Laura Susan Johnson's Blog, page 10
July 13, 2013
Sorry I haven't blogged in so long/Beware: Vent Fest!!!
Hi everyone! Just wanted to say I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Very happy and appreciative of all the great reviews and ratings I've gotten here on GR for "Crush"!!!
WARNING: this blog is me ranting and rambling about different topics. You may be bored or annoyed. It's just me expressing my thoughts.
I'd been planning to make a youtube about why I wrote a scene in "Crush" in which Jamie puts on a condom before having sex with his husband Tammy. I want to assure those readers that it wasn't about trust. Tammy and Jamie are a monogamous couple. Tammy had more experience with sex, but before he and Jamie began their long overdue relationship, Tammy had become celibate. Jamie had been a Gray A who desired no one but Tammy. When I wrote this condom scene, my mind was on the quote I heard from Brian Kinney in an episode of "Queer As Folk", "Never have sex without a condom." In a way, I was afraid readers would criticize my very seldom mentionings of condoms in the book. Also, I used the condom to stress that Jamie was having penetrative sex for the first time in his life. Up until that moment, Jamie was always the "bottom". Tammy wanted to be topped, wanted them both to know what it's like to change places with each other. It was like a milestone for Jamie to be the one who would penetrate rather than receive. He had been reluctant to top Tammy. He had also had issues with other sex acts because of the horrific abuse he endured. He had this horror that somehow, if he engaged in certain acts, he would "become" his father, who raped and abused him for seven years. It was not "necessary" for him to wear a condom, because there were no trust issues between them anymore. It was just a way to demonstrate responsible sexual practices and to emphasize Jamie's milestone. I hope this helps anyone who got offended by that particular scene. I remain very appreciative of any feedback and thoughts about Crush :)
I've been kind of depressed and anxious for a month now. On June 11th I went to a hospital because I had fluid in my lungs and couldn't breathe very well. I got a lot of tests done, including a CT scan of my chest. They found a mass in my left breast, along with abnormal nodules in my left lung, a nodule or two in the mediastinum (around my heart) and some abnormal tissue inflammation in my esophagus.
I'm telling everyone this because talking about it eases my anxiety, and I like to share my life with people. I'm really frightened but trying not to let it show to my family. I'm trying to be strong, but I'm really afraid. I'm begging my regular doctors to hurry up and order the follow up testing to see if the tumors have grown in the past 5-6 weeks, but as yet the tests are not being ordered and when the office promises to call me to tell me what's going on, they do not. I've had a dry hacking cough for a while, but it's gotten worse in the past several weeks.
Ramble ramble ramble, but that's what I do when I'm nervous. Will ObamaCare make a huge difference when it begins? Will America one day decide that all disabled and inferm are worthless and disposable?
It makes me all the more glad that I've written Crush and Bright and all the short stories I've written. I plan to write more, and hope I live to write them.
I am an asexual. I will never get married and I will never have children. I've never hated men (I have had 4 boyfriends and several "almost" boyfriends. My first kiss was at age 18 with a very good male friend, but we didn't get together) and I've never hated children. I just have no desire for them in any way. I find men and women attractive, but it's purely aesthetic, perhaps even romantic, but never sexual. I hate watching hetero love scenes in movies, and yet I salivate over m/m love scenes in books and movies/TV. For that alone, I am thought of as a pervert/deviant. Writing "Crush" and "Bright" has been an absolute joy for me. This is the way I express myself sexually. I do not have sex. I write sex, and I write sex with joy and pain. The lovers in my books have to be humans who have suffered in some way. I want 2 people to find each other, have a fierce bond with each other, and fall deeply and sincerely in love. Their love must be strong enough to endure anything that comes their way. In my soon to be published "Bright" you will meet 2 lovers that I hope will touch you as deeply as Tammy and Jamie have :)
I was born asexual, and I feel no "void" in my life made by an absence of men, women or children. I will be honest...I am not the happiest person on this planet, but I am CONTENT. I am at ease. 99% of the time, I am not lonely. I have so many hobbies and activities that keep me engaged it seems too many people around only irritate me.
My religious Grandmother told me officially a few nights ago that she believes a woman who is not attracted to men is just as "abnormal" as a woman attracted to other women. She is a smart and sharp-witted 86 year old woman, but she chooses to live with a narrowed perspective of the world. She talks about why things should be a certain way, and how angry and outraged she is that there are homosexuals getting married, and black people marrying white people, and she does not like independent women at all, women who like being single...women who like to be alone and don't pine for romance.
I'll never change her. She lives by the King James Holy Bible and believes it's the literal word of God. If that book says something, she takes it the way her preachers tell her to take it, and applies it to every thought and decision. She does not accept me as an asexual. I have to accept that she will not accept me.
