Andrew J. Peters's Blog, page 2

Why I’m an ally for women’s reproductive freedom

Retrieved from Democracy Now website: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/2...

I’ve been thinking about LGBTQ+ issues as the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia passed on May 17th and thinking about women’s reproductive rights while states like Alabama have been enacting bizarre and grotesque laws demeaning and diminishing female personhood. Every now and then, I post some political commentary here. It doesn’t have a lot to do with what I write, but it’s a big part of who I am. If you’re curious, here’s some stuff I wrote about the Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally, #TransgenderRightAreHumanRights, and the Writers Resist movement.

Today, I’m struck by the essential alliance between queer rights advocacy and women’s rights advocacy and wanting to defend women’s reproductive freedom in particular as a gay male ally.

I actually got involved in women’s rights issues before I had the courage to come out and talk about queer rights. My mother’s quiet democratic values inspired me from a young age. She decried racism and anti-Semitism and was a terrific female role model. From back when I was in elementary school, she talked to me about women’s equality by sharing the story of her mother, who died before I was born. My maternal grandmother was the valedictorian of her high school class and was pushed toward nursing school rather than college even though she had the potential to be a doctor. Nursing is of course a challenging and honorable service profession, but the point was sexist social attitudes place limitations on women’s lives. And, not incidentally, this was a lesson to me that’s it’s never too young to talk to kids about sexism, racism, and other systems of oppression. Some of the most impactful stories are from our childhood, and in my case, it helped me become an ally.

My mother wanted to have opportunities her mother could not have. She went to a four-year college and had a brief career as a biologist at a cancer research center before her life took a more traditional turn. She left her job when my older brother was born, and she was a stay-at-home mom up until I was a little further along in elementary school. Then she went back to school for computer science, one of a handful of women in the graduate program while also one of the oldest students in her class. She completed her degree and went on to manage information technology policy, literacy and training at New York State’s largest public university. I grew up a firm believer in women’s equality and appreciating the tremendous courage and determination it takes to succeed in male-dominated professions.

I think instinctively I understood the connection between women’s rights generally and their reproductive rights specifically. The latter was an issue I knew my mom supported, but we didn’t talk about it much. For me, it just felt obvious that a part of a person’s humanity and freedom was their ability to make decisions about their body. Actually, it felt terrifying that someone could take that away from you, and the way religious organizations tried to shame women about their sexuality angered me.

Buffalo, New York where I grew up was one of Operation Rescue’s target cities in the early 90s. Led by Reverend Randall Terry, they travelled around the country to picket abortion clinics with their famous fetus jar displays. I’ve participated in a lot of protests in my life, and to this day, one of my favorites was counter-protesting Randall Terry in Buffalo along with my four housemates at the time (all of whom were straight men). Most of them had never done anything political related to women’s reproductive freedom, but we all felt at our core the protestors were wrong, and there was an urgency to supporting women’s reproductive choice.

There was something at stake for me personally though I probably would not have known how to voice it at the time. The anti-reproductive freedom position is based on so-called traditional or family values with the goal of erasing social progress and re-establishing (or establishing for the first time in some cases) laws and norms based on Christian fundamentalist doctrine. I was reminded just today on a news program that many states still have laws criminalizing adultery. Of course, anti-sodomy laws still exist in many places. These “blue laws” are the legacy of the 19th century Protestant reform movement, which successfully inserted their morals and traditions into legal codes across the country.

As a young man listening to the talking points of the anti-choice side of the abortion debate, I realized I also had a target on my back. Their family values envisioned good Christian men marrying good Christian women, castigating sex outside of marriage, and often most vehemently, declaring homosexuality a perversion that is to blame for everything from single parent households to hurricanes and earthquakes. Even before I accepted I was gay, I recognized that worldview was pretty much diametrically opposed to how I lived my life, or planned to live my life. As a young adult, freedom generally was important to me, but also as someone who was drawn to secular humanism much more than any religion, I saw the rhetoric and positions of the Christian Right as defamatory and unfair.

