Eric Arvin's Blog, page 41

Literary Identity

From an early age I have been interested in fantasies and epics, in the surreal and the fractured. The kind of books and stories the quiet kids read. I think this might be because, growing up gay, I felt more of a kinship with that genre of book than with the books I was being assigned to read in school. (The Old Man & the Sea? I'd rather not.) As a young'un I would much rather have lived in Middle Earth than in Middle America. For me Oz wasn't just a slang term for Australia. In Middle America our heartless woodsmen rarely went in search for what was missing.
Still, as I got older and my thoughts became oft distracted by romantic urges, even the beloved fantasy lands of epic narratives began to lose their appeal. There were no gay characters in fantasy fiction at that time. At least, none I was aware of. I understood that to read the type of adventures I wanted to read and to meet the type of characters I needed to meet, I was going to have to create them all by myself. And so I did, if mildly at first. After all, one does not jump into a gay relationship, fictional or not, without looking around to see if it's safe.
In my earliest attempts at writing, discretion was the key. I wanted a buffer in case my stories were discovered by my Jehovah's Witness parents. Rather than boldly stating 'these guys are in love,' I learned to insinuate and imply. (Though, even as early as three I had a distinct and rather peculiar fascination with my body, as evidenced by the pornographic graffiti I had scribbled in the pages of the Holy Bible. Oops.)
Like most young gay people of my age in Middle America, I was starved for representation and looked for it everywhere. (I was crushed when I discovered the lead singer of Concrete Blonde was a woman and "Joey" was not, in fact, a gay love song. Oh, my poor little heart!) I did not identify with the characters whose adventures I was reading in the academically regulated books at Southwestern Jr/Sr High School. Sadly, though, I never really expected to. As a gay youth I assumed I would always be on the outside looking in.
The first time I can remember connecting to a book in a deep personal way was John Knowles' A Separate Peace, which remains a favorite of mine to this day. I saw through to what the straight kids didn't and to what the teachers would never discuss. I saw the love affair in that book. I recognized it and felt the pain. It was a beautiful experience. It was…cathartic. Yet there was never another book assigned in my pre-college education that dared to confront, or even tip-toe around, the same sex issue. Tennessee Williams wasn't mentioned once in class. I still wonder what the hell that was about. I mean, it's Tennessee fucking Williams!
My reading outside of school was a different matter. As I got older and less frightened by the rules of a confining religion, I became more daring in my reading choices, from Alice Walker's The Color Purple to Anne Rice's…well, Anne Rice's anything.
And then there was James Purdy. His work, beautiful and horrific, written in a style that still makes me marvel and grin, taught me that great writing did not need to stay in between the lines. More importantly for me at the time, Purdy's work – especially Narrow Rooms and In a Shallow Grave – showed me that a gay romance could be just as sweeping as anything written by those depressed Bronte sisters.
My reading soon sped off into all different directions…all different gay directions, that is. Michael Cunningham, Jamie O'Neill, Geoff Ryman, Maria McCann. I started writing in an attempt to be published myself and my world opened even further, giving me the opportunity to talk to writers I had read, like Hal Duncan, Rick R. Reed, Ruth Sims, Dorien Grey, and Douglas Clegg.
There was a time I became so impressed by what has come to be tagged as "gay lit" or "M/M fiction" that I refused to read anything else. I decided that all my life I had been forced to read fiction that was, more or less, aimed at a heterosexual audience and now that I was able to make my own reading decisions I was going to be a very exclusive reader. I didn't need Grisham or Dan Brown or any of those straight behemoths. All I wanted to read was gay, gay, gay! And, unlike the film world, I discovered the literary world has never been left wanting when discussing sexuality, from Thomas Mann to Gore Vidal to that naughty bad boy pervert Jean Genet. I filled up my library with books about or for gay men and women. And it was – is – a fabulous library!
Still, I knew I was missing out on some good stuff by my prejudiced reading habits. It took a few years, but eventually I started to read the hets again. I even picked up some Stephen King, something I had vowed never to do for the simple fact that everyone else was doing it. And while I do enjoy the occasional novel by a straight writer, maybe even with a straight lead character, I prefer the books I read to have at least one gay character, and this one gay character must not be the chief bad guy. (You hear me, Orson Scott Card?)
So, I've come full circle with my reading habits. I'm back on my fantasy kick again. Only now, the lands I'm visiting – both my own and those of other writers – come to even brighter life because the inhabitants are more diverse than ever. It's wonderful, too, when a reader writes me to tell me how they have been moved by something I have written. The thought that maybe, in some small way, I have had an influence on someone…well, that's just about all a writer can ask for. That and a spot on a college syllabus.