When the depression hits me, it's powerful, and it's not just simple sadness or hopelessness, it's a subtle panic that keeps me awake during the night. When I see the sun coming up, I feel relief, then I sleep. Sometimes, after running out of my antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, I'm too ill to drive 6 miles to have them refilled. Once I'm able to get my meds back, they really help me. The pain killers help too of course. I'm concerned that I'll become a drug addict for the Xanax and Vicodin, but I'm also becoming terrified of being depressed and hopeless and the pain I've been in? I've become terrified of that as well.
What am I trying to say with all of this? I don't know. I'm just expressing myself. I'm worried, I'm sad. I'm also very happy. I am an author now. I'm published. People are responding to a book I wrote, containing my thoughts and beliefs. I've written a document about the new Civil Rights struggle. It's fiction, yes, but it's a story of what is happening today. Perhaps, in the future, when gay marriage and gay rights are a norm and there is no more fighting, no more legislative battling, no more hateful preaching, no more heartbreaking suicide, no more evil hate crimes, people will read Crush and shake their heads at how terrible the LGBTQ community was treated at one time.
I've also written a story about child abuse. It's happening right now, to children all over the world. The ultimate evil, in my opinion, is to hurt others, to hurt them and stomp on them over and over until their spirits are broken. That is evil, especially when the perpetrators KNOW that they are breaking spirits. There is human trafficking and slavery happening now, and horrible things are being done to human beings of all ages. People who use, exploit, rape, torture and murder other lifeforms are the people I believe are going to "hell", if there is such a place/thing.
People who love people who happen to be the same sex as they are...people who simply want to have love, marriage and children are being denied their rights because other people think they're evil, because they think some BOOK says so. Instead of going after and persecuting child abusers and murderers, "God-fearing" people are persecuting the gay communities and blaming them for the world's problems. It's insane.
My grandmother and those who think like her believe in a God who, because he created us, has the right to do whatever he wants, dangle temptations before us, put us through terrible things that can break us, allow terrible human beings to hurt us...they believe in a puppet master God who is constantly "testing" us with trials and horrors, sitting up there pleased with those who somehow resist and wrathful at those who broke down. They ignore the fact that human beings were given brains with which to reason and study, and thus ignore the new discoveries about human behavior. I sincerely believe that sexual orientation is something that we are born with, not something we choose or slowly come into as we develop. But I also get angry about this "choice" thing. What if it IS a choice? Is that so terrible? Go after those who "choose" to abuse and rape children, not those who "choose" to fall in love with people who are the same sex!
God has blessed me with a mind, and I'm going to use that mind. I refuse to just swallow what some preacher at a pulpit tells me based on some book which IMO has been altered, not to mention poorly translated. I believe God will one day explain why he/she allowed such things to happen to innocent children, why horrible people are allowed to roam the planet hurting and abusing others. I don't believe in a God who sits up in the sky heating the burners for those who are hellbound according to the preachers of hate and bigotry. I believe God is love and that one day, everything will be explained to us, that we'll have answers.
I've watched lots of documentaries about the LGBTQ communities. The mother of a lesbian who committed suicide said, "I began to pray differently. I began to pray to 'the being who created me' to give me the truth." That's what I've done in the past year or so. I've decided to rethink everything I'd been "taught" and to rewire my mind. God is not mean and eager to torture and condemn people for any and every little thing that doesn't jive with some man made book.
I will talk at length about this sort of thing in "Bright", the story of two young men who live in rural Americana, far from any Pride parades or PFLAG chapters. They live with a bright but electively narrow minded woman who calls herself a godly person but who works behind the scenes to create chaos and heartbreak. I'm sure Bright will create discussions, controversy and questions, and I will be happy to answer those and explain my motives as I have with Crush.
I think I blogged all this to clear my mind of the cobwebs that have been building up for a few weeks. If you've read this far, thank you for letting me vent :)
WARNING: this blog is me ranting and rambling about different topics. You may be bored or annoyed. It's just me expressing my thoughts.