So bringing this back to May 2019, I’m reminded – almost daily reminded since November 2016 – how fragile achievements in the women’s rights movement and the LGBT rights movement are. In addition to the assault on women’s reproductive rights, folks are working on the presidential level, congressional level, and state and local level to push Religious Freedom laws to weaken LGBT civil liberties and legally enshrine Christian fundamentalists’ right to hate us. Such laws would also limit women’s reproductive freedom. We’ve already seen cases of pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control pills to women. And the Trump administration successfully established a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

This is wrong. This is a critical time for folks who care about women’s lives and dignity to come together. Because it’s not just about one issue. It’s a systematic attack on the values and norms that allow a pluralistic, democratic society to thrive. We’ve been at this juncture before. Many of us just never thought we’d be back there again. I stand up as an ally to women’s reproductive freedom for my mom, for women everywhere, and to acknowledge this is an issue that men—gay and straight—care about as well.

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Queering up Your Bookshelf

Happy Spring Folks!

Just a quick note this month, a media alert if you will, while I’m focusing my time placing a couple of finished projects.

Author Alex Harrow had me over at their blog for their Queering up Your Bookshelf feature. We talked about queer representation in literature, my writing process, and what’s up next for me. You can read the article here.

Alex also hosts a monthly Twitter chat on queer speculative fiction fyi. It’s generally the third Thursday of the month at 7:00 pm EST, and you can find it with the tag #queerspec.

That’s all I got for now. Hope everyone is doing well now that spring has sprung.

Some thoughts on small press publishing

From time to time, people stop by my blog with comments and questions about my journey to get my books published and the business side of being an author. I’m hardly a huge success story, but I’ve been doing this writing thing for a little while. So I thought I’d do something different and share a bit about my experience being a small press author. Full credit to Victoria Sheridan, a fellow NineStar Press author, who wrote this piece on the subject for the NaNoWriMo blog and got me thinking about the idea.

I actually have titles with four small presses so I guess that gives me some cred on the subject. First off, I should explain there’s three main pathways to getting your book published: big press, small press, and self-publishing. I’ve also had some experience with self-publishing through some short fiction I published on Smashwords and a romance/erotica novel I published on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) under a pen name.

The big press route is the most coveted pathway for authors. I don’t think I’ve ever met an author who didn’t start out with that goal in mind. As publishing corporations have shrunk and merged due to declining sales over the past decade or so, five publishing houses are left as “The Big Five.” They make up an estimated 80 percent of market and offer the largest distribution networks, promotion/marketing resources, advances for authors (i.e. you get paid something up front before your book makes sales), “social capital” to generate buzz and opportunities, and the much sought-after stamp of prestige.

I tried the big press route with most of my titles figuring it made sense to aim high first and give my books the best chance of discoverability. With rare exception, an author needs a literary agent to get their book considered by one of the big houses, thus the first slow and agonizing step in the process is to query agents who can sell the kind of book you’ve written.

If an agent accepts you as a client, you’ve increased your chances of getting published by a big press, though results can greatly vary. I had an agent for Irresistible who had nearly four decades of experience repping gay literature for example, and she couldn’t get any editors she works with interested in it. She candidly shared with me the number of big house editors interested in gay fiction has dwindled such that she can count them on one hand. Fiction generally is the softer side of big house income, resulting in greater reliance on authors to do some of the marketing themselves, even presenting a business plan and an established following in some cases. Thus, landing a book at a big press has become ever more elusive for many of us.

Self-publishing is the accessible alternative and has become quite popular via platforms like Amazon’s KDP program. The advantages are control over production, marketing, pricing, and of course getting a much bigger share of sales. KDP for example pays authors 70% of list price. Big presses pay as little as 8-10% on hardcover and paperback sales, 20-25% on e-books.

On the other hand, self-publishing requires a considerable outlay of money in order to start making sales, from editing and design services to marketing costs. Moreover, the most successful self-published authors churn out a ton of books in order to establish a following so the sense of being free to DIY however you want has some limits. According to writer sites like Reedsy, it’s become pretty much obligatory to focus on writing serials if you have expectations of generating income as a self-published author.

I dabbled in self-publishing as somewhat of an experiment. I had a couple pieces of short fiction I thought might be useful as freebies to entice readers to check out my longer work. Then, I had a more [ahem] mature novel I thought I’d try on KDP out of curiosity and really for the fun of it.

I did practically nothing to market the short fiction pieces on Smashwords. One story which is permafree has gotten about 600 downloads since it was published almost five years ago. The other story, published just last year, got 40 downloads when it was free for a two-week trial period and has since gotten about 40 downloads while priced at 99 cents. So, nothing too impressive there.

And there’s no way to track if those downloads led to purchases of my other books. Smashwords allows you to mention other titles inside a book published on their platform, but they prohibit direct links to competitor retailers like Amazon. My guess is any buy-through activity has been very light.

