Rodney Ross's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-cool-part-of-his-pillow"
Writing About Writing*
*as previously published on the Long And Short Reviews site
Writing a novel is taxing enough. Writing about writing a novel proves even dicier. I recall something Nora Ephron wrote in her superb 1978 essay collection 'Scribble Scribble' (and I am paraphrasing here):
'Writers are interesting. They're just not as interesting as the things they write'.
My own takeaway from this is that over-analysis can tend toward the reductive, boiling down the magical task of plotting, characterization and tone into a jumbled miasma of index cards and caffeine. Your writing should do the talking. Much more, and you come across as some literary poseur, which I am so not. I write in fits-and-starts in my shorty (and usually stained) robe. I misplace dialogue notes I've made on the back of ATM receipts. On some days, I review what I smugly thought was prodigious output and realize it's just typing -- and not very good, at that -- with not one worthwhile sentence to be pried out.
Yet here I am. Rodney Ross is running his mouth, as my late Dad would call it: "Windier than a bag of assholes"...which is a very wrong and very brown visual...as I discuss 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow', my new novel from Dreamspinner Press.
I must be frank. I am not a devotee of M/M fiction. I respect the genre and have been quite titillated by some of it. Yet often there's a sameness; a lot of sexual passages have a feeling of deja vu. I also resist my novel's strict classification as Romance, not out of snobbery, but because I don't wish to generate reader disappointment.
I came from the bloodlust industry of advertising. I understand categorization, focus groups, demographics. I despise them but I understand their practicality. 'TCPohP' is less plot-driven and more character-centric, and I am so grateful to DSP's Elizabeth North, who saw the possibilities in my hopeful lil' manuscript, and to Lynn West, the Editor-In-Chief who appreciated the dense detail that is my calling card. No one was a scold about too little sex, never once was there an implication that the tone, especially the opening chapters, bordered on grim angst or, God forbid, I was never commanded to "lighten up!" I wouldn't classify 'TCPohP' as escapist reading, but it's still a good beach read, something to pop open in an airport terminal...and isn't all fiction escapist? You willingly leave the shackles of your own day-to-day for shackles (in the case of '50 Shades of Grey', at least) of another sort.
But worry not, gentle reader: 'TCPohP' is, of course, about romance, and after it's whisked away by horrendous circumstances, the remembrance of romance and the search for the possibility of new romance.
But sexual satisfaction is not what drives the focal character of Barry Grooms, and HEA is about as elusive an acronym for him as GOP (political jab intended). A widower after 20-plus years with Andy -- killed in a horrendous construction crane collapse on Barry's 45th birthday -- Barry is on a journey, one studded with denial, full of missteps and missed opportunity, that propels him from the Midwest to Key West to New York City to the small town he grew up in. Barry's life optimism has been upended to wicked pessimism. I've been cited in some quarters for this, that the character is a STFU snark. My goal was that the skeptical humor I bestowed this damaged character redeems some of the more mournful passages, when he goes on that lonely search in the center of night for the cool part of his late partner's pillow, only to realize the entire thing is cold. The whole empty, plump pillow can be kidnapped. There is no one to share it with.
So is Barry unlikeable? Criticism to that effect begs definition. Is being eminently likeable the overriding characteristic we seek in a focal character? Then explain the flawed Don Draper, the felonious Tony Soprano or full-of-himself Tony Stark, the addicted Nurse Jackie. It's a fine line, made of barbed wire, and where do you draw it, when a hero becomes an anti-hero? Pedophilia, avarice, murder? I'll take identifiable over embraceable any day of the week but, as Sondheim wrote in 'Sunday In The Park With George', I'll leave that for others to decide, as "they usually do".
It was said by someone certainly more celebrated and wealthier (Robert Harling, of 'Steel Magnolias') than I that "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". That sounds about right. I think of the "Chuckles The Clown" episode of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'...the mortal twists and turns of 'Terms Of Endearment'...I recall the unexpected sting of reality after giggling my ass off at some gallows humor. This isn't new, and now entire series, like 'The Big C', mine laughs from dire circumstance. I don't flatter myself by placing my work alongside any of those cited above, but the groove is there: I want readers to recognize their own foibles and frailties and have a good laugh as they watch my fictional character(s) flail.
Some of the examples in the previous paragraph also circle back something TCPohP has been tsk-tsked for: the many pop-culture references. Barry's an unapologetic theatre queen, a child raised on 70's TV, those are his coming-of-age pushpins (and, in full disclosure, my own). How many times have I resorted to Googling a sports reference, some arcane parallel to a historical figure, distant geography? Everyone has their own frame-of-reference, and the last fifty years has, for better or worse, been shaped by pop-culture, from Marilyn's skirt billowing over a subway grate to those krazy Kardashians.
I can aspire that my next novel (or trilogy...a menage a trois seems to the new story arc trend) nestles more easily into a cubbyhole but, knowing my predilection for the extreme, a main character will probably begin literally rotting in Chapter 5 -- like, their lips falling off into a soup tureen -- and conformity to the M/M mainstream will be out the damn office window again. What are the point of rules when you're making shit up? Writers are cantankerous contrarians who, at the end of the day, write what they write because they must.
And, upon that, I must get back at it.
Writing a novel is taxing enough. Writing about writing a novel proves even dicier. I recall something Nora Ephron wrote in her superb 1978 essay collection 'Scribble Scribble' (and I am paraphrasing here):
'Writers are interesting. They're just not as interesting as the things they write'.
My own takeaway from this is that over-analysis can tend toward the reductive, boiling down the magical task of plotting, characterization and tone into a jumbled miasma of index cards and caffeine. Your writing should do the talking. Much more, and you come across as some literary poseur, which I am so not. I write in fits-and-starts in my shorty (and usually stained) robe. I misplace dialogue notes I've made on the back of ATM receipts. On some days, I review what I smugly thought was prodigious output and realize it's just typing -- and not very good, at that -- with not one worthwhile sentence to be pried out.
Yet here I am. Rodney Ross is running his mouth, as my late Dad would call it: "Windier than a bag of assholes"...which is a very wrong and very brown visual...as I discuss 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow', my new novel from Dreamspinner Press.
I must be frank. I am not a devotee of M/M fiction. I respect the genre and have been quite titillated by some of it. Yet often there's a sameness; a lot of sexual passages have a feeling of deja vu. I also resist my novel's strict classification as Romance, not out of snobbery, but because I don't wish to generate reader disappointment.
