How I Got Started

In the last post, I noted that short stories were a large portion of my writing history, how I got to where I am (though most of you probably don't really know where I am - I'm hoping to change that).

In reality, the short stories were phase 2 of my self-imposed writing tutelage. I have a huge backlog of poetry from high school and college, but I'm not sure I'll ever publish those. They're early and I was so very very young.

During the course of putting those short stories together, though, I remembered when I first started writing, or, perhaps more importantly, started keeping the writing I was doing rather than just writing it then tossing the poems and haiku I'd written to that point.

Although I've been writing since I was ten or eleven, most of the poetry (what I wrote first) I read over, thought, "Hey, not bad," and threw away. It wasn't until I wrote "A Cold Wind on the Hill" (at thirteen or thereabouts) and showed my father that the situation changed. Although not a fiction lover himself, my father made me promise never to throw any of my writing away again. Even the stuff I should have thrown away (which I didn't include in the book).

It is, at least in part, due to him that I began to document my imaginings and learned to appreciate sharing the stories with an audience. Perhaps because of that, I continued to pursue writing even after I became an engineer and a mother and had days packed with too many other things to do. I still had to tell stories, had to write, had to write down and save what I did write (even when it stunk).   

This was that poem.

                 A Cold Wind on the Hill

            One August morning as nighttime had paled,
            Fighting broke out as the peacetalkers failed
            And the War had begun that no one would win.
            Grieved for His children, He looked on His kin
            And sent down an angel to quiet the din.

            But no one would listen for he had no right
            To sue them for peace when they wanted to fight,
            Till, fin'ly, repulséd, he fled in disgrace,
            Quite sick to the heart for the Master he'd face
            To tell of the end of the earth's human race.

            Yet, though it seemed futile, God, too, had to try
            To keep all those missiles from wounding the sky,
            But man just ignored Him and forced His retreat,
            Weeping with grief for His mankind's defeat,
            And for their blind bloodlust he couldn't unseat.

            So, man set his guns up, his missiles, his bombs
            And sent them all out on one hot August dawn.
            Then cities exploded in huge clouds of dust,
            While millions were killed in this "political must,"
            Whole nations reduced to just heat-blackened crust.

            Now, on a small hill does a lone Figure stand,
            With tears in His eyes and blood on His hands.
            The land all is barren; the grey air is still,
            Which tortures that gentle Soul there on the hill,
            As, for once in His life, God, Himself, feels a chill.

Thanks, Dad. I love you, though you're gone now.

But I didn't yet appreciate that I wanted to write or what I wanted to write. It was later in high school that I realized, what I wanted to do was not just write, but to write fiction, write stories, created entirely from my own mind, rather than just report on what had already happened, or writing about "stuff." I remember fondly when I first realized that what I wanted to do—what I would always want to do—was tell stories. I had an assignment in high school to write an essay about an ordinary object one could find at home. But I couldn't just describe something; I had to tell a story. Even my poetry tended toward long and epic stories. 

The "bones" of that "essay" became my first short story: Charley (and I also wrote a poem version of this). Though prose, it was only a short step from the poetry I'd written up to that point, the use of the sound of language, the emotional manipulation. Of everything I've written, it is still my eldest daughter's favorite.

I love you, Stephanie (yes, that's my eldest daughter's name).

Charley is the story that will kick off my anthology, Creating Dreams.

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Upping the Stakes

If talking about homosexuality gives you the willies, be warned. I'll be talking about it. On the other hand, maybe you could learn something. I am.

This is one my posts exploring what I'm learning from exploring yaoi manga, which could be seen as boy-on-boy romantic smut (as opposed to "bara" which is generally less romantic and more about the physicality, or so I've read). So, what have I been learning as I delve into a different world, a different environment? Or at least, one type of portrayal of that kind of world? Well, I need to add a couple of disclaimers. What I've been reading, called "yaoi" is actually male-on-male romantic manga generally written by and for women and girls to read. So, one might expect there to be marginal realism. However, it still has given me pause to consider things that are the same and things that are potentially different with regards to a gay couple.

Today, I'm noting the difference in magnitude in confessing a heterosexual romantic interest and confessing a homosexual interest.

Now people around the world don't necessarily have a love confession like is often portrayed in many kinds of manga: "Hey, I really like you. Would you go out with me?" but it really struck me how much more is on the line for a gay guy in that situation. You like someone, even love someone who might be your best friend in the world or someone you barely know that you saw and instantly fell for or just someone you were drawn to.

First, you have to come to grips with it yourself. If you knew you were already inclined that way, preferring men to girls, the fact that you love another man is unlikely to cause you untold soul-searching. True, every overt move toward another man is an opportunity for your preferences to become known (and stigma still attaches to this sort of thing in most societies), but you have probably already come to terms with who you are.

But what if, as frequently happens in what I've been reading, you either haven't known (or acknowledged) your preferences or, as it could be, you don't necessarily have a preference so much as a connection to a certain person who, for whatever reason, calls to your own soul. Maybe you've always dated women without understanding why it never really worked for you, why you couldn't become bone-deep passionate about them? Maybe you don't have a natural preference for a particular gender, but just particular people. Maybe sex has always been impersonal before, gender notwithstanding. But, if you never thought of yourself as a homosexual, before you've confessed to anyone, you have to come to terms with how you feel, what, if anything, that says about you, what that does to your own view of yourself as a man.

Ideally, I'd hope, you realize it doesn't change that, but then it's easy for me to say that. It's not a question I'll likely have to deal with, given that I've pushed three people out of my body. But there's something to be said for how society has inflicted stereotypes and concepts on people. There's nothing in the world that keeps someone homosexual from being a talent or capable athlete or soldier or policeman to teacher or delinquent. It doesn't make you more tough or less so, doesn't determine your favorite color. It doesn't make you a threat to your "buds" who are just friends, or, in fact, to anyone else. In fact, it doesn't really mean a thing except that you love people that come with the same equipment (or at least one person who does).