I'd been planning to make a youtube about why I wrote a scene in "Crush" in which Jamie puts on a condom before having sex with his husband Tammy. I want to assure those readers that it wasn't about trust. Tammy and Jamie are a monogamous couple. Tammy had more experience with sex, but before he and Jamie began their long overdue relationship, Tammy had become celibate. Jamie had been a Gray A who desired no one but Tammy. When I wrote this condom scene, my mind was on the quote I heard from Brian Kinney in an episode of "Queer As Folk", "Never have sex without a condom." In a way, I was afraid readers would criticize my very seldom mentionings of condoms in the book. Also, I used the condom to stress that Jamie was having penetrative sex for the first time in his life. Up until that moment, Jamie was always the "bottom". Tammy wanted to be topped, wanted them both to know what it's like to change places with each other. It was like a milestone for Jamie to be the one who would penetrate rather than receive. He had been reluctant to top Tammy. He had also had issues with other sex acts because of the horrific abuse he endured. He had this horror that somehow, if he engaged in certain acts, he would "become" his father, who raped and abused him for seven years. It was not "necessary" for him to wear a condom, because there were no trust issues between them anymore. It was just a way to demonstrate responsible sexual practices and to emphasize Jamie's milestone. I hope this helps anyone who got offended by that particular scene. I remain very appreciative of any feedback and thoughts about Crush :)
I've been kind of depressed and anxious for a month now. On June 11th I went to a hospital because I had fluid in my lungs and couldn't breathe very well. I got a lot of tests done, including a CT scan of my chest. They found a mass in my left breast, along with abnormal nodules in my left lung, a nodule or two in the mediastinum (around my heart) and some abnormal tissue inflammation in my esophagus.
I'm telling everyone this because talking about it eases my anxiety, and I like to share my life with people. I'm really frightened but trying not to let it show to my family. I'm trying to be strong, but I'm really afraid. I'm begging my regular doctors to hurry up and order the follow up testing to see if the tumors have grown in the past 5-6 weeks, but as yet the tests are not being ordered and when the office promises to call me to tell me what's going on, they do not. I've had a dry hacking cough for a while, but it's gotten worse in the past several weeks.
Ramble ramble ramble, but that's what I do when I'm nervous. Will ObamaCare make a huge difference when it begins? Will America one day decide that all disabled and inferm are worthless and disposable?
It makes me all the more glad that I've written Crush and Bright and all the short stories I've written. I plan to write more, and hope I live to write them.
I am an asexual. I will never get married and I will never have children. I've never hated men (I have had 4 boyfriends and several "almost" boyfriends. My first kiss was at age 18 with a very good male friend, but we didn't get together) and I've never hated children. I just have no desire for them in any way. I find men and women attractive, but it's purely aesthetic, perhaps even romantic, but never sexual. I hate watching hetero love scenes in movies, and yet I salivate over m/m love scenes in books and movies/TV. For that alone, I am thought of as a pervert/deviant. Writing "Crush" and "Bright" has been an absolute joy for me. This is the way I express myself sexually. I do not have sex. I write sex, and I write sex with joy and pain. The lovers in my books have to be humans who have suffered in some way. I want 2 people to find each other, have a fierce bond with each other, and fall deeply and sincerely in love. Their love must be strong enough to endure anything that comes their way. In my soon to be published "Bright" you will meet 2 lovers that I hope will touch you as deeply as Tammy and Jamie have :)
I was born asexual, and I feel no "void" in my life made by an absence of men, women or children. I will be honest...I am not the happiest person on this planet, but I am CONTENT. I am at ease. 99% of the time, I am not lonely. I have so many hobbies and activities that keep me engaged it seems too many people around only irritate me.
My religious Grandmother told me officially a few nights ago that she believes a woman who is not attracted to men is just as "abnormal" as a woman attracted to other women. She is a smart and sharp-witted 86 year old woman, but she chooses to live with a narrowed perspective of the world. She talks about why things should be a certain way, and how angry and outraged she is that there are homosexuals getting married, and black people marrying white people, and she does not like independent women at all, women who like being single...women who like to be alone and don't pine for romance.
I'll never change her. She lives by the King James Holy Bible and believes it's the literal word of God. If that book says something, she takes it the way her preachers tell her to take it, and applies it to every thought and decision. She does not accept me as an asexual. I have to accept that she will not accept me.
When the depression hits me, it's powerful, and it's not just simple sadness or hopelessness, it's a subtle panic that keeps me awake during the night. When I see the sun coming up, I feel relief, then I sleep. Sometimes, after running out of my antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, I'm too ill to drive 6 miles to have them refilled. Once I'm able to get my meds back, they really help me. The pain killers help too of course. I'm concerned that I'll become a drug addict for the Xanax and Vicodin, but I'm also becoming terrified of being depressed and hopeless and the pain I've been in? I've become terrified of that as well.
What am I trying to say with all of this? I don't know. I'm just expressing myself. I'm worried, I'm sad. I'm also very happy. I am an author now. I'm published. People are responding to a book I wrote, containing my thoughts and beliefs. I've written a document about the new Civil Rights struggle. It's fiction, yes, but it's a story of what is happening today. Perhaps, in the future, when gay marriage and gay rights are a norm and there is no more fighting, no more legislative battling, no more hateful preaching, no more heartbreaking suicide, no more evil hate crimes, people will read Crush and shake their heads at how terrible the LGBTQ community was treated at one time.