I came from the bloodlust industry of advertising. I understand categorization, focus groups, demographics. I despise them but I understand their practicality. 'TCPohP' is less plot-driven and more character-centric, and I am so grateful to DSP's Elizabeth North, who saw the possibilities in my hopeful lil' manuscript, and to Lynn West, the Editor-In-Chief who appreciated the dense detail that is my calling card. No one was a scold about too little sex, never once was there an implication that the tone, especially the opening chapters, bordered on grim angst or, God forbid, I was never commanded to "lighten up!" I wouldn't classify 'TCPohP' as escapist reading, but it's still a good beach read, something to pop open in an airport terminal...and isn't all fiction escapist? You willingly leave the shackles of your own day-to-day for shackles (in the case of '50 Shades of Grey', at least) of another sort.
But worry not, gentle reader: 'TCPohP' is, of course, about romance, and after it's whisked away by horrendous circumstances, the remembrance of romance and the search for the possibility of new romance.
But sexual satisfaction is not what drives the focal character of Barry Grooms, and HEA is about as elusive an acronym for him as GOP (political jab intended). A widower after 20-plus years with Andy -- killed in a horrendous construction crane collapse on Barry's 45th birthday -- Barry is on a journey, one studded with denial, full of missteps and missed opportunity, that propels him from the Midwest to Key West to New York City to the small town he grew up in. Barry's life optimism has been upended to wicked pessimism. I've been cited in some quarters for this, that the character is a STFU snark. My goal was that the skeptical humor I bestowed this damaged character redeems some of the more mournful passages, when he goes on that lonely search in the center of night for the cool part of his late partner's pillow, only to realize the entire thing is cold. The whole empty, plump pillow can be kidnapped. There is no one to share it with.
So is Barry unlikeable? Criticism to that effect begs definition. Is being eminently likeable the overriding characteristic we seek in a focal character? Then explain the flawed Don Draper, the felonious Tony Soprano or full-of-himself Tony Stark, the addicted Nurse Jackie. It's a fine line, made of barbed wire, and where do you draw it, when a hero becomes an anti-hero? Pedophilia, avarice, murder? I'll take identifiable over embraceable any day of the week but, as Sondheim wrote in 'Sunday In The Park With George', I'll leave that for others to decide, as "they usually do".
It was said by someone certainly more celebrated and wealthier (Robert Harling, of 'Steel Magnolias') than I that "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". That sounds about right. I think of the "Chuckles The Clown" episode of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'...the mortal twists and turns of 'Terms Of Endearment'...I recall the unexpected sting of reality after giggling my ass off at some gallows humor. This isn't new, and now entire series, like 'The Big C', mine laughs from dire circumstance. I don't flatter myself by placing my work alongside any of those cited above, but the groove is there: I want readers to recognize their own foibles and frailties and have a good laugh as they watch my fictional character(s) flail.
Some of the examples in the previous paragraph also circle back something TCPohP has been tsk-tsked for: the many pop-culture references. Barry's an unapologetic theatre queen, a child raised on 70's TV, those are his coming-of-age pushpins (and, in full disclosure, my own). How many times have I resorted to Googling a sports reference, some arcane parallel to a historical figure, distant geography? Everyone has their own frame-of-reference, and the last fifty years has, for better or worse, been shaped by pop-culture, from Marilyn's skirt billowing over a subway grate to those krazy Kardashians.
I can aspire that my next novel (or trilogy...a menage a trois seems to the new story arc trend) nestles more easily into a cubbyhole but, knowing my predilection for the extreme, a main character will probably begin literally rotting in Chapter 5 -- like, their lips falling off into a soup tureen -- and conformity to the M/M mainstream will be out the damn office window again. What are the point of rules when you're making shit up? Writers are cantankerous contrarians who, at the end of the day, write what they write because they must.
And, upon that, I must get back at it.
An Interview: From LONG & SHORT REVIEWS
Rodney told me he's always written—little playlets for which he would act out all the characters into a tape recorder to working on school newspapers from elementary school through college to being a magazine freelance, to finally becoming a creative director at a Midwestern ad agency.
"Ironically, I did very little writing there," he told me. "My time was spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays and, later, a play."
The hardest part of writing for him is actually sitting down and writing while being aware that the final polish is very distant.
"Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating," he explained."A writer looks for distraction: litterpan poop to scoop, or sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. Yet the inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting."
"How do you develop your plot and characters?" I asked.
"I'd like to wax poetic and say that they gently take my hand and lead me to their destinies, but building believable, dimensional characters is hard work. I feel a certain moral obligation in the LGBT arena to not fall into stereotypes -- even though there are those in our communities who willingly fling themselves into every cliche-ridden bejeweled box available -- and my objective is to never be predictable. Just when you think someone is going to turn left, I also decide against them turning right, and maybe let them hit the damn guard rail. I carefully outline but remain receptive to the muse; in 'TCPohP', a secondary character I became enamored of blossomed into a pivotal mouthpiece. I even subtracted dialogue from another and re-gifted it to him. Rigidity in your nether regions is to be applauded; in one's writing, not so much. I try to remain fluid. Is that enough phallic metaphor?"
Rodney likes the freedom inherent in writing and considers it one of the most important elements of good writing.
"You can jump to Paris, France...you can take a beloved character and impale them on a picket fence...make cancer go into remission...I relish that ability because, let's face it, real-life does not offer this liberty," he said. "On a more workmanlike level, you have to STAY AT IT. I cannot begin to enumerate the number of friends with literary aspirations who have three chapters in a drawer. 'I got blocked.' Or there's 'I got lonely.' Well, of course you did. And sometimes writing just typing and, upon review, you find maybe two worthwhile sentences. That's part of the drill. Practice may not make perfect, but it develops muscle."
The title for 'The Cool Part of His Pillow' came from a startling moment for the focal character Barry when he realizes he no longer has to, in the dark of the night, pat for, find, and share the cool part of his partner's pillow when his own is flat and warm. His partner has died, the pillow is his, and it is all cool.
One thing that doesn't come across in the blurb for this book is the humor in it. Rodney admitted that it's hard to get humor across in a blurb or in cover art.
" I'm not talking rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…I strive for laughs of recognition that naturally emerge from situations, from placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…or employing a narrator or secondary character who doesn’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head," he told me. "When I began writing 'TCPohP', I intuited this could be either casseroles and snotrags and a lot of breast-beating, or I could mine from this horrendous tragedy a lot of macabre observation, and then spin off into the scatological, the blasphemous, the politically-incorrect."
"How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre?" I wondered.
"I am not so keen on explicit sex scenes in my own work, although I mightily appreciate it when by furnished by others in the LGBT novel arena. For my specific work, it would have seemed a bit reductive: because 'TCPohP' is first-person, it would almost come across as a salacious travelogue narrated between bouts of fellatio. And even if I DID dive --so to speak -- into an explicit sexual scenario, my instinct is to always go for the unlikely, for humor sarcasm, and it would end being about an unfortunate mole or ejaculate that looked like humus." He paused. "Upon reflection, perhaps this is something best left to the therapist's office."