(There's a big controversy, apparently, because yaoi often portrays this ambiguously without making clear that people are "born" one way or the other. I'm not going to tell anyone gay they were or weren't born that way, but I'm also not going to tell someone else who says they aren't that they were. Not sure there's one and only one answer for everyone. But I don't know; I'm not gay)

That's one of the biggest differences I've been thinking of when comparing the realization you love someone to heterosexual relationships. Even if a relationship is completely inappropriate or impossible for any number of reasons, loving someone of the opposite sex doesn't impart the same level of soul-searching an unsuspecting young man would face when he realizes that the person he loves most, that he wants to touch sexually or to have in his life, is another man.

Girls, you'll be pleased to know that men, if manga is any indication, are no better at communicating with each other than they are communicating with us, at least if romance is involved.

Now, let's say our protagonist (we'll call him "Jin" which is often used to denote "man" or person in Japanese compound words) has wrestled with his soul and come to terms with the realization that he loves another man, that, despite trying to pretend it's friendship or kinship or some other feeling, he is sexually and/or romantically attracted to another man. What does Jin do?

A girl in that situation, or a boy, might be thinking how they could get that feeling reciprocated, or about finding a way to ask the other person out, or be too shy to say anything. But note how much less they have to lose to make a move, whether subtle or overt. A boy can ask a girl out and, if she refuses, that doesn't make it the end of their relationship. They can still be friends or coworkers or whatever. In fact, it's so painless (relatively speaking) that a heterosexual doesn't have to reserve asking someone out until he or she is desperately in love. He or she can ask if someone's just cute or has a nice smell or strikes one the right way. In fact, the less one is already invested in it, the less of a risk it is.

But for Jin who loves another guy, particularly if the guy in question is not overtly gay, it's considerably stickier. If the "guy" is not someone he is deeply attached to, someone he truly loves, why would you risk it? And risk you do, even if your heart isn't on the line. With attitudes as they are, you could get the crap beaten out of you for speaking your heart. Even someone who might not be bothered to find a good friend gay might react violently to find himself the object of affection. Even if violence doesn't break out, ugly words readily could and you've now made clear your sexual orientation to someone who might very well feel antagonistic; i.e. you've take the chance on it all going public (which can ruin someone, even today).

But even if that doesn't happen, even if the object of affection is tolerant and understanding, if he's not of the same mind and inclinations, there's an excellent chance that a friendship or relationship Jin cherishes, perhaps the only contact he has with this person, could be lost or transformed into something entirely different. Every word studied for nuance, every gesture, every touch could be examined and treated with suspicion. Putting the genie back into the bottle ain't that easy.

But what if this guy really is the love of Jin's life? Those of you (like me) who might feel like you've found your soulmate may know what I'm talking about here. If someone is the one, THE one, keeping silent, keeping the distance, being friends may just not be an option. And that just means you're gambling with your very heart, gambling everything because what you want matters that much. The more you are compelled to speak, to act, the more you have to lose, the more it will hurt if your love and heart are rejected with extreme prejudice.

Food for thought. Next, giving some thought to receiving such a confession...

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Learning Indirectly

So, most of last week, I spent devouring the examples of queries on Query Shark (which I learned about on Project Savior's blog. I learned a great deal, including that I had had absolutely no idea how to write a query. No wonder no one gave me a passing glance.

So, I feel better about my query for my "first" novel than I've ever felt before. Except, building an effective query brought something to light about my actual novel, the one I thought was "done." I was going to have to make some pretty drastic changes.

First of all, the novel weighs in at a hefty 130K words. Even though it's a fantasy in a world of its own, that's a pretty tough sell for a "first" novel. Since my rewrite had added some 30K+ words, it's hard for me to think of removing stuff.

Secondly, the plot, per se, doesn't kick in until chapter 6. Oh, it's not all description. The first two chapters are a very important rescue (the story of which, though changed, came from the original short story). Lots of action there. And then com description and time to get to know the main characters and then some of the side characters. But the story, the conflict doesn't really kick in until the kittens come in and force Tander to reexamine everything he thinks is true. Plus, the kittens make it hilarious.

In fact, once people get to the kittens, it's really hard to put the book down. Problem is, this doesn't happen until page 89, Chapter 7.

I've mentioned before that plots aren't my strong suit. I'm a character writer (and reader) and the delay is a direct result of the fact that I didn't have a way of putting it all together until I brought in the kittens and suddenly everything fell into place...89 pages in.

Writing the query was a wake up call that starting a novel when the real plot doesn't start until more than a quarter of the way through the book is a mistake. So, I decided to cull several whole chapters and condense the first two chapters into one. The rescue in the beginning is very important, but much of the expendable character dialog served no purpose (other than humor). The reminiscence about how the characters met was nice but could be as easily used in a later book (in fact, great to do so since we will need to reintroduce them in follow-up books). As for the character introductions, well, we'll have plenty of time to get to know everyone. It's a long book.

It was hard to do. This was material, leftover material from my first draft, the parts before I'd worked on it with Lee. It was hard to get rid of it (though Lee had never liked it). Worse was the realization that when I dropped 14K words in one fell swoop I had to do almost no corrections on the rest of it. The book doesn't miss it at all. I did all the revisions in one morning.

Now, it's a much more marketable 116K words and the kittens wander in on page 36 and the plot beginning even before that. Everything's tidier and moves much faster.

All because the query reminded me where the story really was.

Cool, isn't it?

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