I've also written a story about child abuse. It's happening right now, to children all over the world. The ultimate evil, in my opinion, is to hurt others, to hurt them and stomp on them over and over until their spirits are broken. That is evil, especially when the perpetrators KNOW that they are breaking spirits. There is human trafficking and slavery happening now, and horrible things are being done to human beings of all ages. People who use, exploit, rape, torture and murder other lifeforms are the people I believe are going to "hell", if there is such a place/thing.
People who love people who happen to be the same sex as they are...people who simply want to have love, marriage and children are being denied their rights because other people think they're evil, because they think some BOOK says so. Instead of going after and persecuting child abusers and murderers, "God-fearing" people are persecuting the gay communities and blaming them for the world's problems. It's insane.
My grandmother and those who think like her believe in a God who, because he created us, has the right to do whatever he wants, dangle temptations before us, put us through terrible things that can break us, allow terrible human beings to hurt us...they believe in a puppet master God who is constantly "testing" us with trials and horrors, sitting up there pleased with those who somehow resist and wrathful at those who broke down. They ignore the fact that human beings were given brains with which to reason and study, and thus ignore the new discoveries about human behavior. I sincerely believe that sexual orientation is something that we are born with, not something we choose or slowly come into as we develop. But I also get angry about this "choice" thing. What if it IS a choice? Is that so terrible? Go after those who "choose" to abuse and rape children, not those who "choose" to fall in love with people who are the same sex!
God has blessed me with a mind, and I'm going to use that mind. I refuse to just swallow what some preacher at a pulpit tells me based on some book which IMO has been altered, not to mention poorly translated. I believe God will one day explain why he/she allowed such things to happen to innocent children, why horrible people are allowed to roam the planet hurting and abusing others. I don't believe in a God who sits up in the sky heating the burners for those who are hellbound according to the preachers of hate and bigotry. I believe God is love and that one day, everything will be explained to us, that we'll have answers.
I've watched lots of documentaries about the LGBTQ communities. The mother of a lesbian who committed suicide said, "I began to pray differently. I began to pray to 'the being who created me' to give me the truth." That's what I've done in the past year or so. I've decided to rethink everything I'd been "taught" and to rewire my mind. God is not mean and eager to torture and condemn people for any and every little thing that doesn't jive with some man made book.
I will talk at length about this sort of thing in "Bright", the story of two young men who live in rural Americana, far from any Pride parades or PFLAG chapters. They live with a bright but electively narrow minded woman who calls herself a godly person but who works behind the scenes to create chaos and heartbreak. I'm sure Bright will create discussions, controversy and questions, and I will be happy to answer those and explain my motives as I have with Crush.
I think I blogged all this to clear my mind of the cobwebs that have been building up for a few weeks. If you've read this far, thank you for letting me vent :)
June 16, 2013
Crush will be Book of The Week at Stop-Homophobia.com!
From June 17-23, Crush will be the featured book of the week at Stop-Homophobia.com and Wipe Out Homophobia On Facebook!
They will be giving away a signed copy of the book during the week.
Visit these sites for more:
http://www.stop-homophobia.com/lgbtbo...
https://www.facebook.com/WOH247?fref=ts
And please visit and like Crush on Facebook :) Thank you!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crush/...
They will be giving away a signed copy of the book during the week.
Visit these sites for more:
http://www.stop-homophobia.com/lgbtbo...
https://www.facebook.com/WOH247?fref=ts
And please visit and like Crush on Facebook :) Thank you!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crush/...
June 8, 2013
Being sick really helps!!! A LOT!!!
Note to self before I begin...add 2 new scenes: one for Betsy's funeral and the other for the FISTING SCENE!!!
First, a word from our sponsor: I am making another video for YouTube...the soundtrack for Bright. It's a LOT longer than the soundtrack vid I made for Crush. It's probably because for Bright, I was listening more to genres of music I like the most: classic rock, riot girl, alternative rock, and awesome bands/singers I discovered on Myspace over the years (i.e. Koop, Telepopmusik, Twin Shadow, Daughter, Annie Barker, Jen Gloeckner, etc.) I'm a grouchy old bag when it comes to music, very out of touch with much of today's "top 40" stuff. I added a lot of top 40 to my Crush DS because of the fact that "The End", the bar in Sommerville, had a lot of teenagers, during and after Tammy and Jamie completed high school, performing at the weekly karaoke parties.