The novel at KDP, also barely marketed, has sold 20 copies over a one-year period, leaving me pretty deep in the red as I paid $500 for editing and book design.

I said this post was going to be about my experience with small press publishing, but I thought that lead-in was helpful to put things in context. Small presses, sometimes called independent presses, are often described as that world in-between the big houses and self-publishing since they offer some of the advantages and some of the limitations of both of those routes.

Most small presses will take unagented submissions, and they’re quite specific about what they’re looking for. For instance, I was encouraged by the number of independent publishers who are enthusiastic about LGBTQIA+ fiction, and I found homes for several of my titles at Bold Strokes Books and NineStar Press, which publish LGBTQIA+ fiction exclusively.

Now I should say, when I refer to myself as a small press author (primarily), I mean a small press. There are scores of independent publishers outside of the Big Five, and they vary in size. The bigger ones might have a staff of twenty and publish over 100 titles annually. The smaller ones might have one or two people running the business and a pool of editors, production staff and marketing folks they hire for projects, altogether publishing a dozen or less titles each year. That describes all four of my publishers.

As such, their response time to submissions was generally gradual. I waited six months to receive offers on two of my titles. The quickest turnaround was for Werecat – two weeks, and that project also has the distinction of having a 100% success rate. I really liked the publisher’s mission statement and backlist and sent them an exclusive submission.

Bold Strokes paid a $500 advance for each of the first two books I published with them (The Seventh Pleiade and Banished Sons of Poseidon) and offered $200 on the third since I had not earned back my advances on the other books. My other three publishers do not provide advances, but their contract terms were largely more favorable. The best is a 50/50 split on both print and e-book sales with no right of first refusal on future titles.

An advantage over self-publishing is a small press provides professional editing, proofing, cover design, copyrighting, and placement/distribution at no cost to the author. While my experience has varied somewhat with my four publishers, I’ve largely been ushered through that process with personalized attention and a collaborative approach, which may be less common when working with a big house due to the volumes of titles their business plan demands. There’s nothing quite like working with an editor who is genuinely enthusiastic about your book, and I’m grateful to have had that experience with several of my titles (special shout-out to my fabulous NineStar editor Elizabetta!).

Now regarding placement and distribution, only one of the four presses I’ve worked with has a distribution plan for trade paperbacks that is even slightly comparable to the big houses, i.e. actively working to get their titles into brick-and-mortar booksellers, trade shows, and libraries. And even so, I saw those efforts trickle off with my three titles. As one metric, the first title got picked up by 36 libraries across the country and around the world according to World Cat. The second title got into 11. The third got into 2. And I saw a similar trend with Barnes and Noble, which briefly had a handful of stores carry the first two titles and never picked up book #3.

One of my small presses is e-book only, and another is e-book mainly because they use a print-on-demand service to publish paperbacks. That’s a significant limitation as paperback readers will never find the titles off-line, and even the bookstores and libraries I approached to inquire about carrying the title had a difficult time finding the book via wholesale distributors like Ingram.

Regarding promotion and marketing, there’s no question small presses have a lot of limitations, though there can be an upside that I’ll get to. That ‘biggest’ small press Bold Strokes offered the most in that department such as paying for exhibit booths at book fairs, entering titles in awards programs, and providing authors with ten free copies of the title to give away as samples to get it into bookstores and libraries and send to early reviewers.

One of my publishers places titles on NetGalley, and another uses the early reviewer giveaway program at LibraryThing. They all use social media and mailing lists, but being small companies, their reach is pretty modest. Their contracts include clauses about marketing being a “partnership,” and while the terms of that are non-binding and don’t require authors to spend money in that area, it’s been my experience across the board that small press authors must become the primary ambassadors of their titles.

I’d estimate I spent 100 hours or more on each of my titles via social media work, querying book bloggers, sending out to my own mailing list, running giveaways, creating related content for my website, and various forms of networking. I do readings at local bookstores and book fairs and conferences. I’ve also spent between $100-500 for each book on ads at Facebook and book promotion sites and printing promotional materials.

The impact can feel bleak. My best-selling title has sold 500 copies since its release in 2013. Two of my titles have only sold marginally better than that self-published novel I put up at KDP with close to zero marketing effort. Yep, I’m talking double digits.

The biggest success has been my e-novelette The Rearing, Book One in the Werecat series, which is approaching 15,000 downloads. That’s largely due to the e-book going permafree in 2017 and brings me to an upside to working with a small press.

