What I discovered About Myself Today
People often ask, "What are you reading?"
Well, today I just started a wonderful book by Larry Duplechan titled Blackbird.
I've only read the first few pages but I know I'm going to love it. Do you ever feel that way about a book? It doesn't happen very often but when it does, it's wonderful.
Blackbird has an amazing introduction by lawyer, mystery writer, and multi-Lambda Lit Award winner, Michael Nava
that really spoke to me.
This weekend I'm presenting the first Intro to LGBT Lit class at the Central Coast Writer's Conference in California. No pressure, right?
I've been trying like crazy to figure out how to cram such a huge subject area into a one hour workshop. I have a pretty comprehensive handout that covers most of what I want to say but still, I worry and wonder if I have enough resources within me to do a good enough job with such an important and landmark class. Again, no pressure. :)
Reading Mr. Nava's intro to Blackbird solved that issue for me. Of the many subjects he covered, in just a few pages, Nava talked about the differences in the perspectives and attitudes about homosexuality of gay writers born in the 1940s from those born in the mid-'50s and mid-'60s. (I would certainly be in the former group. B. 1944. Yep, I'm that old.)
Nava also wrote about survivor's guilt and a kind of PTSD or shell shock many older gay men carry with them after having lived through the worst of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and well into the '90s.
I've often used those same terms about myself: PTSD, survivor's guilt, trauma. It's no wonder for my gay romance series, Lovers and Liars, I'd pick a main character living through the worst of the London Blitz, someone with battle fatigue and layers of psychological trauma from childhood. Someone with whom I have a lot in common.
I recently did a radio interview about the upcoming conference with two other writing colleagues, Teri Bayus and Justin Schwartzenberger. Afterwards, and before I left the broadcasting studio, I told the radio host, Fred Munroe, how nervous and anxious I was. He followed me out into the lobby and said, "That's your authenticity. It's what makes you YOU." (Thank you, Fred.)
Whodathunk a character flaw I tried so hard most of my life to overcome could be something good, something I should embrace?
Not me.
Maybe after all I am enough. I just have to be me.
What a concept!
Until next time,
the best is yet to come,
Paul
Well, today I just started a wonderful book by Larry Duplechan titled Blackbird.
I've only read the first few pages but I know I'm going to love it. Do you ever feel that way about a book? It doesn't happen very often but when it does, it's wonderful.
Blackbird has an amazing introduction by lawyer, mystery writer, and multi-Lambda Lit Award winner, Michael Nava
that really spoke to me. This weekend I'm presenting the first Intro to LGBT Lit class at the Central Coast Writer's Conference in California. No pressure, right?
I've been trying like crazy to figure out how to cram such a huge subject area into a one hour workshop. I have a pretty comprehensive handout that covers most of what I want to say but still, I worry and wonder if I have enough resources within me to do a good enough job with such an important and landmark class. Again, no pressure. :)
Reading Mr. Nava's intro to Blackbird solved that issue for me. Of the many subjects he covered, in just a few pages, Nava talked about the differences in the perspectives and attitudes about homosexuality of gay writers born in the 1940s from those born in the mid-'50s and mid-'60s. (I would certainly be in the former group. B. 1944. Yep, I'm that old.)
Nava also wrote about survivor's guilt and a kind of PTSD or shell shock many older gay men carry with them after having lived through the worst of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and well into the '90s.
I've often used those same terms about myself: PTSD, survivor's guilt, trauma. It's no wonder for my gay romance series, Lovers and Liars, I'd pick a main character living through the worst of the London Blitz, someone with battle fatigue and layers of psychological trauma from childhood. Someone with whom I have a lot in common.
I recently did a radio interview about the upcoming conference with two other writing colleagues, Teri Bayus and Justin Schwartzenberger. Afterwards, and before I left the broadcasting studio, I told the radio host, Fred Munroe, how nervous and anxious I was. He followed me out into the lobby and said, "That's your authenticity. It's what makes you YOU." (Thank you, Fred.)
Whodathunk a character flaw I tried so hard most of my life to overcome could be something good, something I should embrace?
Not me.
Maybe after all I am enough. I just have to be me.
What a concept!
Until next time,
the best is yet to come,
Paul
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Hi, Anne, and thank you for your kind note. Yep, we'll chat about it sometime. See you soon. :)
I've read, and re-read Paul Monette's honest and heartbreaking books regarding the height of the AIDS plague. I'd love to read a book authored by you about those years. I am an anxiety ridden man. That's one reason out of many that I write so little. But when I write from that fiery core of anxiety, I write what is true. Your truth is all I want, and know I'll receive, from your upcoming classes. The world is not on any one person's shoulders. Rather his own weight lives there.
Oh, Anthony, what a lovely comment. Thank you for taking a look at my blog post. I'm really looking forward to this weekend and to seeing you and all my writer friends. I'm gearing up for a fun time and hopefully that's what it will be. Will do my best to provide two good workshops for you and the others with thoughts and strategies to take away and fire up that anxiety. :) Love and hugs, Paul
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If anxiety makes people authentic, I must have authenticity shooting out of my eyeballs. :-)