounts the anachronisms and inspirations.

John's dilemma is more about his addictions and eventual recovery. Mercury's biopic leads up to his anachronistic HIV diagnosis, while John's strangely doesn't even mention AIDS (despite his later generous philanthropy with his AIDS/HIV foundation). Still, he survived, which probably had more of an effect on his cinematic story's depiction of his life.

Elton John at Outside Lands 2015

Song for Guy
But what if (gods forbid) John had also died of AIDS, a cocaine-fueled heart attack or via the party pool attempted drowning scene depicted in the film? Would we listen to his music differently, as we do with Mercury, Price, David Bowie and so many other lost artists?

The New York Times recently focused on classical composers lost to AIDS. A score may survive, but one can't imagine the symphonies lost when gay artists die too young.

Everyone Dies: Games of Thrones, fan disappointment and delusions in fiction and fantasy

On this rainy Saturday, while I'm looking forward to this evening's plans, I feel, like many others, a sense of dread and worried anticipation for the series finale of Games of Thrones tomorrow night. Fan outrage over the last episode has reached such a tumult that nearly 700,000 people have signed a petition demanding a re-shoot of their favorite TV show. 

It sounds completely absurd to non-fans, but there's a reason for it. I'll explain, and of course tie in concerns about the comparatively tiny yet related themes in my novels.

First off: massive spoiler alert. If you're at all aware of pop culture and entertainment, you know that the last episode featured 'Mother of Dragons' Danerys Targaryen taking a 'mad' turn by ignoring the tower bells that signaled the surrender of the army at King's Landing. In a seemingly abrupt move, Dany foists her fire-spewing dragon over the city, killing soldiers and citizens alike in a violent spectacle of destruction. Several characters die dramatically or disappointingly. Arya witnesses the destruction and mass deaths on ground level, and Dany and her dragon are removed from close focus to become a flyover horror.

Self on a Shelf: Interabled Relationships, Queen movie's censorship, and other not-yet-abandoned topics in my novels

Bohemian Rhapsody in China = NoHomo

How long after an artist has fully explored a topic that they care about should it be abandoned, or put on a shelf? 

Granted, my novels will always be about gay men and the depiction of their humanity. But the specific themes and interests have to be stored and cherished, then put on a mental (and actual) side shelf to make way for new exploration, unless you're the kind of artist who continually explores the same themes; not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not my style.

Allow me to touch on some of my recent novels' themes. I'm going against all the author tips for discussing one's art while trying to lure in a few sales. "Write short quick blogs! Tweet funny memes!" Nope, a few long rambling essays a month or so is where I'm at.

Flick of the Wrist
While finishing Now I'm Here, my sixth novel, I immersed myself in Queen's music, even made a chapter-by-chapter playlist. As the recent awards season proved, the film Bohemian Rhapsody was a crowd-pleaser, despite having warped the life of Freddie Mercury into a truncated and myopic tale.

Nevertheless, I piggybacked on the film's release and success as a tie-in for the novel, which includes the main characters Joshua and David attending a Queen concert, and a lead character who gains fame with his solo versions of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Fight Back Club: how Star Trek: Discovery's Hugh Culver helps us remember the future

"If Memory Serves," the eighth episode in Season 2 of the amazing Star Trek: Discovery, not only recalls the earliest of days of the show's legacy, but along with a thrilling multi-layered story, reminds us of how LGBT people recover after the 'death' of violence.

While viewing the episode, I had an epiphany, which I'll explain. But first let me go back, or forward, if you will.

I have an enemy. I will confront him again.
Perhaps you do, too, that one most evil soul who assaulted you, or betrayed you beyond explanation. A gay-basher, an abusive partner, a violent authority figure with weapons and power who dragged you off at a protest, or for no reason other than being Black, or gay, or transgender, or poor; a former employer who sabotaged you, a judge who disdained and sentenced you in one way or another.

Patricia Nell Warren, author, mentor, shero and the Mother of Gay Fiction

Patricia Nell Warren's The Front Runner remains one of the prime inspirations for me to write fiction. News of her death today has reached beyond mutual friends to her many fans. I recall many conversations we had during her visits to literary conferences, and events in San Francisco. 

Her writing and advice were a true inspiration in literature and the global LGBT sports community. I still have the worn 1979 (fifth edition) paperback from my first purchase of a gay novel in 1979, which she signed, along with others over the years. If you haven't done so, you owe it to yourself to read more of her work. Farewell, dear woman.

Disagreeing on Disagreement: the Upside Down of 'Them'

Three examples of online arguments vexed me enough to further explore them. The first was being scolded for calling Starbucks coffee drinkers dumb, the second for getting rightwing hatred in a rock music group, the third being outright rabid hatred for ads with my new book trailer. They're each strangely connected, and worth comparing.

First off, reviews are good, so it's not about my books, although they could certainly use some new ones! That's one thing I can take, a critical book review that focuses on the storytelling. 

Of course, if more people were buying it, I wouldn't feel compelled to spend a few bucks to promote the very nice trailer for my book. I'd uploaded it to YouTube and Instagram, hoping to promote them both, but had to re-upload it on Facebook to try to get it on Instagram, which failed. So I simply paid about $30 to get the trailer show up as a sponsored ad on Facebook. I chose three categories; people in the U.S., who like the band Queen and, when searching for Gay Interest, chose "Gay Life." Okay.

A day later, I got a notification about two comments on the shorter book trailer. Yay!

