Are We What We Create?

In the loud and crowded world of the information age, we need, we're told, to develop a brand, gather a tribe, then focus like a laser on staying on target.

Well, I'm not one thing. I doubt you are, either. I don't write one kind of fiction. I don't read one kind. I am as invested in my gardens as I am in my writing. Cooking, too. I never expected my writing t bring me wealth, any more than I expected that of the gardens I've created.

People who walk by when I'm in the yard stop to tell me it's lovely, that they walk by just to see it. Prettiest in the neighborhood. One woman drives to this neighborhood for her walks just to see my yard. That's gratification enough. To share my vision and have someone say, wow, terrific. Well done.

That's all I want from my writing, too. Sure, having a book on the NYT top 10 wouldn't hurt my feelings. Who wouldn't love it? Promote the hell out of it? Absolutely. But I don't need it.

I create because I love the doing of it. I love rearranging words to see what fits best where. I love doing the same with my landscape. Often things that promised beauty turn out not to work, must be edited out or moved. A paragraph, an image, a shrub or perennial, stunted, obtrusive in one spot, thrives as a coherent element in another.

Raised Presbyterian, I eventually discovered The Tibetan Book of the Dead, read the Tao Te Ching, consulted the I Ching and runes, and delved into various mystical branches of many world religions. Who knows what is legend and what is history? Or what comes from enlightenment and what springs from wishful thinking?

With age comes perspective. Every faith believes itself to be the one true path to God, but none can pin down who or what "God" is. Certainly not some bearded wielder of lightning bolts or judgments. I've stopped trying to understand. I accept that I can't know. I can't even know if there's a greater Force permeating all creation. I still kinda tend to think maybe. There's just too much that can't be explained.

Each religion has branded what that is, that concept of original universal creative intelligence, whether called The Way, or God, or Allah, or Yahweh. I can't even say for sure there is one, though I'll hedge my bet. If there is, great, if not, I'll never know. So I choose to live as if it's true, but, as this invocation puts it so well, "in the names of the one who is all love."

Okay, pretty huge jump there, from me and writing and gardening to the mysteries of the universe, and I don't intend to get all religious. But, you know what? It's not really such a leap. Those mysteries inform my writing, my work with my little patch of earth, and every act of creation, however small.

There are hundreds, more, who can instruct on the craft of writing with far more authority than I, or on the ins and outs of publishing. I'll certainly bring up things I see that make me fucking nuts, or that make me need to share the beauty, or the absurdity, or whatever.

I am a writer. I work the earth. I'm fascinated by all aspects of creation. That could be writing as a craft, storytelling, the art of scaring the shit out of you by turning something everyday, something you cherish, into something that might take your soul, eat your children, and turn you into the monster. It could be a miraculous virgin birth as the cover for as miraculous an alien intervention.

So where does that put me? A perpetually skeptical spiritual explorer. Let there be Light, yeah, but those dark places sure are intriguing, aren't they? What's that around that corner? Was it human? Is it here to save us or destroy us?

Let me go into the garden and think about it while I move a few hostas. There's magic the the rearrangement of plants. And words. And body parts.

Damn. I haven't narrowed me down! Guess I'll have to live with who I am. And I'm okay with that.

We are creators, but are we what we create? How do you see the acts of creation?

Branding Your Writer's Self

I resist the idea of making "a brand" of myself and my work, but they say I must. We all must. So how do you accomplish that when it feels like shoeboxing an entire wardrobe?

I've written before about finding one's niche as a writer. About finding your tribe. Speaking specifically to your audience.

My tribe would be humans moved by humanity, what makes us and drives us. And what may lie beyond our human perception or comprehension.

As a writer, the first part of that statement would have me writing literary fiction. The second part puts me firmly in the speculative fiction camp.

I'm a split personality. And to that duality, I have to add a third: being a gay man with a desire to be a voice in that tribe. So I'm a writer of gay literary speculative fiction? Try to find that section of your local bookstore.

See, here's the thing. I love good horror, but I hate the often cheesy places it goes. I love the idea of alien interaction, ancient or current, in, upon, or among humans, but I don't always love reading science fiction. And while I would love to be one more author making gay characters an integrated part of everyday life, I don't want to limit myself to gay fiction. And I don't want to write gay "issue" stories. There are plenty of those.

So, shouldn't we speak to those with whom we'd love to speak, who would like to speak with us? People who are moved by or interested in what moves us to write? And wouldn't that, shouldn't that be found in what we like to read?