Rodney received both his worse, and best, pieces of writing advice when he was in high school.
"I had a hateful, obsolete Journalism teacher in high school who was more denture-click-and- hip-pop than willing to provide sound writing advice. She often criticized me for being 'wordy'. Too verbose, she'd shake a palsied claw at me, as I scribbled notes about what appeared to be her male pattern baldness. You would have thought, from her death rattle lesson plans, that full and vivid description should be avoided like a soul kiss from a herpetic. The woman essentially taught us to write headlines and herself had the charisma of a doorknob, a very rusty doorknob, to a tool shed.
"In that same high school, I was also fortunate enough to be mentored by an English teacher who plucked me from the soul-sucking classroom of conformity and placed me in independent study. I kept a journal, which I submitted once weekly, and was assigned literature -- everything from Joyce Carol Oates to Tennessee Williams to Judy Blume -- to write essays and critiques of. What a forward-thinking man that teacher was, in his jeans-and-no-tie-and-feathered-hair way, and I am still grateful he and his wife are part of my life. "So, even then, my evolution into a writer was brimming with contradiction. Write less. No, write more. Just the who/what/when/where/why/how. Tell me everything you see. My head spun like Regan MacNeil's, but I intuitively knew that I had to say what I had to say in the amount of words it took to say it. Now, of course, a good, graceful editor helps you rein in that volcanic impulse. Bless the heart of Lynn West, my editor at Dreamspinner Press, and her equally-considerate staff!"
Rodney grew up in a small Midwestern town about an hour outside of Indianapolis: Frankfort, Indiana. I asked him what he felt about his hometown.
"I couldn't wait until I could run on my fat little legs as far as I could from its oppressive and repressive and depressive and regressive confines, which I did, first to Butler University, then to that industry of bloodlust and paranoia called Advertising," he said. "Of course, time bestows clarity, and while I still find the town stifling and intolerant, I am grateful for the work ethic I learned there; the moral compass bestowed me by my parents; and the sense of community that can soar above the pettiness in genuine times of crisis. I've recreated this in Key West, Florida, where I now reside. It too is a small town, one that I call Gayberry, a town that embraces diversity, forgives easily (perhaps too easily, in some instances) and rarely judges. People come here to forge a fresh start and there are rarely inquiries into your past and the mistakes or triumphs that brought you here. It's a very face-value town. The very rich and celebrated will be seated at a bar next to a gentleman who is carefully counting his change for one last beer."
"Ironically, I did very little writing there," he told me. "My time was spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays and, later, a play."
The hardest part of writing for him is actually sitting down and writing while being aware that the final polish is very distant.
"Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating," he explained."A writer looks for distraction: litterpan poop to scoop, or sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. Yet the inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting."
"How do you develop your plot and characters?" I asked.
"I'd like to wax poetic and say that they gently take my hand and lead me to their destinies, but building believable, dimensional characters is hard work. I feel a certain moral obligation in the LGBT arena to not fall into stereotypes -- even though there are those in our communities who willingly fling themselves into every cliche-ridden bejeweled box available -- and my objective is to never be predictable. Just when you think someone is going to turn left, I also decide against them turning right, and maybe let them hit the damn guard rail. I carefully outline but remain receptive to the muse; in 'TCPohP', a secondary character I became enamored of blossomed into a pivotal mouthpiece. I even subtracted dialogue from another and re-gifted it to him. Rigidity in your nether regions is to be applauded; in one's writing, not so much. I try to remain fluid. Is that enough phallic metaphor?"
Rodney likes the freedom inherent in writing and considers it one of the most important elements of good writing.
"You can jump to Paris, France...you can take a beloved character and impale them on a picket fence...make cancer go into remission...I relish that ability because, let's face it, real-life does not offer this liberty," he said. "On a more workmanlike level, you have to STAY AT IT. I cannot begin to enumerate the number of friends with literary aspirations who have three chapters in a drawer. 'I got blocked.' Or there's 'I got lonely.' Well, of course you did. And sometimes writing just typing and, upon review, you find maybe two worthwhile sentences. That's part of the drill. Practice may not make perfect, but it develops muscle."
The title for 'The Cool Part of His Pillow' came from a startling moment for the focal character Barry when he realizes he no longer has to, in the dark of the night, pat for, find, and share the cool part of his partner's pillow when his own is flat and warm. His partner has died, the pillow is his, and it is all cool.
One thing that doesn't come across in the blurb for this book is the humor in it. Rodney admitted that it's hard to get humor across in a blurb or in cover art.
" I'm not talking rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…I strive for laughs of recognition that naturally emerge from situations, from placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…or employing a narrator or secondary character who doesn’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head," he told me. "When I began writing 'TCPohP', I intuited this could be either casseroles and snotrags and a lot of breast-beating, or I could mine from this horrendous tragedy a lot of macabre observation, and then spin off into the scatological, the blasphemous, the politically-incorrect."
"How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre?" I wondered.
"I am not so keen on explicit sex scenes in my own work, although I mightily appreciate it when by furnished by others in the LGBT novel arena. For my specific work, it would have seemed a bit reductive: because 'TCPohP' is first-person, it would almost come across as a salacious travelogue narrated between bouts of fellatio. And even if I DID dive --so to speak -- into an explicit sexual scenario, my instinct is to always go for the unlikely, for humor sarcasm, and it would end being about an unfortunate mole or ejaculate that looked like humus." He paused. "Upon reflection, perhaps this is something best left to the therapist's office."
Rodney received both his worse, and best, pieces of writing advice when he was in high school.
"I had a hateful, obsolete Journalism teacher in high school who was more denture-click-and- hip-pop than willing to provide sound writing advice. She often criticized me for being 'wordy'. Too verbose, she'd shake a palsied claw at me, as I scribbled notes about what appeared to be her male pattern baldness. You would have thought, from her death rattle lesson plans, that full and vivid description should be avoided like a soul kiss from a herpetic. The woman essentially taught us to write headlines and herself had the charisma of a doorknob, a very rusty doorknob, to a tool shed.
"In that same high school, I was also fortunate enough to be mentored by an English teacher who plucked me from the soul-sucking classroom of conformity and placed me in independent study. I kept a journal, which I submitted once weekly, and was assigned literature -- everything from Joyce Carol Oates to Tennessee Williams to Judy Blume -- to write essays and critiques of. What a forward-thinking man that teacher was, in his jeans-and-no-tie-and-feathered-hair way, and I am still grateful he and his wife are part of my life. "So, even then, my evolution into a writer was brimming with contradiction. Write less. No, write more. Just the who/what/when/where/why/how. Tell me everything you see. My head spun like Regan MacNeil's, but I intuitively knew that I had to say what I had to say in the amount of words it took to say it. Now, of course, a good, graceful editor helps you rein in that volcanic impulse. Bless the heart of Lynn West, my editor at Dreamspinner Press, and her equally-considerate staff!"