Small presses can be innovative and flexible when it comes to promotion. That deal I brokered to set The Rearing permafree at retailers gave the series a second life after a period of declining sales, and the publisher’s willingness to collaborate on a pricing strategy is something that’s less likely to happen when working with a big house.

Another one of my publishers sponsored a live Facebook chat that was a fun way to launch the title, and another has a Facebook group with lively discussion and resource-sharing on everything from how to get the most out of tabling at a book fair to tips for getting books into libraries and connecting with vlogs and podcasters. I’ve found there’s not a lot a small press will do for you marketing-wise, but at their best, they’re a great source of information on how to DIY so there’s definitely value added there. I’ve learned a ton about media opportunities and how to make the best use out of Facebook and Goodreads. Most importantly, I’ve developed relationships with a lot of fellow authors, which is a huge source of mutual support and has often led to opportunities I would have never discovered by myself.

So I’d say the biggest benefit of being a small press author is being part of a community. Writing can be a lonely journey, and it helps to know you’re not traveling on your own. I cross-promote with other authors, commiserate when things aren’t going well (we all need that validation), and on the other side, we celebrate each other’s successes. For me, small presses are the realistic way to get my books published since I don’t have the expertise to design my own books, market them effectively, nor the funds to pay for professional editing and a publicist.

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On retold stories and folklore

Illustration from The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, retrieved from Wikipedia commons

I’m in between BIG, EXCITING publication news, so I thought I’d blog a little something on the subject of retold stories and folklore, which has sort of become my métier.

Alright, I actually do have some exciting but super early news to share that relates to the subject. Late this year, most likely late fall, NineStar Press will be publishing a collection of my short stories, which are based on world mythology and folklore. The contract is signed, and I am busily getting each one of them ready for editing and production.

Yeah, I’m really happy about that, and if you’re curious, you can get an exclusive preview of some of the stories at my Patreon page. I’ll be talking up that project a lot more as we get closer to the release date.

My Year in Books

For three (or so) years running, I’ve been sharing My Year in Books as organized and analyzed by Goodreads. It certainly does make it fun to look back on all the titles you’ve read and to realize it’s quite an achievement!

I actually nearly doubled my reading output in 2018. For the past two years, I finished thirteen books annually, and this year I read twenty-four (I might hit twenty-five if I find the time to finish a book on Hungarian history in the next week or so). That might be a slightly inflated improvement in that I did a lot of beta reading and awards program reading in previous years, and I usually didn’t log those titles in. But here’s my positive take-away: I got a lot more reading done on my commute back and forth to work, which can be one to two hours total each day, by spending less time with games and social media on my phone.

Hot Tips for Writers

An interesting thing that happens once you get published is friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, and even strangers come out of the woodwork to confess they also wrote a novel, or their husband also wrote a novel, or they’re working on a novel and wonder if you have some advice.

Sometimes, that’s a disastrous lead-in to asking you to read said novel or novel-in-progress, a situation that cannot end well. But if it’s not a pretext for that, hey, why not share some bits of wisdom? We writers do it all the time. It’s become something of an industry really – the “how to write a best seller” book – which, in today’s oversaturated publishing market, eventually will probably lead to endless blogs and books on how to write a how to write book.

So here I am jumping on that bandwagon, but just for the ridiculous fun of it rather than to style myself as a writing guru. Recently, loathsome author Jonathan Franzen wrote a 10 Rules for Novelists piece at Literary Hub, which was somewhat of an inspiration point for me. You can read some other authors’ snarky responses on Twitter in this article in the Guardian here.

I’d argue probably the very best advice for writers came from W. Somerset Maugham, or at least it’s so frequently attributed to him, people have given up fact-checking the matter. The leads must’ve gone cold quite awhile ago considering he’s dead. Anyway, by popular consensus, Maugham famously quipped:

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

I’ve never actually read anything by Maugham, but if he did come up with that unassailable assessment, I probably should. On the other hand, that kind of tip-giving is no fun when you could instead show off your arrogance or cleverness or gleeful irreverency by publishing a top ten list of your own. Here’s Chuck Wendig’s homespun list (and he’s not a tool):

6. characters poop plot

7. maybe try saying something more than just what’s just on the page, like, a lot of story is unseen

8. writing advice is bullshit; bullshit can fertilize

9. eat bees?