Well, no shit.

What moves me in reading, besides beautifully crafted images, language that sings, is what's amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking and brave and heroic about the human experience.

That can be found in fantasy worlds, of course, but I prefer to write about the world I know, with elements of speculation, because I love "what if…?" And if the suppositions are about horrific possibilities, well, I'm there, too. Bring it on.

So, back to branding. I think I prefer variations on a theme. But that's just me. And where's the niche?  Can I be an author of Speculative Gay Literary Fiction?  Author of Gay Literary Speculative Fiction? Or gay author of Literary Speculative Fiction? Yeah, show me that shelf.

Hello? Gay and gay-friendly wonderers, are you there? Can we talk about our fears, hopes, disappointments, tragedies, and joys? About what brings us together and tears us apart? About what makes all of us human? And, in some cases, decidedly not human? What I can bring to the party is a slew of good questions, some deep, some silly, some sad, some scary, and some without answers—at least from our limited view. We are, after all, only humans.

Or are we brands?

What say you?

Stanley and Phil Are Out

So, I finished the story, and Stanley and Phyllis are Stanley and Phil. It's now a gay couple, but the story is no different than it would have been had they remained a hetero couple. The point is, they aren't different. It's time for LGBT characters to go mainstream.

The Southern Baptists may feel differently, and the Holy See may disagree. Too bad. They can't hold back the tide.

When Ellen came out, the news rated magazine covers. She stepped into a spotlight where she had to state that she did not want to become a spokesperson. But she was, anyway. Nowadays, the news of another celebrity being gay is usually a throw-away line, no big deal. As it should be.

So the story becomes not about being gay or about gay rights, but about being human, facing human conditions, and incidentally, being gay along the way.

Stanley and Phil face the same fate in the same way as Stanley and Phyllis would have. But now that nice old couple next door, the ones that have been together for, well, longer than most, just happens to be two men. Could just as easily be two women. Any two humans.

Neil Patrick Harris may have limited his options by telling the world he's gay, but mostly those who loved him as a performer love him more. Did he lose a few admirers? No doubt. Has it hurt him? Well, I can't speak for him, since we don't often sit down over drinks together, but I'd wager a tidy sum it has not.

So for a writer, is playing it safe, working within broadly "acceptable" boundaries to gain the widest possible audience by not offending anyone a smart idea? A look at best-seller lists would say no. Sex sells. All fifty shades of it. Serial killers, sociopaths. Children killing children.

But homosexuality being shown as a natural part of the fabric of life?

Guess what. It is. And no longer is it relegated to LGBT lit, TV or movies. What had to be front-and-center with Will and Grace has become the gay family member and her/his partner, the gay couple next door. Modern Family? American Horror Story? Gay couple neatly worked in, simply part of the whole.

No one ever made a mark by playing it safe. You can't please everyone, anyway. And "they" say, if you haven't pissed anyone off, you haven't done your job. Plenty of books, stories, and movies play to kids or "wholesome" families, and carefully do NOT anger anyone. But Harry Potter was condemned for promoting the occult, Hunger Games for the hideous idea of kids being pitted against each other to the death for society's amusement (although often it seems we're not far from that now.)

So I'm taking a stand for risk. And if I piss off some, so be it. I probably wouldn't want to have drinks with them anyway, or they with me.

So who'll join me for a martini, a beer, a sweet tea (ugh)?

Stanley and Phyllis or Stanley and Phil?

A while ago I posted about a story in the local paper that I was mulling for a short story. An old couple found dead together, frozen in their back yard in mid-winter. Cause unknown. A history of illness, possibly Alzheimer's. Perhaps the wife had fallen, the husband had gone to help and…

I've half written the story.

I've also (see my last post on platform specificity) been working on defining myself.

So now I will digress, and put aside that story yet again. But not really.

The novel I've written includes (count the audiences) a gay protagonist, an evangelist (antagonist) who hosts an interdimensional alien invader, the protag's sister (strong but vulnerable woman) and her hot live-in boyfriend whom she won't marry (women's fic), a pre-teen black boy and his mother (multi-racial/intercultural), both brave and in danger, the protag's partner, a jealous friend, another teen seeking revenge and teetering on the edge of dark and light, and other minions and allies, family and foe.

That's sure as hell not narrowing it down.