Okay...Having just endured 3 miserable days in the hospital, I am mildly surprised to realize that upon a fresh reading of previous chapters of Bright, my characters, Monty, Walter and Natalie have really come into their own. I always had a rough idea about who they are, but it never ceases to amaze me to go back and see my old notes, the evolution of these 3 people from ideas in a notebook to living, breathing entities with minds of their own. Monty proved he has his own idea of what he will be when he turned from a shallow shithead I really didn't like too much to a genuinely kind, sensitive, beautiful person. Walter was not much more than a sniveling ninny who allowed his stepmother to fuck up his life in every way, but he, as frail as he is physically, became the kind of iron willed fighter that I would either fear tangling with or love to fight beside.
My days in the hospital gave me new inspiration, not only for new scenes for Bright, but for myself. I've learned recently that I am very sick, much sicker than I thought, and I no longer have it in me to allow my homophobic, ignorant, prejudiced family and former friends to try to intimidate me into going back to that miserable, confused wretch I used to be. Life must march on, and I've come too far to go back to that place I hated :)
For a brief time, I am sharing a few chapters of BRIGHT on my WattPad page. Please feel free to come read and leave feedback if you will.
http://www.wattpad.com/user/laurasusa...
First, a word from our sponsor: I am making another video for YouTube...the soundtrack for Bright. It's a LOT longer than the soundtrack vid I made for Crush. It's probably because for Bright, I was listening more to genres of music I like the most: classic rock, riot girl, alternative rock, and awesome bands/singers I discovered on Myspace over the years (i.e. Koop, Telepopmusik, Twin Shadow, Daughter, Annie Barker, Jen Gloeckner, etc.) I'm a grouchy old bag when it comes to music, very out of touch with much of today's "top 40" stuff. I added a lot of top 40 to my Crush DS because of the fact that "The End", the bar in Sommerville, had a lot of teenagers, during and after Tammy and Jamie completed high school, performing at the weekly karaoke parties.
Okay...Having just endured 3 miserable days in the hospital, I am mildly surprised to realize that upon a fresh reading of previous chapters of Bright, my characters, Monty, Walter and Natalie have really come into their own. I always had a rough idea about who they are, but it never ceases to amaze me to go back and see my old notes, the evolution of these 3 people from ideas in a notebook to living, breathing entities with minds of their own. Monty proved he has his own idea of what he will be when he turned from a shallow shithead I really didn't like too much to a genuinely kind, sensitive, beautiful person. Walter was not much more than a sniveling ninny who allowed his stepmother to fuck up his life in every way, but he, as frail as he is physically, became the kind of iron willed fighter that I would either fear tangling with or love to fight beside.
My days in the hospital gave me new inspiration, not only for new scenes for Bright, but for myself. I've learned recently that I am very sick, much sicker than I thought, and I no longer have it in me to allow my homophobic, ignorant, prejudiced family and former friends to try to intimidate me into going back to that miserable, confused wretch I used to be. Life must march on, and I've come too far to go back to that place I hated :)
For a brief time, I am sharing a few chapters of BRIGHT on my WattPad page. Please feel free to come read and leave feedback if you will.
http://www.wattpad.com/user/laurasusa...
May 19, 2013
Thank you's/Reviews
I thought it was time to do a blog post about how much I appreciate everyone who has ever helped or supported or even read my book Crush. I am eternally grateful to Debbie McGowan, Nigel Paice, Tracy Hibbert, Andrea Harding, L.M. Steel, Sean Jones, Jacob Woods, Trisha Harrington, Leslie Purkey, Joel and Patsy Moran, Sarah McEvoy, Becky Baron, and countless others for their belief in my abilities and their encouragement.
As unbelievable as it may seem, I also want to thank every single reader whether they've written a review or not, even those who give me 1 star reviews. I recently got a 1 star review that actually put me in a good mood overall. I can't promise I'll always feel this good-natured or gracious about 1 star reviews, especially those that contain scathing or personal remarks. It will all depend on my mood at the time. A one star review will either make me laugh or cry. It will either amuse or sting me. As a film geek who has written extremely scathing film reviews on the IMDb, I have no right to expect every single person who cracks open "Crush" to fall in love with it, considering what it is about. When I receive less than flattering feedback on my work, I would like to take the opportunity to make it into a positive experience, a chance to grow, and above all to realize that we're not all alike on this planet we share. Some of my very favorite books have received scathing, biting 1 star reviews, including THE COLOR PURPLE, THE LOVELY BONES, WHITE OLEANDER, PUSH by Sapphire, DREAM BOY, and even the works of (gasp) the Bard. I have to remember that just because someone doesn't like my book, or finds my narrative voice annoying or phoney, it doesn't mean I'm in trouble with the law, or being threatened with corporal injury or death. I have lived long enough to know that there will always be people that will find my style preachy, annoying, cloying, or out of touch with reality. I would rather deal with people who simply don't like my approach/style or don't like the subject matter than the homophobes who hate my book before they even open it, and THEN have the gall to say what an evil person I am for "supporting" the LGBTQ communities :) I have been lucky thus far to not have gotten remarks or reviews from homophobes other than the ones in my own family. Nobody has called me any derogatory names other than a couple of people in my family. I am very fortunate.