Rodney grew up in a small Midwestern town about an hour outside of Indianapolis: Frankfort, Indiana. I asked him what he felt about his hometown.
"I couldn't wait until I could run on my fat little legs as far as I could from its oppressive and repressive and depressive and regressive confines, which I did, first to Butler University, then to that industry of bloodlust and paranoia called Advertising," he said. "Of course, time bestows clarity, and while I still find the town stifling and intolerant, I am grateful for the work ethic I learned there; the moral compass bestowed me by my parents; and the sense of community that can soar above the pettiness in genuine times of crisis. I've recreated this in Key West, Florida, where I now reside. It too is a small town, one that I call Gayberry, a town that embraces diversity, forgives easily (perhaps too easily, in some instances) and rarely judges. People come here to forge a fresh start and there are rarely inquiries into your past and the mistakes or triumphs that brought you here. It's a very face-value town. The very rich and celebrated will be seated at a bar next to a gentleman who is carefully counting his change for one last beer."
Sign Language: The Art Of Inscription
Having a Book Signing is a little like an episode of 'This Is Your Life'...well-wishers congregate to congratulate and compliment while, as the center of attention, you acknowledge the accolades with as much humility as each moment permits. It's almost as though you died and it's the eulogy you won't get to hear. Or you're a product that satisfied consumers are sharing testimonials about, a deodorant that kept them dry.
That is my humble take on my recent inaugural release party for 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow'. To see a roomful of people carrying my book, or discussing its merits and plot turns in small groups, is surreal, the realization of every gradiose fantasy when you're in the thick of isolation, writing and rewriting the damn thing and wondering if it will ever even SEE publication.It also makes you grateful: grateful for friendship, grateful to live in a community that celebrates the success of others, grateful to know people who actually read and did not just buy the book out of obligation or for shelf decor.
The concept of the autograph is a bit foreign to me. I've never sought one myself and, knowing those who work on Broadway, I have personal access to my fair share of celebrities. They've joined our table, our conversations, yet it never occurs to me to press a napkin and pen into their palm and whisper, "Could you sign this?" I guess, however, books are different. The author's signature is validation that you were in his presence; a personal inscription further elaborates on the relationship. I confess I wasn't very adept at this, my virgin's foray into succinct messages that carried either heft, were lyrically amusing or pithily recalled a shared memory. I fell into a convenient trap of spinning off the word "cool"...thanks for being a cool friend...here's hoping you find the cool part of a pillow...how cool is it that you're part of my story tonight...blather like that. I need, WANT, a do-over for so many of those, hastily-scrawled on the title page as I eyed a growing line of people holding the copy of TCPohP they just bought at the previous table (gratifying, but intimidating, knowing I cannot possibly spend any quality time withy any of them, no matter their familiarity with me as a person).
My next Book Signing, a Mini-Me variant scheduled for July 20th at my favorite Key West watering hole (the poolside bar of The Orchid Key In, at the corner of Duval and Truman) will hopefully yield a more polished presentation. The server has designed a special drink invovling an oversized marshmallow -- a "pillow", so to speak. One further enticement is the presence of my beloved mother, Diana Ross, down to Key West Fl for the 2nd of her twice-yearly visits.
No, not THAT Diana Ross.
Mine is neither black nor vocally-gifted.
But, all arrogance aside, I am pretty SUPREME.
Could I have a rim-shot?
The name of Diana Ross will be large and italicized in the local press releases. I may even put an asterisk*.
* No, that one, this one will be wearing an applique tee, gold bling that might tarnish as you admire it and a perm gone wrong.
If I can't have fun with this, then why the hell bother?
All things considered, I don't know how "cool" I will be. It appears the table will be positioned outdoors and, in the sweltering sun not yet slipped with a sizzle into the Atlantic, I will be awash in both gratitude and my own fluids. Perhaps I shall preside in my favorite shorty robe -- the one I wrote TCPohP in -- and give everyone in attendance for this Part Deux Signing more for their $17.99 than they ever counted on.
That is my humble take on my recent inaugural release party for 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow'. To see a roomful of people carrying my book, or discussing its merits and plot turns in small groups, is surreal, the realization of every gradiose fantasy when you're in the thick of isolation, writing and rewriting the damn thing and wondering if it will ever even SEE publication.It also makes you grateful: grateful for friendship, grateful to live in a community that celebrates the success of others, grateful to know people who actually read and did not just buy the book out of obligation or for shelf decor.
The concept of the autograph is a bit foreign to me. I've never sought one myself and, knowing those who work on Broadway, I have personal access to my fair share of celebrities. They've joined our table, our conversations, yet it never occurs to me to press a napkin and pen into their palm and whisper, "Could you sign this?" I guess, however, books are different. The author's signature is validation that you were in his presence; a personal inscription further elaborates on the relationship. I confess I wasn't very adept at this, my virgin's foray into succinct messages that carried either heft, were lyrically amusing or pithily recalled a shared memory. I fell into a convenient trap of spinning off the word "cool"...thanks for being a cool friend...here's hoping you find the cool part of a pillow...how cool is it that you're part of my story tonight...blather like that. I need, WANT, a do-over for so many of those, hastily-scrawled on the title page as I eyed a growing line of people holding the copy of TCPohP they just bought at the previous table (gratifying, but intimidating, knowing I cannot possibly spend any quality time withy any of them, no matter their familiarity with me as a person).
My next Book Signing, a Mini-Me variant scheduled for July 20th at my favorite Key West watering hole (the poolside bar of The Orchid Key In, at the corner of Duval and Truman) will hopefully yield a more polished presentation. The server has designed a special drink invovling an oversized marshmallow -- a "pillow", so to speak. One further enticement is the presence of my beloved mother, Diana Ross, down to Key West Fl for the 2nd of her twice-yearly visits.
No, not THAT Diana Ross.
Mine is neither black nor vocally-gifted.
But, all arrogance aside, I am pretty SUPREME.
Could I have a rim-shot?
The name of Diana Ross will be large and italicized in the local press releases. I may even put an asterisk*.
* No, that one, this one will be wearing an applique tee, gold bling that might tarnish as you admire it and a perm gone wrong.
If I can't have fun with this, then why the hell bother?
All things considered, I don't know how "cool" I will be. It appears the table will be positioned outdoors and, in the sweltering sun not yet slipped with a sizzle into the Atlantic, I will be awash in both gratitude and my own fluids. Perhaps I shall preside in my favorite shorty robe -- the one I wrote TCPohP in -- and give everyone in attendance for this Part Deux Signing more for their $17.99 than they ever counted on.