Is it a gay novel? Not really. It's a thriller with a gay protagonist who has a partner. But the sister's/boyfriend's story arc is central.

The high school jock and the brave boy are key, but it's definitely not Young Adult. While I've read some YA I enjoy, I'm not a YA writer. I just can't give up enough sex or judiciously used swear words. (English would be a far less expressive language lacking "fuck.") So I know that's not my audience.

Is it a spiritual/religious novel? It does posit questions about certain kinds of religious practice (help me here, John Lennon) and concepts of "light" and "energy." Those concepts and questions intrigue me. What are the truths that give birth to the legends, beliefs, myths, and religions? But I'm more about the questions than the answers.

But this isn't about me. Or about my story, or my novel. It's about homing in on whom I'm writing for. 

No doubt I'd lose people if I go for gay. Do I care, if I gather more LGBT folks who relate to me? Actually, no. Plenty of straight folk would come along if, in writing "gay," I'm writing "humanity."

And don't some of that group enjoy speculating on the nature of reality, spirituality, the paranormal? Sure they do. And a good supernatural scare, too.

So I'm out in the garden watering the other day, thinking about these things as I water baby zinnias, and suddenly I'm thinking maybe that story about Stanley and Phyllis should be about Stanley and Phil. Same story, different angle.

A generation ago, a few very famous playwrights did just the opposite. Maybe it's time for Martha to take off her drag. Maybe now it's time for George and Mark, not Martha, to duke it out.

Easy to say get specific, but hard to do. The "experts" say not to go for thousands, but for a specific few.

Anyone out there into supernatural/metaphysical/speculative/gay fiction? 

Blogging, Branding, and Vampire Blood

Another two months gone without a post to this blog. I think it's safe to assume, at least for this extended moment of passage, that I am not a social media creature. Again I ponder what I have to say that would matter. I struggle with the notion of creating "a brand" of myself. Hell, I only recently found that the novel I've danced with long after the ball ended isn't paranormal, which never felt right to me, but more probably science fiction. Well shut my mouth. If I can't even peg the genre in which I've wallowed for these many years, how can I advise anyone else about things writerly? Simple: I don't.


I read on others' blogs on social networking and building platform that one shouldn't set out to build a platform or create a brand for one's self. One should simply identify who his target audience is and write to them. Target audience for the novel that I'd be pitching, should I ever land an agent or publisher? That assumes that the audience for that novel would be the same audience for future works and for the random digressions, wanderings down dark hallways of the mind, that make up the blog posts or tweets. Yikes. Somehow those short 140 character things seems more daunting than full posts, so much more ripe with likelihood of instant dismissal. What the fuck is he talking about? 


So who would be my desired audience? They'd be people who love to delve into the mysteries of the common threads that tie together the hidden (dare I say occult?) knowledge of the working of the universe that runs through all religions and is pretty much equally distorted by all of them. People who are willing to believe, but don't necessarily believe. Everything is possible. Nothing is absolutely true. But mostly, I want to talk to people who can go there and laugh about it, and laugh at themselves. 


Above all, they say, be funny. I can be funny, but I don't write funny, and the kind of humor I like best leans heavily toward the dark and twisted side. Erotic. Profane. Quentin Tarantino. I haven't figured out how to address that in blog posts, especially ones about writing, the writer's journey, querying, and all those things that every other person in the publishing world writes about. 


What do I write about then? What kinds of things would I want to toss around with kindred souls? Let's get irreverent. Was the archangel who came to Mary of Biblical fame really an alien visitor? Was her son, the famous one, really the offspring of a human/alien mating? Are the creatures of the night, the ones of legend, vampires, werewolves, goblins, all alien beings playing on our superstitions, giving us what we are afraid of? Are miracles a simple matter of high-level manipulation of what we perceive as reality? Can we laugh at all those possibilities fooling with us, scaring us, and, alternatively, raising us up? After all, alien doesn't necessarily mean from another planet. Just another place. And just because they might exist and operate on a different level of perceived reality from us, mightn't they be just as prone to extremes of good and evil, whatever those are on whatever scale is used to measure them?


See, there just aren't viable tweets there. Or even posts. Do I believe all that shit? Bwa ha ha. No. Well, maybe. Why not? Could be. What was that wheel within the wheel? Sure is one hell of a lot more likely than humans and dinosaurs sharing the planet together after a seven day splurge of creation. No shortage of scared, desperate hopefuls willing to buy the snake oil. How about a vial of blood instead?