Tom gave me this candle for Christmas, and it burned next to me sometimes over the multiple days this post has taken me to write.
Now that some of our house and holiday chaos has tapered off, I’ve resumed working on the Neverending Saga. It feels really good. I mentioned that I’d gotten encouraging messages from Lynne when she read the most recent chapters. I’m very fortunate that both Tom and Lynne stay engaged by these novels and offer me not just positive feedback, but also constructive suggestions, and they sometimes ask questions that cause me to look ahead or to better flesh out things already written.
In a few months, it’ll mark six years I’ve been working on this series. It’s been challenging and sometimes discouraging. As I start the new year, I’m doing a kind of inventory of the journey so far.
First: One of the first people, who is not a writer, with whom I discussed my plan for rewriting/developing the novels, told me that I couldn’t write books that include the diverse set of people and some of the social matters I wanted to make part of the stories. Because I’m white (and so is this person), I was warned that any characters of color–whether Latinx/Latine, Black, or indigenous American–would be rejected by the “woke” readers (not my term) I might hope would be among my audience. Within a couple of years of that conversation, expressing my opinions and values, not just in the books, became enough of a problem that this person chose to end the friendship.
I was surprised but have no animosity or resentment about it. I see it happen every day among friends and families, consequences of the time we live in. It does, however, make me uneasy when other people go silent now. Instead of thinking, everyone’s busy, lives are complicated and full of competing demands, I tend to castigate myself for anything I might have said or done that drove them away. This despite the fact that I have friendships stretching back through all the decades since the sixties, and we don’t all think alike or agree on everything. If each of us has a specific fear or anxiety, mine is abandonment, and it’s based on experience. Who knew one day the term for that would be “ghosting.” I’m not a fan. I do appreciate that in the experience described above, at least I wasn’t ghosted.
Second: Getting back to what and how I want to write, I understand the concept of “own voices.” We need more books from diverse writers; people of all cultures, genders, socio-economic groups, minorities, sexual orientations. It’s not my place or right to co-opt the stories of those voices. However, I’ve lived in, and I grew up in, places with a wide variety of people. I’ve worked with, lived with, gone to schools with, attended churches with, been taught by, and been friends with all kinds of people from all kinds of cultures. Even before I ever wrote a word (I started my first novel when I was eleven), I observed everybody. I listened to everybody. I heard people’s stories. I read endlessly in all kinds of genres, set in places all over the world. I’ve taken no one else’s stories, but many of their stories undoubtedly speak to or inspire the stories I write. I’m not writing biographies. I’m writing fiction.
Third: I kicked off the first decade of this century with published novels I wrote with three gay men. Every one of us wrote every character: male, female, straight, gay, transgendered, Black, white, Latinx/Latine, elderly, adolescent, wealthy, struggling. We weren’t writing autobiographies. We were writing fiction. People often assumed I wrote the straight female characters in those novels. I did introduce a new one occasionally, but their stories were filtered just as often through the other writers as through me. Once characters are properly established, they take on their own lives, whether I’m the only writer or a co-writer. That statement right there–I’ll go back and put it in bold–is my joy in writing fiction. Characters will surprise me, defy me, break my heart, and make me love them, even their flaws.
Fourth: One friend offered to read the books as they were being written, as a kind of beta reader. I’ve never had beta readers (other than my writing partners). I gave fair warning that these were works in progress based on old, very old, versions I wrote in the far-away past. They were subject to change during new versions because I’m older now and a more seasoned writer. This person had read and enjoyed my published novels (the TJB novels, the Lambert-Cochrane novels, the Coventry novels). To me, that implied I could be trusted to tell the stories of flawed characters organically. Not only were my narrative choices subject to change, the characters would change. Grow. Make mistakes. Course correct. Learn. I think that’s called being HUMAN. I don’t write androids. Robots. Aliens. (I don’t even write vampires who sparkle, but I sure read them.) I’m not interested in writing perfect or static characters. If you trust me because you’ve read me before, then I deserve the opportunity to develop the story and allow my characters their flawed humanity. This person began to take issue with my characters’ choices. In addition, I’d get comments like, “This character is obviously a serial killer.” I’ve never written, would never write, a serial killer. Anyone who’s read me knows that. The feedback became insulting, annoying, and an impediment to my process. The friendship survived; the beta reading relationship ended.
Fifth: Other people agreed to or offered to read the works in progress. Here have been the results of that. One never started the first book after agreeing to be a reader. One read the early lives of the first three of four characters who have points of view in the first novel, but then got tired of reading anything and wanted to switch to watching television for a while. The manuscript was never picked up again. One read the first novel and asked for the second, where the reading stalled. As far as I know, it remains unfinished. A fourth wanted to read them, has the first two novels, and again, as far as I know, never began.
These things definitely impact my self-esteem as a writer. Now, when someone asks, “May I read them?” The answer is, “Not until they’re all finished.” The beta/early reader concept hasn’t worked for me, and I realized it can even be harmful. I’ll continue writing and hopefully finish these novels because I want to. Because I need to know how it all turns out.
Below, using the week’s theme of black and white, is some motivation. Maybe you need it, too, as encouragement to forge ahead and protect yourself from what inhibits or harms your creativity.
From this wee book, I’ve found an opportunity to elaborate on my week’s theme: Time. Or rather, I’m letting a couple of poets do it for me. Right now, I seem to be letting others do the heavy lifting on most of my other social media. I’ll elaborate on that some other day so that I can revel in the delight today’s post provides me. I hope it adds something good to your day, as well.
Author Paul Lisicky, a writer whose work I always enjoy, and a contributor to our (as in Timothy J. Lambert and my) January 2014 anthology (11 years!) Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction, has a new book coming out, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell (on sale February 25, 2025). I’m looking forward to reading this. As Harper Collins describes it, A guide to life that is part memoir, part biography, and part homage, Song So Wild and Blue is a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes.