I really do appreciate you all...and as I've said many times, I'm glad Crush is being read at all. Without readers, a book sits there and does nothing :)
As unbelievable as it may seem, I also want to thank every single reader whether they've written a review or not, even those who give me 1 star reviews. I recently got a 1 star review that actually put me in a good mood overall. I can't promise I'll always feel this good-natured or gracious about 1 star reviews, especially those that contain scathing or personal remarks. It will all depend on my mood at the time. A one star review will either make me laugh or cry. It will either amuse or sting me. As a film geek who has written extremely scathing film reviews on the IMDb, I have no right to expect every single person who cracks open "Crush" to fall in love with it, considering what it is about. When I receive less than flattering feedback on my work, I would like to take the opportunity to make it into a positive experience, a chance to grow, and above all to realize that we're not all alike on this planet we share. Some of my very favorite books have received scathing, biting 1 star reviews, including THE COLOR PURPLE, THE LOVELY BONES, WHITE OLEANDER, PUSH by Sapphire, DREAM BOY, and even the works of (gasp) the Bard. I have to remember that just because someone doesn't like my book, or finds my narrative voice annoying or phoney, it doesn't mean I'm in trouble with the law, or being threatened with corporal injury or death. I have lived long enough to know that there will always be people that will find my style preachy, annoying, cloying, or out of touch with reality. I would rather deal with people who simply don't like my approach/style or don't like the subject matter than the homophobes who hate my book before they even open it, and THEN have the gall to say what an evil person I am for "supporting" the LGBTQ communities :) I have been lucky thus far to not have gotten remarks or reviews from homophobes other than the ones in my own family. Nobody has called me any derogatory names other than a couple of people in my family. I am very fortunate.
I really do appreciate you all...and as I've said many times, I'm glad Crush is being read at all. Without readers, a book sits there and does nothing :)
May 17, 2013
"Bright" dedication video and discussion on YouTube
I finally printed out the (huge) 305 page manuscript yesterday. Now all I need to do is go thru, edit, and then hand it over to my publishers! Here is my video about who the book is dedicated to!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khHJXf...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khHJXf...
May 16, 2013
More visuals for "Bright"
The results of "acanthamoeba" and pseudomonas infection of the eye
This is the closest thing I could come to of a pic of "Monty" in lingerie. The girl is Natalie of course.
Before Jerome's funeral...
Lingerie made for men is one of my favorite things!
May 8, 2013
Crush Dream Soundtrack video
I wanted to make a video like this for a while. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to having Crush be made into a movie haha! Enjoy!
I'm going to make a video like this for Bright someday too!
I put all my disclaimers in the video description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstJfO...
I'm going to make a video like this for Bright someday too!
I put all my disclaimers in the video description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstJfO...
May 2, 2013
Bright is now finished /Onion Sandwiches & Author's Blues
Today, May 2, 2013 at about 11 pm, I finished my first rough draft of Bright. As everyone knows by now, I'm a terribly slow writer, always taking forever to get chapters done, going back and rearranging chapters, driving myself crazy over timelines and accuracy, not to mention research and fact checking. Crush was such a personal novel that I simply wrote about my feelings and experiences, weaving my meager knowledge of human sexuality into the plot.
Bright is a personal story too, a commentary on a different aspect of my life, my religious/spiritual life. But unlike Crush, Bright has several different plotlines happening at once, and for this book, I needed to do research on a bunch of things...water-borne diseases, well water maintenance procedures in the state of Idaho, congestive heart failure, bacterial infections, medications, alcoholism, street drug use, surrogacy, female health issues, miscarriage, and the emotional consequences of all of these events/topics. I also read up a lot on Native American spiritual beliefs and practices, as well as the beliefs and standards of Americanized Christianity.
With such complex subject matter comes great responsibility, and it will mean a period of high anxiety as I go thru and edit and struggle to toe the line between simply and honestly describing the experiences of two young men...and ending up sounding like I'm "indicting" certain of Christian groups. I also don't want to overdo the "God" thing. As I told a friend recently, when you go to the sandwich shoppe, you want a cold cut sandwich with a few onions, not an onion sandwich with maybe a little bit of cold cuts thrown in. It's a story of two young men who have been affected by their religious upbringing. It's very similar to Crush, but goes deeper into how some religions teach that being gay is a sin, and how those teachings adversely affect gay youth, leading to self hatred and suicidal behavior, not to mention alcoholism and drug abuse.