Areas of Focus

This Week's Bullet Points

1. Just go ahead and give Jessica Lange the Emmy now.

2. Saw the first edits of my new book Galley Proof. I didn't realize how personal it was.

3. Gore Verbinski's Clue remake, taken out of the mansion and set on a world stage, sounds pointless.

4. The script for Book 1 of my erotic dumb-muscleboy-fights-cum-sucking-demon comic book Bubbles n' Gordy from Class Comics has been written and was sent to Absolutbleu for him to work his magic.

5. Madonna is performing at the Super Bowl, forcing me to watch.

6. I am halfway through the first draft of Book 3 in my Jasper Lane series. The book is called SuburbaNights.

7. The Walking Dead: It's good to see Shane has time to workout. That gives the zombies something healthy to chew on.

Motherland - Natalie Merchant

One of her absolute best. Damn! She's got a unique set of pipes

From My Twisted Head

Images by some of my favorite artists, based on the images twisted out of my brain-head:




HVH did this for me. An illustration for my short story "Prometheus" in my anthology Slight Details & Random Events.


Absolutbleu illustrated my novella "Kid Christmas Rides Again", about a muscle-bound Saint Nick who just happens to be a power bottom.

I commissioned this a few years ago from Iceman. I was going through a phase.

Little Hot Sheep

Little Ro Peep and Her Dancing Sheep

Forget the singing. Look at those hot sheep! I'd like to Bo THEIR peeps, if you know what I'm sayin'. Yeah. Yeah, you do.

Short Horror Story

Happy Halloween everyone! Below is a short horror story I wrote a few years ago that was included in my anthology from Dreamspinner Press, Slight Details & Random Events. It's based on a dream I had. Enjoy!


He didn't know why they had even bothered to come. They were in the nosebleeds, so far away from the stage, so high up, that they couldn't even see the gyrations of the hot male dance troupe. But the tickets were free – a promotional tool from a local radio station - so Marc and his boyfriend had said , Why not?
Gay men and straight women hooted and hollered around him in the balcony seats as if they could see clearly what was going on down below. Thankfully, Marc had brought his camera phone with him and he could zoom in on the action. Security was lax and he could easily get away with it. Cell phones were so tiny these days, almost unnoticeable.
On stage danced an especially well-hung firefighter. A costume cliché, yes, but who cares? This wasn't Broadway after all. This was burlesque. Marc took out the camera from his jacket pocket, looked around for security, then quickly snapped a photo. It was an exhilarating thing to possibly get caught, but nobody saw him. The audience was too busy ogling the sweaty, humpy dancer.
Marc looked at the photo, prepared to see something gorgeous and muscular. Masturbation material much better than some porn rag because this guy was real. Not touched up. What he saw puzzled him, however. The stripper was there, quite evident in all his shiny, muscled, well-endowed glory, but there was another figure as well. Someone shadowy and strange. Someone who had not been on the stage just a moment before. A tall, thin man with pale skin stared at the stripper, unmoved. The stripper seemed aware of some strangeness near him. He looked anxious, uneasy, avoiding the thin man's gaze.
Was there no security around at all to keep creeps like that away from the dance troupe?
Marc looked to the stage again. There was only one man there. Just the beefy firefighter whose movements now seemed slower, as if frightened and ready to bolt. The audience was becoming aware of his lack of attention to his performance. A few boos came from the crowd.
Where was the thin man?
Marc raised the camera phone again and clicked, completely forgetting to check his surroundings for security. The picture he got this time startled him even more than the first. The thin man appeared once more, but now he was no longer watching the stripper. Instead, his eyes were focused on the audience. Staring up, in fact, to the nosebleeds. At Marc.
Marc's heart began to beat faster. He looked around him nervously. His boyfriend, noticing his anxiety, asked him what was wrong. He said, Nothing. Nothing. Just dazed by it all, I guess.
His boyfriend nodded in naughty approval and returned his attention to the stage. "Make sure you get some killer pics," he said.
Marc swallowed and clicked again. There was a blur in the new photo. It passed directly in front of the stripper. The thin man was caught mid-leap from the stage by Marc's camera phone. The hairs on the back of Marc's neck stood on end. He breath quickened. What was happening? Who…what was that? Didn't anybody else see it? Surely he couldn't be the only one in the audience with a camera phone.
Click.
The stripper was alone now. The thin man was gone. The stripper seemed to recover. He put more oomph into his struts and moves, and the audience responded with frenzied cheers.
Click.
Still nothing. But the stripper was much more comfortable.
Marc began taking pictures of the entire arena. To his right, to his left. The thin phantom man had disappeared altogether. After a while, Marc relaxed somewhat. He began to enjoy what he could see of the show again. He and his boyfriend laughed and whistled at the parade of muscle men who disrobed in front of them, and he nearly forgot about the strange, pale, thin man.
On stage now was a fine specimen of masculinity. A very large man whose best asset, it was clear, was his rather amply-sized backside. He jiggled and bounced his rear at the audience and they went wild. Marc could not resist getting a picture of that. He might even blow it up wall-size!
Click.
When he looked at the photo he went pale. He felt his blood as ice, his hair as pin pricks. He almost forgot to breathe at all. In front of him, blocking the view of the stripper, was the thin man. He stared directly into the camera, his eyes as dark as coal, his face emotionless and gaunt, his lips thin and tight. Marc stood with a start. Those around him did as well, but because they were caught up in a frenzy of lust not a surging terror. Marc looked at his boyfriend. He wasn't paying attention. He was too busy fantasizing about the muscle god on stage.
Just breathe, Marc. Take it easy.
Click.
The thin man's sickly hand was reaching for the camera phone. Marc jerked, as if the phantom in front of him could actually take the phone from him. His teeth were chattering now. He couldn't stay here. He told his boyfriend he'd wait for him in the lobby.
Are you okay? This guy's hot.
I don't f-feel well.
He stumbled over men and women who were unaware, who could not see. As he went, he snapped pictures. Nothing. He kept using the phone, all around. Nothing. A calm started to settle in again, though he continued to walk with a brisk pace. Maybe he had left the thin man behind. Maybe whatever it was – a ghost, a demon – maybe it only haunted the arena.
Marc went to the restroom. He needed to get the image out of his mind. There were a few men there, but they hurried about their business so that they might get back to the show. Marc splashed some water on his face and stared into the mirror. His entire body visibly shook. He was barely able to lean on the sink, his arms quaked so that his elbows felt as if they might give out.
Calm down. Calm down. Whatever it was, it's gone. Maybe you're hallucinating. Maybe you took something you shouldn't have.
He needed to know. It frightened him, but he needed to know. Just to make sure, he took another photo.
Click.
He screamed when he saw the picture. In the mirror, behind him, a thin, pale face rested on his shoulder, fitting perfectly into the curve of his neck.