From BOOKS REVIEWS & MORE BY KATHY
Friday Feature: Interview with Rodney Ross & Contest
(for more of Kathy's literary insights, reviews and blogging, go to:
http://www.bookreviewsandmorebykathy....
KATHY: Today I’m hosting Rodney Ross, author of the new Dreamspinner Press novel, ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP). Thanks for popping in, RR. It’s a long trip here from Key West, Florida, where you live. I have to first ask: why are you pantless?
RODNEY: I’m kinda whimsical that way. The UPS fellow didn’t seem to appreciate it last week, but later that day the supermarket checkout lady grinned, so I’m batting 50/50. I like arriving minus something you expect, like teeth. It cuts down on the sameness of the whole Q/A format. I like to keep interviewer on their toes. So sometimes I’ll reveal I have only 9.
KATHY: Before we begin, let me put down this towel for you. There! Tell me about this, your first novel. Exciting stuff! What was it like to receive that acceptance letter and contract?
RODNEY: I about shit my pants. Gurl, calm down. I said about. Your towel is fine. I truly didn’t think Dreamspinner Press would be amenable to my submission. While TCPohP is undeniably LGBT, it doesn’t fall within the confines of their published strictures. There’s very little romance and almost no sex, yet Elizabeth North, the Executive Director, unblinkingly extended an offer for me to join their catalog of works.
KATHY: From conversations with other authors, I know that road to “yes” was paved with a lot of “no”.
RODNEY: As are my most of my sexual propositions. You get used to no, or being slapped, or law enforcement being summoned. Rejection is part of publishing, or any of the arts in general. Writing letters of inquiry and sending novel samples – “send us your best chapter,” as though you can disconnect one from the other as a perfect stand-alone – gives me groin pain. But so does this chair. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?
I must say, my favorite rejection letter was an E-mail from a literary agent. It was 3 words in response to a succinct plot summary coupled with the first three chapters. The E-mail read: Not for me
No greeting, no signature, not even a period. She didn’t even have time to close the fucking sentence.
Then, of course, there are those friends who will blandly console you upon rejection letters: “Rodney, don’t take it so personally”. Unless I’m Sybil — which I could be, without meds — of course I am going to take it personally! The work is your newborn. Being told it’s ugly, informed it has a clubfoot or just isn’t adoptable can lead a soul to drink. Speaking of which: where’s your liquor cabinet?
KATHY: Your big olives make me want to have a martini, too.
RODNEY: Oops, spilled a little! Good thing I have this towel.
KATHY: Good thing it was stuck to your ass. Tell us a little about the plot of TCPohP, and how it came to be.
RODNEY: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. He plunges into this surreal widowerhood, full of bad casseroles and even worse advice, yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and he slowly rebuilds his world, with missteps and revelations along the way. It was almost important of me that it be funny, full of wicked observation. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically-incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
I wrote it because, being a gay male of a certain age, I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
KATHY: So how old are you?
RODNEY: 107. But I only feel 98.
KATHY: I like that your cover artwork isn’t typical M/M. It’s abstract…mysterious, a little sad, the empty bed, the pillow…you can tell someone’s gone missing.
RODNEY: Anne Cain, who does a lot of work for DSP, created it. I like the detachment of it, the impassive distance. Look at how the wrinkled sheets trail down and recede into marbleization. One friend, when seeing he proposed artwork, mistook this effect for ejaculatory stains, which says far more about his salacious nature him than Ms. Cain.
KATHY: And with publication come reviews. How do you handle criticism?
RODNEY: With implied or actual violence.
KATHY: I loved the book, then. (I really did love it!!)
RODNEY: Good answer. There was this one literary agent — do you sense a trend here with literary agents? — who noted that my writing was “too jazzy” for her palate. I protested, “But I hate jazz!” I still don’t know what that means, but I do my best now to avoid mentioning saxophones and Ann Hampton Callaway as I wordsmith. But the best praise I got was from a Key West, FL neighbor, once a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, telling me, upon reading the raw manuscript- – before I ever submitted it anywhere with its jazz stylings — that TCPohP gave her an asthma attack from laughter. That’s my new goal: always make someone reach for an inhaler.
KATHY: Have you always considered yourself a writer?
RODNEY: Always. I wrote little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. So I didn’t completely flip the hell out producing 30-second car dealer commercials, in my off-hours I wrote screenplays — two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. Talk about self-pity: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until now.
KATHY: I assume we can find TCPohP in the conventional ways?
RODNEY: Gurl, I have more links than a cheap bracelet for you…
Amazon.com * Barnes & Noble
Dreamspinner Press: Paperback and e-Book
KATHY: What other interests and perversions — I meant diversions, of course — do you have, beyond writing?
RODNEY: The inclination to make shit up runs deep. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. If I’m not thinking about writing, I’m drinking about writing. That said, I like to garden; I never miss the opportunity to don gloves. I’m a producer on the upcoming documentary ‘The Little Firemen,’ director Quincy Perkins’ film about the lives of young boys who put their lives at risk to save others in an active terrorist zone up in the Andes Mountains. I have three cats, and I fantasize that, one day, one of them will speak the English language and I will go on Piers Morgan. I also dabble in silently farting and blaming others; criticizing those not present; tending my body hair; rushing to judgment; and bicycling. In exactly that order.
KATHY: What are you working on right now?
RODNEY: My third martini.
KATHY: I meant creatively.
RODNEY: Hiding that this is actually my 4th.
KATHY: One more time: any upcoming projects you would like to let us know about?
RODNEY: I AM at work on a new novel, and all I will say it’s about bad luck, and good — the paths chosen when fortune smiles on us, the desperate measures taken when it doesn’t.
KATHY: Do you have a life’s motto, RR?
RODNEY: “Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts. And every woman has them.” It’s what that ol’ telekinetic Carrie White says to her batshit crazy Mama and, as a gay of a certain age with a neglected physique, truer words were never spoken.
KATHY: Thank you for dropping by, Rodney.
RODNEY: The Greyhound schedule worked out perfectly. Now, Kathy, may I leave you an excerpt?
KATHY: I think you did. On my towel.
(for more of Kathy's literary insights, reviews and blogging, go to:
http://www.bookreviewsandmorebykathy....
KATHY: Today I’m hosting Rodney Ross, author of the new Dreamspinner Press novel, ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP). Thanks for popping in, RR. It’s a long trip here from Key West, Florida, where you live. I have to first ask: why are you pantless?
RODNEY: I’m kinda whimsical that way. The UPS fellow didn’t seem to appreciate it last week, but later that day the supermarket checkout lady grinned, so I’m batting 50/50. I like arriving minus something you expect, like teeth. It cuts down on the sameness of the whole Q/A format. I like to keep interviewer on their toes. So sometimes I’ll reveal I have only 9.