With the conclusion of my writing of Bright, I have that old familiar sadness that I felt when I finished Crush. It's like saying goodbye to friends I've made. I'm comforted by the fact that I'm going to spend another lengthy amount of time editing and tossing ideas back and forth with my editors. I am confident that we'll have a wonderful new book by the time we're finished :)
Bright is a personal story too, a commentary on a different aspect of my life, my religious/spiritual life. But unlike Crush, Bright has several different plotlines happening at once, and for this book, I needed to do research on a bunch of things...water-borne diseases, well water maintenance procedures in the state of Idaho, congestive heart failure, bacterial infections, medications, alcoholism, street drug use, surrogacy, female health issues, miscarriage, and the emotional consequences of all of these events/topics. I also read up a lot on Native American spiritual beliefs and practices, as well as the beliefs and standards of Americanized Christianity.
With such complex subject matter comes great responsibility, and it will mean a period of high anxiety as I go thru and edit and struggle to toe the line between simply and honestly describing the experiences of two young men...and ending up sounding like I'm "indicting" certain of Christian groups. I also don't want to overdo the "God" thing. As I told a friend recently, when you go to the sandwich shoppe, you want a cold cut sandwich with a few onions, not an onion sandwich with maybe a little bit of cold cuts thrown in. It's a story of two young men who have been affected by their religious upbringing. It's very similar to Crush, but goes deeper into how some religions teach that being gay is a sin, and how those teachings adversely affect gay youth, leading to self hatred and suicidal behavior, not to mention alcoholism and drug abuse.
With the conclusion of my writing of Bright, I have that old familiar sadness that I felt when I finished Crush. It's like saying goodbye to friends I've made. I'm comforted by the fact that I'm going to spend another lengthy amount of time editing and tossing ideas back and forth with my editors. I am confident that we'll have a wonderful new book by the time we're finished :)
April 19, 2013
Music: The Language of Mood
Every three months or so, I have a week long period of really bad depression, and I hate it because it's not the kind of depression I can put to good use. It leaves me unable to think, feel or write anything.
Earlier this month, I was writing some very important death and funeral scenes for my novel, Bright. How does a person write about losing a child? I have lost children, but still...how do you write about it so that a reader will "feel" it with you. How do you write about it to where it doesn't feel "manufactured" or "fake"? I kept trying, but my dysphoria or dysthymia or whatever the hell it is just wasn't letting me express myself.
I was watching the movie NUTS starring Barbara Streisand during this period...not exactly the kind of movie one wants to watch if they want their mood lifted. But I didn't want my mood lifted...I just wanted it exorcised so that I could effectively work with it for these important moments in my book.
I found 2 pieces of music from the original score, and listening to them was like magic. In one scene, Claudia is telling her attorney, "Maybe I am crazy." The music used during that moment was so sad and in a sense, frightening, like how scary it is to admit or to wonder if everyone is right about you, if you're the only one who isn't seeing reality. The music is very beautiful and meloncholy, and sort of soars sadly. It then felt so easy to write about the deaths of 2 children and how their parents feel inside.
Here is a youtube I made of the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cqD7...
I have made tremendous progress on Bright the past week or so. I think it will need considerable editing and trimming of flab before it's truly at its greatest, but I love the story and the characters so much. Where Crush was a story of sexual abuse, Bright is another highly personal statement for me: For anyone who has ever suffered SPIRITUAL abuse, especially young people whose family members cannot accept them being gay, or "different" in any way, I hope Bright will speak to them too.
Here is an excerpt from one of those difficult scenes:
This baby is female, tiny. It doesn’t matter that her life was cut even shorter than D.J.’s. She’s a person, and she’s our child. Upon Natalie’s request, the baby is retrieved fully intact, no bigger than my pinkie nail. At first, her amazing size makes us call her Itty Bitty, or Itsy Bitsy…But for her birth/death certificate, we officially name her “Betsy Marie” (Kendall’s middle name).
And as with DJ, we insist on a real funeral, headstone and all. She’s a real person, and we demand that everyone see her as a real person. Now comes the worst revelation. We all three look at her, and it’s a blade that cuts through our love for her, a feeling that makes us all hide our faces inside of our hands in separate, secret shame. I’m revealing my own heart, but surely Wawa and Nattie feel this way as well. It’s hard to see Walter’s daughter the way I saw D.J. My son was reddish pink, his stillborn heart and immature cartilage ribs visible through his alien skin, and though his eyes were still sealed closed, he had a face I could call human.
Because she was confined to a slender tube and not allowed to bloom, our Betsy is deformed. She never would have survived outside of the womb. Walter’s inconsolable and doesn’t want to look at the baby’s malformations, but I swallow my fear and look. The baby doesn’t have a face, or even the beginnings of a face…
“She wouldn’t have been able to take nourishment,” I tell him softly.
He does not cry this time. His eyes are dry.