10a. fuck, I dunno, nobody knows what the hell they’re doing

10b. have you tried napping

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) November 15, 2018

Now I’m no Chuck Wendig. Just check out my book sales if you don’t believe me. Or, compare our number of Twitter followers, or see how many hits our websites get, or see the reaction of your local bookseller when you drop both of our names into conversation. It will shock and depress you. So that’s actually #i on my Ten Essential Rules for Writers List: Don’t compare yourself to Chuck Wendig.

But I am still a writer, goddammit. Let’s give credit where credit’s due. I’ve written eight novels (with varying results), and some of my titles have been runners-up at awards programs, and I was once recognized by a reader on the street. So yes, over the years, I’ve acquired some useless things to say on this subject. Thusly, for all the writers out there, and wanne be writers out there, I give you these gems that have served me well:

Do not ever agree to read someone else’s work for the purposes of giving advice. Don’t give advice. Just don’t. Unless you want to be a very lonely person.
Bad habits complement a writer’s lifestyle very well. Have you considered taking up smoking? A porn addiction? Really any bad habit that will plunge you deeper into alienation and self-loathing will do.
When you find you’re repeating the same words and phrases in your manuscript, you may actually be on to something. Laziness and overextertion are possibilities, but let’s try to stay positive. My favorite overused words and phrases are: “abundant,” “strategoi,” and “he grinned.” Not so terrible, right? Season your manuscript judiciously with your darlings, and if no one else wants to eat it, well, there’s more for you.
Some say: write drunk, edit sober. I actually favor the opposite. It helps take the edge off of rereading my work.
If at all possible, do not tell people you are a writer. No interesting conversation ever follows that disclosure. Really, it’s just awkward all around.
The Internet is your friend. Your only friend. The kind of friend who exposes all your vulnerabilities publically, calls you in the middle of the night to bail them out of jail after starting a bar fight, persuades you to try all the latest, worthless fads for improving your life, and is short on money when the restaurant bill arrives. Parental controls aren’t a bad idea.
Find time to wallow in self-pity. An Australian Shiraz and The Real Housewives of Orange County pair well.
If you must write in first-person, present, try not to be too transparent about the fact you’re really writing about yourself. We can see you behind the elf ears and leather leggings.
Font choice can make all the difference.
Finally, and really my only serious piece of advice: Be nice to other writers. It costs you nothing.

 

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Did you know I also write reviews?

Yes, it’s true. When I’m not sneaking in time to write my own stuff, I’m apt to be found poring through a book, and I caught a bit of a review bug a few years back which I’ll blame on Goodreads. The site is awesome in my opinion. It’s a great place to get book recs and to talk with readers who are also fans of the genres and authors that I like. I’m an organization nerd so I also love that you can catalogue what you’ve read and reviewed. I wish it had existed when I was in grade school. I’d have a whole history of my life in books!

Well, instead I have a history of what I’ve read over the past ten years (a little spotty for the first couple). If you’d like to connect with me there–and I hope you will–here’s my Goodreads profile page.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken on some review work at other sites, and I thought it would be cute to pass that along. You can follow my reviews at New York Journal of Books, Queer Sci Fi, and Out in Print. I get called on a lot to review fantasy titles, though I’ve branched out to other genres from time to time. My most recent review at Out in Print was a reprint of a gay pulp erotic pirate novel, for instance. I like discovering unusual titles and helping to spread the word about LGBTQ+ #OwnVoices books.

Feel free to pitch a title to me if it falls into that latter category. I’ll probably say no, which I guess is pretty harsh, but I want to be realistic about expectations. Between reviewing for three sites, getting reseach in, and finding time to read for pleasure, I’m massively backlogged most of the time. But I promise not to be mean if you decide to try me!

If you’re looking for reviewers, here’s a few suggestions…

Reedsy has a searchable book review blog database you can find here. It covers the full spectrum of genres.

There’s also The Book Blogger List that has a comprehensive list of categories.

And, I just discovered this one while writing this post: Book Sirens has a blog directory. 

I’ll also mention, for my ongoing project An Introduction to Gay Fantasy, I’m always looking to build up my curated list of titles, particularly books written before 2000. So fire away with suggestions. I have the lofty aim of collecting “noteworthy” titles, which I define in lots of ways: awards, industry praise, diverse portrayals, #OwnVoices, and “ground breaking” characters and/or ideas about gender and sexuality.

 

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My interview at WROTE

Hey, hey! Head over to WROTE podcast to listen to Baz and Vance interview me about Irresistible, historical fiction, queer media, romantic comedy and more.