KATHY: Before we begin, let me put down this towel for you. There! Tell me about this, your first novel. Exciting stuff! What was it like to receive that acceptance letter and contract?
RODNEY: I about shit my pants. Gurl, calm down. I said about. Your towel is fine. I truly didn’t think Dreamspinner Press would be amenable to my submission. While TCPohP is undeniably LGBT, it doesn’t fall within the confines of their published strictures. There’s very little romance and almost no sex, yet Elizabeth North, the Executive Director, unblinkingly extended an offer for me to join their catalog of works.
KATHY: From conversations with other authors, I know that road to “yes” was paved with a lot of “no”.
RODNEY: As are my most of my sexual propositions. You get used to no, or being slapped, or law enforcement being summoned. Rejection is part of publishing, or any of the arts in general. Writing letters of inquiry and sending novel samples – “send us your best chapter,” as though you can disconnect one from the other as a perfect stand-alone – gives me groin pain. But so does this chair. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?
I must say, my favorite rejection letter was an E-mail from a literary agent. It was 3 words in response to a succinct plot summary coupled with the first three chapters. The E-mail read: Not for me
No greeting, no signature, not even a period. She didn’t even have time to close the fucking sentence.
Then, of course, there are those friends who will blandly console you upon rejection letters: “Rodney, don’t take it so personally”. Unless I’m Sybil — which I could be, without meds — of course I am going to take it personally! The work is your newborn. Being told it’s ugly, informed it has a clubfoot or just isn’t adoptable can lead a soul to drink. Speaking of which: where’s your liquor cabinet?
KATHY: Your big olives make me want to have a martini, too.
RODNEY: Oops, spilled a little! Good thing I have this towel.
KATHY: Good thing it was stuck to your ass. Tell us a little about the plot of TCPohP, and how it came to be.
RODNEY: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. He plunges into this surreal widowerhood, full of bad casseroles and even worse advice, yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and he slowly rebuilds his world, with missteps and revelations along the way. It was almost important of me that it be funny, full of wicked observation. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically-incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
I wrote it because, being a gay male of a certain age, I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
KATHY: So how old are you?
RODNEY: 107. But I only feel 98.
KATHY: I like that your cover artwork isn’t typical M/M. It’s abstract…mysterious, a little sad, the empty bed, the pillow…you can tell someone’s gone missing.
RODNEY: Anne Cain, who does a lot of work for DSP, created it. I like the detachment of it, the impassive distance. Look at how the wrinkled sheets trail down and recede into marbleization. One friend, when seeing he proposed artwork, mistook this effect for ejaculatory stains, which says far more about his salacious nature him than Ms. Cain.
KATHY: And with publication come reviews. How do you handle criticism?
RODNEY: With implied or actual violence.
KATHY: I loved the book, then. (I really did love it!!)
RODNEY: Good answer. There was this one literary agent — do you sense a trend here with literary agents? — who noted that my writing was “too jazzy” for her palate. I protested, “But I hate jazz!” I still don’t know what that means, but I do my best now to avoid mentioning saxophones and Ann Hampton Callaway as I wordsmith. But the best praise I got was from a Key West, FL neighbor, once a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, telling me, upon reading the raw manuscript- – before I ever submitted it anywhere with its jazz stylings — that TCPohP gave her an asthma attack from laughter. That’s my new goal: always make someone reach for an inhaler.
KATHY: Have you always considered yourself a writer?
RODNEY: Always. I wrote little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. So I didn’t completely flip the hell out producing 30-second car dealer commercials, in my off-hours I wrote screenplays — two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. Talk about self-pity: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until now.
KATHY: I assume we can find TCPohP in the conventional ways?
RODNEY: Gurl, I have more links than a cheap bracelet for you…
Amazon.com * Barnes & Noble
Dreamspinner Press: Paperback and e-Book
KATHY: What other interests and perversions — I meant diversions, of course — do you have, beyond writing?
RODNEY: The inclination to make shit up runs deep. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. If I’m not thinking about writing, I’m drinking about writing. That said, I like to garden; I never miss the opportunity to don gloves. I’m a producer on the upcoming documentary ‘The Little Firemen,’ director Quincy Perkins’ film about the lives of young boys who put their lives at risk to save others in an active terrorist zone up in the Andes Mountains. I have three cats, and I fantasize that, one day, one of them will speak the English language and I will go on Piers Morgan. I also dabble in silently farting and blaming others; criticizing those not present; tending my body hair; rushing to judgment; and bicycling. In exactly that order.
KATHY: What are you working on right now?
RODNEY: My third martini.
KATHY: I meant creatively.
RODNEY: Hiding that this is actually my 4th.
KATHY: One more time: any upcoming projects you would like to let us know about?
RODNEY: I AM at work on a new novel, and all I will say it’s about bad luck, and good — the paths chosen when fortune smiles on us, the desperate measures taken when it doesn’t.
KATHY: Do you have a life’s motto, RR?
RODNEY: “Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts. And every woman has them.” It’s what that ol’ telekinetic Carrie White says to her batshit crazy Mama and, as a gay of a certain age with a neglected physique, truer words were never spoken.
KATHY: Thank you for dropping by, Rodney.
RODNEY: The Greyhound schedule worked out perfectly. Now, Kathy, may I leave you an excerpt?
KATHY: I think you did. On my towel.
A New Interview With QMO
Be sure and check out this new site at:
http://queermagazineonline.com/
The owners of QMO know I love to write and post interviews, so they offered me a spot, my very own little corner at the magazine, where I can interview to my hearts content–authors and publishers, actors and artists–absolutely anyone involved in the LGBTQ community. So, there you have it! Blak Rayne will have a queer moment a couple times a week! LOL And, I hope you’ll join me!
Welcome to AQM at QMO (you try to say that fast ten times). Our grand opening guest is Rodney Ross, newcomer to the m/m publishing scene, but not when it comes to writing.
Our readers would love to know whatever you’re willing to tell us, Rodney.
My name is Rodney Ross. That is, indeed, my real name. My mother is Diana Ross. She is neither black nor vocally gifted, but having a mother with that name left little to chance that I would be The Gay. And a little bit supreme.
I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. I’ve always written: little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays -- two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. The self-pity was abject: “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP).
I semi-retired and relocated three years ago to Key West, FL, the final island of the Keys in Southern Florida, a tourism-driven town steeped in literary tradition, from Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway to, more recently, playwright Terrence McNally, Edmund White, even Judy Blume. It is here that I completed TCPohP and, for that, I am grateful to whatever wordsmith aura still encases the island (when it’s not shrouded in Summer’s oppressive humidity).