Earlier this month, I was writing some very important death and funeral scenes for my novel, Bright. How does a person write about losing a child? I have lost children, but still...how do you write about it so that a reader will "feel" it with you. How do you write about it to where it doesn't feel "manufactured" or "fake"? I kept trying, but my dysphoria or dysthymia or whatever the hell it is just wasn't letting me express myself.
I was watching the movie NUTS starring Barbara Streisand during this period...not exactly the kind of movie one wants to watch if they want their mood lifted. But I didn't want my mood lifted...I just wanted it exorcised so that I could effectively work with it for these important moments in my book.
I found 2 pieces of music from the original score, and listening to them was like magic. In one scene, Claudia is telling her attorney, "Maybe I am crazy." The music used during that moment was so sad and in a sense, frightening, like how scary it is to admit or to wonder if everyone is right about you, if you're the only one who isn't seeing reality. The music is very beautiful and meloncholy, and sort of soars sadly. It then felt so easy to write about the deaths of 2 children and how their parents feel inside.
Here is a youtube I made of the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cqD7...
I have made tremendous progress on Bright the past week or so. I think it will need considerable editing and trimming of flab before it's truly at its greatest, but I love the story and the characters so much. Where Crush was a story of sexual abuse, Bright is another highly personal statement for me: For anyone who has ever suffered SPIRITUAL abuse, especially young people whose family members cannot accept them being gay, or "different" in any way, I hope Bright will speak to them too.
Here is an excerpt from one of those difficult scenes:
This baby is female, tiny. It doesn’t matter that her life was cut even shorter than D.J.’s. She’s a person, and she’s our child. Upon Natalie’s request, the baby is retrieved fully intact, no bigger than my pinkie nail. At first, her amazing size makes us call her Itty Bitty, or Itsy Bitsy…But for her birth/death certificate, we officially name her “Betsy Marie” (Kendall’s middle name).
And as with DJ, we insist on a real funeral, headstone and all. She’s a real person, and we demand that everyone see her as a real person. Now comes the worst revelation. We all three look at her, and it’s a blade that cuts through our love for her, a feeling that makes us all hide our faces inside of our hands in separate, secret shame. I’m revealing my own heart, but surely Wawa and Nattie feel this way as well. It’s hard to see Walter’s daughter the way I saw D.J. My son was reddish pink, his stillborn heart and immature cartilage ribs visible through his alien skin, and though his eyes were still sealed closed, he had a face I could call human.
Because she was confined to a slender tube and not allowed to bloom, our Betsy is deformed. She never would have survived outside of the womb. Walter’s inconsolable and doesn’t want to look at the baby’s malformations, but I swallow my fear and look. The baby doesn’t have a face, or even the beginnings of a face…
“She wouldn’t have been able to take nourishment,” I tell him softly.
He does not cry this time. His eyes are dry.
April 8, 2013
No words, just pix!!!
Okay, I lied...I will put little captions or comments under these pix! These are all pix/gifs of my muses for Crush and Bright! This is inspired by my friend Therese!!! I had to take a break from writing really sad funeral scenes for "Bright" (I'll talk about that in my next blog post) and just have some fun!
Just a note...some of these pix may not show up or may get deleted later on because they're from various tumblr sites!
Uh...no comment except..."Walter" looks really cute...
I've always loved this one!
Beautiful picture...Have you ever seen such a white sweater?!
I love the lip pursing thing going on!
What "Monty" would look like sick in bed!
What Monty would look like...healthy...in bed...why is this so friggin HOT?!
Just because...
Just because...all right?!
Okay...the cigarette thing...redundant...but hot!!!
This is who "Jamie" looks like...I like Cillian in longer hair.
So pretty!
Just...damn...
This is definitely "Jamie"...this is what "Tammy" fell in love with...
And this is what "Jamie" fell in love with... :)
Do I need to say anything at all? No...
No doubt about it...this is "Tammy" in high school!
What's not to love?!
Just a note...some of these pix may not show up or may get deleted later on because they're from various tumblr sites!
Uh...no comment except..."Walter" looks really cute...
I've always loved this one!
Beautiful picture...Have you ever seen such a white sweater?!
I love the lip pursing thing going on!
What "Monty" would look like sick in bed!
What Monty would look like...healthy...in bed...why is this so friggin HOT?!
Just because...
Just because...all right?!
Okay...the cigarette thing...redundant...but hot!!!
This is who "Jamie" looks like...I like Cillian in longer hair.
So pretty!
Just...damn...
This is definitely "Jamie"...this is what "Tammy" fell in love with...
And this is what "Jamie" fell in love with... :)
Do I need to say anything at all? No...
No doubt about it...this is "Tammy" in high school!
What's not to love?!