Happy Halloweenie!

[image error] The amazing work of Patrick Fillion!



More from Patrick!

My Ghost Story

Growing up a Jehovah's Witness, I was taught to believe there was no such thing as ghosts. Sure, there were demons acting on behalf of Satan to fuck with us. But ghosts? No. How silly! It didn't hit me until much later how ridiculous it was to believe in demons and angels and an almighty bogeyman yet to not believe in ghosts. I mean, if you're gonna go out on that particular limb, go all the way, right? But that's another blog post altogether.

There have been times in my life that I have distinctly felt the creeping of something supernatural. There was a time in Rome where I felt, for lack of a better word, possessed; there was a time in college, staying in the rack room of the Phi Delt fraternity completely alone, that I was certain I heard a woman singing right beside me; and, of course, there were my hospital visions last year. There have been around a dozen or so experiences like these in my life that have left me scratching my head.

The first one that I can recall - and it just recently occured to me after years of having shelved it away in some corner of my mind - happened when I was a child, around four or five years old. I was with the fam at a get-together across the river. A get-together with a bunch of other Jehovah's Witness families. Can you imagine? Oh, the comedy!

Anyway, it was an outdoor thing, but the house was huge and the children were allowed also to play in the basement. There was nothing creepy about the house or the basement, though living by the river offers its own special ambience. It was full of light. The house itself was actually newly built.

There were a lot of children there. Some of them I had never met before. There was one girl in particular around my age who I took an immediate liking to. I remember her take-charge attitude and long brown hair, though I can't remember her name. And I don't really remember playing with anyone but her while I was there. We played mostly outside on a hill above the house.

Well, we came back to the house when food was served. I went to eat and, after I was finished, went searching for her again. She was sassy. I was shy. I guess she balanced me. I didn't find her and so went inside the house to the basement to play with the other kids.

Suddenly, there was a commotion. We were told that this girl, my friend, had taken a tumble down the stairs and was in a bedroom resting. I was so worried. I don't remember precisely what happened next, but I do remember specifically standing at the bottom of the basement stairs and looking up at another girl on the landing. I shouted for her to tell my new injured friend that I loved her. (I know, right?) Well, then the strangest thing happened. My injured friend was told of my great and undying love and was brought to the top of the stairs to hear it for herself. (Very dramatic, I must say!)

But it wasn't her. It was a girl with long brown hair and the same name as the one I had been playing with, but the face wasn't hers. She, too, looked at me as if she had never seen me before. I kept insisting, No, not her! The other girl with the same name. Bt everyone said, Yes, this is the girl who fell.

It was a disorienting experience. I don't remember anything about the get-together after that, but I do remember being quite irritated that someone had taken my new sassy friend away. I never saw her face again after that. I have been searching ever since...

Ha! Just kidding. I haven't been searching ever since. But it was a very weird experience for me.

Simply DIVINE

Melissa McCarthy as Divine! Love this!