Here might be a good time to summarize the plot of TCPohP: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. His plunge into widower hood is surreal – casseroles of sympathy, being offered someone else’s snotrag, a parasitic grief support group – yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and as he slowly rebuilds a world largely destroyed, my hope is anyone who has experienced loss, felt backed into a corner, dealt with know-it-all-but-well-meaning-friends-and-relatives or retreated into denial, will find resonance. It’s also funny, full of wicked observation. Not rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…more humor that naturally emerges from situations…placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…characters who don’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
Why did you become an m/m author?
I don’t know that I am. I resist pigeonholes. I’m not so keen on HEA. I reach for it in my own life, but in this particular narrative, it would be reductive and a boring simplification and, because of its 1st-person, present tense voice, overt sexual detail would be a little too salacious memoir. This isn’t prudery -- I can be quite vivid, as mortified friends can attest -- and it isn’t snobbery, because I think the m/m publishing arena has given firebrand, controversial and wildly talented authors tremendous opportunity that mainstream houses have traditionally not, but that landscape too is evolving. Simply put, I wrote the book I wanted to, about a gay man, once one of two learning how to be the me of we.
Does personal experience influence your writing?
Being a gay male, certainly -- and permit me to be demure and evasive as I add one of a certain age -- I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time. If our relationship was measured in dog years, it would be something out of Jurassic Park. Having known this bliss, I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
Where do you find the greatest inspiration?
The observation of people both unknown and known to me. I find great sport in sitting quietly in the corner of a ginmill, pedestrian piazza or suburban mall and writing down the detail of humanity on the backs of ATM receipts and fast food bags, cackling the entire time. The nasty-ass parent who thinks they’ll calm a crying child by slamming them ferociously; the slightly-thick man in the too-tight tee against the wall who is holding in his stomach so intently I can feel his back pain; the couple in their twilight years who share a pudding cup and talk in shorthand. Those are the details one might be able to concoct but could never get the minutiae, the way that plastic spoon is dipped, quite right.
Beyond that, little slices of dialogue, or an anecdote, have been purloined from my life, but usually so altered as to be unrecognizable by the people who lived it or said it. While I am not interested in writing some roman a clef, some meaningless guessing game of “Who is really who?” among friends and associates, any writer who denies that his or her characters, certain passages and dialogue aren’t couched in real-life are liars. My focal character Barry has a pessimistic skepticism that comes easily to me, and his mother in the novel mangles the English language the way mine sometimes does.
Mostly, I make shit up, but it’s couched in realism. I escaped from the 7 Circles of Hell, a/k/a Advertising, so I know puh-lenty about research, stats and historical precedent, so anything I don’t know, I Google. Sloppy fact checking and inaccuracy annoys the hell outta me in fiction. Know where your characters live, where they frequent, what they spend of clothing and liquor, the specific geography, inhabit their era if it’s a period piece. Gone are the days of trips to the library, the stern shushes from the wretched crypt keepers at the front desk, the photocopying and note-taking. Scant or lazy detail in novels is inexcusable.
If you could indulge, which one of your characters would you have an affair? Explain the attraction. And, yes, I am determined to drag you anyway I can.
So, so determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the salacious, aren’t we? Affair connotes something covert, which I am not prone to -- I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time -- but if I were single and sought a nightlong bout of sweaty sex, I would choose Jarod, the young man with whom Barry finds (short-lived) physical intimacy. His life outlook sucks and his kneejerk politics would prove irksome, but if we’re just talking about lust and dick, sure, a lean 23 year-old with few boundaries might prove the fine-tuning my rusty vehicle needs.
Do you read erotica? If so, what is your favourite novel to date? And, why?
I am not, candidly, a huge fan of erotica, by the definition I think you’re utilizing. I find sexual tension, and its eventual realization, far more appealing. I would point to Michael Cunningham’s recent By Nightfall that steamed my glasses (and, peculiarly, I wasn’t wearing any). The percolating sexual energy between the focal character, straight-identifying, married art dealer Peter Harris, and his troubled brother-in-law Ethan, is so palpable, I may have to turn the hose on myself just typing this. By page 193, I had come undone. Or vice-versa.
If you could give an up-and-coming author one piece of advice, what would it be?
The inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting. Still, it’s a challenge, being depressingly aware that the final polish is so, so distant. Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating. A writer -- this one at least -- seeks distraction: the litter pan to scoop, sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. I always have a notepad and pen, or a mini-cassette recorder, handy. I treat my muse like a sneeze: I gotta catch the spray when I can!
Of course, writers must read. John Irving continues to be an inspiration. The World According To Garp opened my eyes to possibilities in literature that didn’t exist to me prior. His subsequent work has been just as vital, and his style brings an empathy, clarity and humanity to the most unrelentingly cruel encounters and unexpected character pivots. I can only aspire to his literary prowess.
The advice: stay at it. Write. Write some more. Worry not about genre; others will make that decision for you. Market yourself as single-mindedly as you did crafting your chapters. In the world today, the author can be as much the product as the printed page --or, rather, the page that floats on a digital cloud – so stay ready for the opportunities to get your work into the hands of others. The endgame is being read and appreciated.
http://queermagazineonline.com/
The owners of QMO know I love to write and post interviews, so they offered me a spot, my very own little corner at the magazine, where I can interview to my hearts content–authors and publishers, actors and artists–absolutely anyone involved in the LGBTQ community. So, there you have it! Blak Rayne will have a queer moment a couple times a week! LOL And, I hope you’ll join me!
Welcome to AQM at QMO (you try to say that fast ten times). Our grand opening guest is Rodney Ross, newcomer to the m/m publishing scene, but not when it comes to writing.
Our readers would love to know whatever you’re willing to tell us, Rodney.
My name is Rodney Ross. That is, indeed, my real name. My mother is Diana Ross. She is neither black nor vocally gifted, but having a mother with that name left little to chance that I would be The Gay. And a little bit supreme.
I was a creative child, self-isolating and brooding. I’ve always written: little playlets that I would act all of the characters for into a tape recorder; grade school newsletter/ high school newspaper/college newspaper; magazine freelancer; finally, a Creative Director at a Midwestern ad agency – where, ironically, I did very little writing, my time spent mostly calming manic producers and diva directors. For creative sustenance, in my off-hours, I wrote screenplays -- two optioned but never produced. Later came a play, optioned twice on separate Coasts – again, never produced. The self-pity was abject: “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!” Until ‘The Cool Part Of His Pillow’ (TCPohP).
I semi-retired and relocated three years ago to Key West, FL, the final island of the Keys in Southern Florida, a tourism-driven town steeped in literary tradition, from Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway to, more recently, playwright Terrence McNally, Edmund White, even Judy Blume. It is here that I completed TCPohP and, for that, I am grateful to whatever wordsmith aura still encases the island (when it’s not shrouded in Summer’s oppressive humidity).