I think it’s hysterically funny. You might just get a smirk or two out of it, but judge for yourself. There’s a rapid fire question part at the end that really exposes how dialed in I am to the latest in technology and lifestyle. But this was definitely one of the most enjoyable media thingies I’ve done over the years, and I have to give a huge shout out and thank you to Baz Collins and Vance Bastian for giving me time to introduce myself to their listeners!

Here’s where you can listen to it, and share it all over the place:

http://www.wrotepodcast.com/andrew-j-...

WROTE stands for Written On The Edge, and the podcast runs weekly discussions about LGBTQ storytelling in all genres and mediums. Their guests have included some of my favorite authors like Scott Pomfret, Jerry Wheeler (who also was my editor on two novels), Joe Okwonko, and ‘Nathan Burgoine, among many others. Very entertaining stuff, and I’ve been spending my idle time catching up with episodes.

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An excerpt from Irrestistible

For my continuing promotion of Irresistible Month, I thought I’d share an exclusive excerpt from the book.

Launch month is going well by the way. The book has gradually accumulated reviews at Amazon and Goodreads, and while the tea leaves are always tough to read until I get my first royalty statement, the title seems to be staying pretty solid in its bestseller ranking at the Kindle store.

I chose a scene from early in the book, and it requires very little set-up. Here, the main character Cal is out with his best friend Derek the night after he met a very cute and friendly customer at the antiques shop where he works.