But they were abrupt virulently bible-hatred of 'the gay.' A day later, another one 'Heck no' was less offensive. Each of these people happened upon my ad, whose thumbnail shows the two cover models in the back of a truck being affectionate.
  These are Diane Mcallister Nichols' comments. I could show you her anti-Muslim, anti-everything not her posts, but I'll spare you.

Don't Stop Me Now - pianos and protease

With a few Golden Globes, five Oscar nominations, and fan adoration worldwide, Bohemian Rhapsody is enjoying another encore.

I'm making plans to see the sing-along version of Bohemian Rhapsody, because despite its flaws, and even disdain, I want to have fun with the music again.

But it's not without a skeptic's eye, for while the band's music continues to please, the praise is a bit perplexing to some. Insider considers Bohemian Rhapsody to be among the 12 least deserving Oscar noms, and allegations on its director are coming out in full.

"To even begin to argue over whether or not Bohemian Rhapsody deserves its best picture nomination you have to ignore the Bryan Singer sexual assault allegations (it's worth noting he was let go from the project but still took credit for its Golden Globe win on Instagram) and the accusations of straight-washing and lack of conversation around Freddie Mercury's death from AIDS, which Rami Malek admits is a problem."

Fans of Queen don't care. The band, Freddie Mercury in particular, always had a contentious relationship with the media. They just love the music, and the story, despite its numerous fictionalizations.

Queen devotees now can sing along for a pre-Oscar victory lap in 750 theaters. It's the latest phase of the expertly marketed film and music enterprises; book, album, a Carnaby Street takeover. Amazing; very Queen. I still feel bad about paying to see it considering what's to follow, but I didn't pay the first time (see onstage interview with 3 of the cast), if that counts.

 
"Great King Rat was a dirty old man"
What's not very Queen is the now-re-announced multiple accusations of sexual assault against (85%) Director Bryan Singer. The Atlantic says the director "has been trailed by accusations of sexual misconduct for 20 years. Here, his alleged victims tell their stories."

According to multiple sources, Fox had no idea that the Sanchez-Guzman lawsuit was coming when the studio fired Singer. Still, Sanchez-Guzman’s claims shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Almost from the moment his star began to rise, Singer, who is now 53, has been trailed by allegations of sexual misconduct. These allegations were so well known that 4,000 students, faculty members, and alumni at the University of Southern California had signed a petition asking the school to take Singer’s name off one of its programs, the Bryan Singer Division of Cinema and Media Studies—which the school did immediately after Sanchez-Guzman filed his suit. As one prominent actor told us, “After the Harvey Weinstein news came out, everyone thought Bryan Singer would be next.”

Other publications are catching up to what many have known for years, like this expose in Vanity Fair, which puts Bohemian Rhapsody's producers and stars in a sticky situation; little if any mention has been made to Singer through the Golden Globe wins (albeit a cryptic tweet), and the upcoming Oscar rite could endure the same mendacity. Make jokes about convicted Cosby and harpooned Harvey, but Singer's mum because why ... because you knew?

Singer's response, according to IndieWire, is that the accusations and article are nothing but "homophobic attacks" against the film's success. That's hardly valid, considering that the alleged sexual assaults go back years. Is it 'homophobic' to treat a gay alleged sex predator the same as a straight one?

But GLAAD isn't waiting for a court of law, and has snubbed Bohemian Rhapsody from its lauded roster, Variety reports in their statement issued two days after the Atlantic article and other articles were published.  GLAAD won't be tossing their usual lucite awards to straight actors playing gay this time, despite its rather sympathetic, if not clichéd, depiction of Mercury's life.

“In light of the latest allegations against director Bryan Singer, GLAAD has made the difficult decision to remove ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ from contention for a GLAAD Media Award in the Outstanding Film – Wide Release category this year. This week’s story in The Atlantic documenting unspeakable harms endured by young men and teenage boys brought to light a reality that cannot be ignored or even tacitly rewarded.”  

And while most of the straight fan-mania ignores this, or has no clue, elation continues among the band's larger fandom ("I've seen it six times!" they crow online). New young fans exclaim their devotion, having only been born decades after his death.

Lives have changed. The face of AIDS is almost lost to myth to them, except fan groups obsessed with Jim Hutton's later years, hinted at on-screen in the film, but more in home movies and memoirs that document what happened after Live Aid. Freddie's other life scenes were left unshot. 

Now We're There: mapping time through fictional realities

The recent trend of sharing then-and-now photos has me thinking of the years spent between major accomplishments, and how we document our lives. I mark my timeline by novels, and where they took place has been aided by old analog maps, memories and photos, from slides to prints and now online searches.

I remember a lot, which is good, because a few pivotal moments' memories never got mapped or on film.

Now I'm Here... now I'm there, too

The years that my novel Now I'm Here took place, 1970 and 1980s, are countered by my many return visits home, where the story seemed to be accumulating like slow ivy. The two main characters are Joshua, a piano prodigy, and David a pumpkin farmer.

For piano provenance, proving the years of my musicianship existed, I offer a newly found (see PINS photo/map search above). The piano itself and its location in our home is the dining room. I'd play for hours, but also at the local (then) Ashland College studios, choosing from Yamahas and Steinways.

For farm boy authenticity, sadly I never documented my pumpkin farm experience in any 1981 photos. It was often beautiful amid the labors of hauling truckfull after truckfull for months, but not a camera-ready environment back then. I never even remembered to drive by years later and get an image of the farm house and barn. Now it's all floral greenhouses, as I included in the story.

All I have left are the Red Wing boots I bought for the job, which lasted 40 years. But they're in the basement and you don't need a photo of a pair of boots. You'll have to settle for the 1998 image above.