Here might be a good time to summarize the plot of TCPohP: Barry Grooms is a success by any measure: expansive interior design gallery, 20-plus years of stability with partner Andy, financial security, he still has all of his own hair and teeth. Then everything changes when, on Barry’s 45th birthday, a horrendous construction crane collapse kills Andy and their two pugs. His plunge into widower hood is surreal – casseroles of sympathy, being offered someone else’s snotrag, a parasitic grief support group – yet Barry is damaged, not destroyed, and as he slowly rebuilds a world largely destroyed, my hope is anyone who has experienced loss, felt backed into a corner, dealt with know-it-all-but-well-meaning-friends-and-relatives or retreated into denial, will find resonance. It’s also funny, full of wicked observation. Not rimshot jokes nor Neil Simon-ish set-ups…more humor that naturally emerges from situations…placing two very different people in a room and letting them have at it…characters who don’t seem to have a self-edit chip in their head. Misery is so much more fun when sprinkled with the macabre or the politically incorrect, the scatological or the blasphemous. Barry’s smartassedness, his skeptical eye rolls, are what ultimately save him.
Why did you become an m/m author?
I don’t know that I am. I resist pigeonholes. I’m not so keen on HEA. I reach for it in my own life, but in this particular narrative, it would be reductive and a boring simplification and, because of its 1st-person, present tense voice, overt sexual detail would be a little too salacious memoir. This isn’t prudery -- I can be quite vivid, as mortified friends can attest -- and it isn’t snobbery, because I think the m/m publishing arena has given firebrand, controversial and wildly talented authors tremendous opportunity that mainstream houses have traditionally not, but that landscape too is evolving. Simply put, I wrote the book I wanted to, about a gay man, once one of two learning how to be the me of we.
Does personal experience influence your writing?
Being a gay male, certainly -- and permit me to be demure and evasive as I add one of a certain age -- I wanted to voice something relevant to a certain demographic: loneliness borne of loss, not of abandonment or cheating or even illness, but unthinkable circumstance. I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time. If our relationship was measured in dog years, it would be something out of Jurassic Park. Having known this bliss, I wanted to talk about the absence of love after having had it…when AARP is about the only thing that may come courting.
Where do you find the greatest inspiration?
The observation of people both unknown and known to me. I find great sport in sitting quietly in the corner of a ginmill, pedestrian piazza or suburban mall and writing down the detail of humanity on the backs of ATM receipts and fast food bags, cackling the entire time. The nasty-ass parent who thinks they’ll calm a crying child by slamming them ferociously; the slightly-thick man in the too-tight tee against the wall who is holding in his stomach so intently I can feel his back pain; the couple in their twilight years who share a pudding cup and talk in shorthand. Those are the details one might be able to concoct but could never get the minutiae, the way that plastic spoon is dipped, quite right.
Beyond that, little slices of dialogue, or an anecdote, have been purloined from my life, but usually so altered as to be unrecognizable by the people who lived it or said it. While I am not interested in writing some roman a clef, some meaningless guessing game of “Who is really who?” among friends and associates, any writer who denies that his or her characters, certain passages and dialogue aren’t couched in real-life are liars. My focal character Barry has a pessimistic skepticism that comes easily to me, and his mother in the novel mangles the English language the way mine sometimes does.
Mostly, I make shit up, but it’s couched in realism. I escaped from the 7 Circles of Hell, a/k/a Advertising, so I know puh-lenty about research, stats and historical precedent, so anything I don’t know, I Google. Sloppy fact checking and inaccuracy annoys the hell outta me in fiction. Know where your characters live, where they frequent, what they spend of clothing and liquor, the specific geography, inhabit their era if it’s a period piece. Gone are the days of trips to the library, the stern shushes from the wretched crypt keepers at the front desk, the photocopying and note-taking. Scant or lazy detail in novels is inexcusable.
If you could indulge, which one of your characters would you have an affair? Explain the attraction. And, yes, I am determined to drag you anyway I can.
So, so determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the salacious, aren’t we? Affair connotes something covert, which I am not prone to -- I am remarkably fortunate to be with a man who has tolerated and treasured me for a very long time -- but if I were single and sought a nightlong bout of sweaty sex, I would choose Jarod, the young man with whom Barry finds (short-lived) physical intimacy. His life outlook sucks and his kneejerk politics would prove irksome, but if we’re just talking about lust and dick, sure, a lean 23 year-old with few boundaries might prove the fine-tuning my rusty vehicle needs.
Do you read erotica? If so, what is your favourite novel to date? And, why?
I am not, candidly, a huge fan of erotica, by the definition I think you’re utilizing. I find sexual tension, and its eventual realization, far more appealing. I would point to Michael Cunningham’s recent By Nightfall that steamed my glasses (and, peculiarly, I wasn’t wearing any). The percolating sexual energy between the focal character, straight-identifying, married art dealer Peter Harris, and his troubled brother-in-law Ethan, is so palpable, I may have to turn the hose on myself just typing this. By page 193, I had come undone. Or vice-versa.
If you could give an up-and-coming author one piece of advice, what would it be?
The inclination to write is so embedded, I cannot imagine NOT writing. Most is nature….a bit is nurture…all of it is heavy lifting. Still, it’s a challenge, being depressingly aware that the final polish is so, so distant. Writing is so damned isolated, and isolating. A writer -- this one at least -- seeks distraction: the litter pan to scoop, sit-ups to attempt, a martini that’s just yelling to be shaken. I always have a notepad and pen, or a mini-cassette recorder, handy. I treat my muse like a sneeze: I gotta catch the spray when I can!
Of course, writers must read. John Irving continues to be an inspiration. The World According To Garp opened my eyes to possibilities in literature that didn’t exist to me prior. His subsequent work has been just as vital, and his style brings an empathy, clarity and humanity to the most unrelentingly cruel encounters and unexpected character pivots. I can only aspire to his literary prowess.
The advice: stay at it. Write. Write some more. Worry not about genre; others will make that decision for you. Market yourself as single-mindedly as you did crafting your chapters. In the world today, the author can be as much the product as the printed page --or, rather, the page that floats on a digital cloud – so stay ready for the opportunities to get your work into the hands of others. The endgame is being read and appreciated.
A KEYS TV Interview
I'll be on local Key West station WEYW tomorrow discussing 'The Cool Part Of His Pillow'.
For out-of-towners, this can be accessed at:
www.TVChannel19.com
Hostess Jenna Stauffer and I will gab at 7 A.M. 8:30 A. M. and 7 P.M.
For out-of-towners, this can be accessed at:
www.TVChannel19.com
Hostess Jenna Stauffer and I will gab at 7 A.M. 8:30 A. M. and 7 P.M.