Irresisible
Copyright © 2018 by Andrew J. Peters

Later that evening, Callisthenes Panagopoulos met his roommate and best friend, Derek Foster, for a free, outdoor screening of the Mae West film I’m No Angel. The Bryant Park film festival of Hollywood classics was one item on a long list of things Cal had researched for them to do that summer. They only had twelve weeks in New York City, and Cal was determined to get as much out of the experience as possible. Derek had a seasonal job at a booth for discount theater tickets while Cal tended his uncle’s antiques shop. Their paychecks had to go almost entirely to the rent of their one-bedroom, sublet apartment, but Cal had found a treasure trove of free entertainment in the city.
The small urban park was overfilled with picnicking families and couples. Cal scanned through the crowd and spotted a spare spot centrally located for viewing. It looked like a tight fit, but when he led Derek across the lawn to claim it, some very nice ladies with shellacked helmets of hair and Broadway T-shirts looked up at Cal and quickly shrugged back their blanket to make space. A pair of older gentlemen stared at him dreamily and scooted back in their lawn chairs so Cal would have some room in their direction as well.
Cal unrolled a tatami mat from his college backpack, and he and Derek seated themselves hip to hip. Cal unpacked two fried egg sandwiches and a sixteen-ounce can of Budweiser, which he portioned into paper coffee cups liberated from a nearby deli. They chomped on their sandwiches as the opening credits blared from the giant screen.
Mae West had always been a campy curiosity to Cal, but he found his attention drifting away from the film. Was the guy he met in the store earlier that day for real? It felt like it had been a dream. He wasn’t supposed to be fishing for dates while he was working, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Brendan was gorgeous and smart and really sweet and considerate, and he knew about Arthur Rimbaud, and he’d minored in classical studies. He was a native New Yorker, which made him something like five thousand times more interesting and worldly than anyone Cal had met before. And like a total airhead, Cal had asked him if he did a lot of traveling, working in the shipping business, as if he freighted the goods across the Atlantic himself. Brendan probably had some high-powered executive job. Cal winced, thinking about how dumb he’d acted.
Meanwhile, his companion was having a hard time paying attention to the movie for different reasons.
“I know we’re homosexuals, but do we have to live out every gay cliché known to man this summer?” Derek said quietly.
Cal whispered back, “What do you mean?”
“Last night, it was the Jackie Onassis Hat and Apparel exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The day before was the Breakfast at Tiffany’s walking tour of Greenwich Village. Tonight, it’s Mae West?”
“You said you liked the walking tour.”
“I did. But I’m beginning to feel like I’m turning into Truman Capote.”
Cal guffawed. Derek looked nothing like Truman Capote. He was a slight guy with jet-black hair who looked like he worked at a tech company and skateboarded to work. Cal trapped his mouth with his hand, hoping his laughter hadn’t annoyed anyone nearby. The Midwestern housewives were timidly watching him like they’d spotted a celebrity. One of the older gentlemen leaned forward and asked Cal if he’d like one of his chocolate-dipped strawberries. Cal thanked him and declined. He gathered that side conversations at a reasonable volume were acceptable during the outdoor film.
“I’m glad you mentioned Truman Capote,” he told Derek. “It reminds me—Columbia has a free lecture this Friday on the art of writing the nonfiction crime novel.”
Derek gave Cal a lopsided grin. “You really can’t stop yourself, can you?”
“We have seventy-one days left until the end of the summer,” Cal said. “We’re budgeted at forty dollars a day, max, and that includes meals. I want to get in as much as possible.” At the end of the summer, Cal would be starting a master’s degree program in classical studies. Derek would go back to his odd jobs as a math tutor and working at the health insurance call center.
Derek’s shoulder leaned against his. “Don’t forget— I want to go to the beach.”
Cal grinned. He and Derek had been best friends since freshman year in college. In fact, Derek had been his only male friend for the past five years. With other guys, complications had always cropped up. They acted like they wanted to be friends, and then it turned out they wanted to jump Cal’s bones, which wasn’t bad in and of itself, with the right guy, or even the semi-right guy if Cal was in the mood. But it seemed like the only thing guys ever wanted was sex, and Cal had a knack for attracting the most intense and possessive types. That was why Derek was so great. They could hang out all the time and do regular things without any sexual tension and drama.
“There’s a beach on Coney Island,” he told Derek. “You can walk to it right from the subway. I looked it up. The subway fare’s only two seventy-five. The first sunny day both of us are off from work, we’ll go.”
Derek grinned and leaned into Cal some more. “Hey, what about going down to Little Italy tomorrow night?”
“Oh. I can’t.”
Derek gave him a double take. He was aware Cal closed up his grandfather’s shop by seven o’clock at the latest. They’d never made plans without the other. Neither of them even knew anyone else in New York. “You can’t?”
“I met someone.” Cal’s face bloomed. “We kind of have a date. Or, I think we have a date. Or, it could just be getting together as friends.”
“When did you meet someone?”
“This morning. At the store.”
“A customer?”
“Yeah.” It felt like sunshine was spreading over Cal. “His name is Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss.”
“Jesus. Did his family come over with the first gay pilgrims?”
Cal giggled. He evened out his enthusiasm. “He’s probably too perfect to be real. And it’s only going out for ice cream. I think he was just being friendly.”
Derek shot him a crooked glance.
“What’s that for?”
“Cal, you can be so oblivious when it comes to guys.”
“I don’t think I’m oblivious,” Cal objected. “It’s not a hookup. I didn’t get that impression at all. You think after everything that happened with Steve, I’d be giving out my phone number to random strangers?” He sat up straight, self-righteous. “I’ve actually been super conscious about not giving off any sexual vibes.”
Another crooked glance came back at him. “You’ve been super conscious about not giving off sexual vibes,” Derek repeated flatly. “Wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Want a lick?’”
“It’s ironic,” Cal said. “The whole T-shirt is meant to be ironic.”
“There’s nothing ironic about you, Cal. That’s the problem.” Derek dug his cell phone out and started tapping on the screen. His face twisted up skeptically in the blue light of the phone, and he turned the display screen to Cal. “That him?”
Brendan’s strong-jawed, handsome face sparkled in Cal’s vision. Cal took the phone so he could admire the photo more closely. Brendan was wearing a tuxedo for some society event. His wavy, dark brown hair was shorter and perfectly groomed. He stood in a ballroom filled with people who looked like they owned islands in the Caribbean. A modern-day prince.
“How did you find him so quickly?”
Derek took back his phone. “Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss is not exactly a common name.” He swiped and tapped at the screen. “And there’s, like, a zillion articles about him.” Derek read from one of them. “New York Magazine— Heir to Thackeray shipping magnate hosts fundraising gala for LGBTQ homeless teens.”
“Really? That’s so sweet.” Cal reached for the phone. Derek held him back as if Cal were a toddler trying to grab his lollipop.
“Stalk him on your own time,” Derek said.
Cal took his arm and nuzzled up close. “But I want to stalk him with you.”
“Don’t come purring up to me,” Derek scolded him mildly. “I turn my back for a half second, and you’ve got guys luring you into ice cream parlors to get down your pants.”
“Brendan’s not like that. He buys Victorian cameos for his grandmother. And he was really shy about his family being wealthy. It was cute.” Cal brushed his hand through his thick, wavy blond hair. “I don’t know. I’ve got this really great feeling about him.”
Derek took a long, stiff draw of his beer. “That’s great. So what’s going to happen? You two are going to run off and make genetically gifted babies, and I’m stuck hanging out in New York all summer by myself.”
“No,” Cal said. He squeezed Derek’s arm. “I’d never do that to you.”
“It’s cool, Cal. I mean, it’s not like I can expect a guy like you to stay single for the rest of his life. You walk down the street, and people are falling over each other to try to inhale the air you breathe.”
Cal gazed at Derek steadily. “That only happened once.” A smile crept up his face, which earned a mild chuckle from his friend. Cal nudged Derek on the shoulder. “We came down here to experience New York together. I’m not going to renege on that. Brendan and I have known each other for, like, five seconds. It’s nothing serious. You want me to text him and cancel for tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
Cal’s heart sank in his chest, but he rummaged in his pocket for his phone.
Derek caught him by the arm. “No. I was kidding.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not going to be a total dick,” Derek said. “Hey, maybe I’ll do you one better and meet some billionaire to take me out for an actual dinner.”
“Thanks, Derek. Have I told you lately you’re the best friend in the world?”
“No, you haven’t.”
Cal kissed him on the cheek. “You’re the best friend in the world.”
“You still owe me the beach, you frickin’ ho.”
They scowled at each other, and then they tucked in to watch the rest of the black-and-white movie on the giant movie screen.

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More on the inspiration for Irresistible

I always enjoy sharing some of the visual and musical inspiration points for my titles, so I thought I’d do just that in follow up to my post about Irresistible last week.

It’s an upbeat, pop music kind of story, and the one song that was in my head a lot while I was going through the first round of editing was “I Feel it Coming” by The Weeknd. I think it fits perfectly for Brendan and Cal’s first night together, and it might get you in the mood for the book.

The Weeknd – I Feel It Coming ft. Daft Punk

I Feel It Coming ft. Daft Punk (Official Video) Taken from the album Starboy https://TheWeeknd.lnk.to/IFeelItComin... Connect with The Weeknd: http://www.facebook.com/theweeknd http://instagram.com/theweeknd https://soundcloud.com/theweeknd https://twitter.com/TheWeeknd https://www.theweeknd.com Directed by Warren Fu Produced by Raffi Adlan For Partizan Music video by The Weeknd performing I Feel It Coming.

Then, for something more, erm romantically-appropriate…

SHAPE OF YOU – ED SHEERAN (Cover Music Video)

this is my cover to “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran (Duet with Drew Penkala). alright so this video is CRAZY LOL. this is something that is very out of my element haha. so i hope you all enjoy but definitely don’t take this too seriously or take it the wrong way.

Last, this is a bit of a throwback, but I was looking for something pop-y with a good sense of humor to go along with the comedy side of the story.

OK Go – Here It Goes Again

Music video by OK Go performing Here It Goes Again (The Treadmill Video).

In terms of the main characters, one of them is complicated in terms of how I pictured him. Callisthenes Panogopoulos (Cal) is a self-described: “half Greek, quarter Polish, quarter German mutt,” and he’s so beautiful, men and women have been desperately and comically pursuing him since he was a teenager. I actually took some inspiration for the story from the Farrely brothers’ “There’s Something About Mary,” so there’s a little Cameron Diaz in Cal.

Everyone’s image of the most gorgeous man in the world is different, so in some ways I’m reluctant to share some of my casting thoughts for Cal. I don’t want to spoil whatever picture comes to mind when you read it! But here are a couple of young hearthrobs that could work for me.

So, how about model Matthew Noszka?

Photo retrieved from Consort PR http://consortpr.com/modal/male-model...

Matthew Noszka, from IMDB profile

Or, thinking more working actor with some Greek ancestry, Theo James, if he was ready for a lighter, more comedic role

via GIPHY

Or, as Cal says himself, it’s about time Hollywood cast real gay actors to play real gay people so, Colton Haynes, with shaggier blond hair?

Photo retrieved from Gay Star News https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/w...

The other lead Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss is a well-bred catch in his own right who would need to be played by an actor who can channel overeducated, twenty-something angst. So here’s one actor who would be great for the part: Logan Lerman.

Logan Lerman, photo from Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...

Or, going with a gay actor, Kyle Dean Massey could also fit the bill:

Kyle Dean Massey, retrieved from Broadway.Com https://www.broadway.com/shows/ifthen...

You can see all of the book’s inspiration points at my Pinterest board:

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