Am I a Real Writer?

It's been a weird few weeks since I've written anything here. In fact, I haven't written much of anything.  As you know if you've kept up with me, I finished my first novel a couple of months ago. I had two of my favorite people read it and give my their thoughts.  Everything was positive and I was gung ho to make some revisions and send it on to more readers.  In the meantime, something happened that brought it all to a grinding halt.  I lost my confidence.  Suddenly it all seemed so juvenile and I wondered what to do with it.

I've been told that the revisions process can be exciting and isn't as hard as the actual writing of the first draft.  I'm finding the opposite to be true, but there may be a reason for that. The little critic who lives inside of me is also a perfectionist.  When I wrote the first draft I gave myself permission to let it go where the story needed to take me.  Now with the revisions, we find out if I'm a real writer.  This scares me.

I tell myself that anyone can write, but it takes a real writer to make something worthy of publishing.  Do I have what it takes?  I thought so. Now, I'm feeling less sure. I guess the only way to find out is to keep going at it and see what happens.

Arrrggghhh!

Breaking the Rules

On an episode of  The Golden Girls, Rue McClanahan's Blanche sarcastically asks if Betty White's Rose was a wild woman.  Rose replies, "Oh, you bet I am! I eat raw cookie dough. And occasionally, I run through the sprinklers and don't wear a bathing cap. And at Christmas, I've been known to put away more than one eggnog."  In contrast to her dimwitted, good girl image, Rose Nylund liked to break the rules. She was a rebel.


Some people love to live by rules.  They don't speed or roll through a stop sign.  They never wear white after Labor Day and they wouldn't be caught dead eating red wine with fish.  The rest of us like to push the envelope occasionally. 


Certain rules need broken or at least challenged.  I had a friend once, many years ago, who was studying to be an actor.  He took classes in dance, voice, movement, and acting.  He went to a well known theatre school and studied at a private conservatory.  He did everything he could to prepare for a career in theatre.  Everything except audition.  He didn't actually have any theatre experience because he was waiting to learn all the "rules" first.  By the time he learned all the "rules" he was no longer interested in theatre.  To this day, he rarely does any acting.  I think I read that he started a garage band somewhere and works in computer science.


Whatever vocation, or hobby, or fleeting interest we have comes with a set of rules.  The trick is to know which rules you can break and which ones you can't.  Sometimes its more fun if you do it before you know the rules.  


I have two great passions: writing and photography.  Theatre is a close third, but I've learned too many rules so it doesn't hold the same joy for me now. 

In photography, any beginner's manual will tell you to NEVER center your subject in the frame.  It makes for an uninteresting picture.   That may be true on many occasions.  A different angle is sure to make for better composition, but sometimes the best pictures come from breaking the rules.  The photo at right by Steve McCurry, is a famous exception.  Afghan Girl's face is centered, horizontally and vertically, and it's a haunting photograph.  The photographer knew the eyes were the story. Why try to deny that?  Put them front and center.  There are many exceptions to this rule throughout the history of photography.  If no one ever dared break the rules, we'd be without such beautiful photos.


As most of you know, I love to write and writing has its own set of rules.  Show don't tell. Don't end sentences with a preposition. Too many adverbs make for uninteresting reading. Backstory shouldn't be told in chunks. Short stories shouldn't have flashbacks. The list goes on an on.  I have a theory that some writers who can't sell what they write, like to write books telling the rest of us what the rules are and warn us against breaking them.  


What I like to do is throw out the "rule book" and refer to those ideas as suggestions or guidelines.  After all, calling it a rule just makes me want to break it.  Like Rose, I too sometimes like to eat raw cookie dough.  I'm a rebel like that.  And I might even begin a sentence with "and."  That's a no no.


Of course we need to have some rules, but we need to be flexible enough as writers, photographers, actors, artists, singers, etc.. to experiment with bending them or breaking them in the name of creativity.  Its not always going to work, but at least we will have tried.  Having a checklist is good.  Living by the checklist is not.  


If writing is all about following the rules of what's trendy today, we might as well be making widgets on an assembly line.  Not something I aspire to do. 

Too Many Ribbons

I came of age in the early 1980s and just as I began my life as an out gay man, there was a disease rapidly spreading through the gay community.  It started as "the gay cancer" and eventually was named AIDS.  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  Over the course of the next fifteen years, it killed many of my new friends. 

People ran scared.  Some doctors and nurses refused to treat patients with AIDS, cemeteries refused to bury people with AIDS and  family members refused to touch or love people with AIDS.  It was a horrible time, but we were brought together as a gay community with one enemy in mind: AIDS.  People like Elizabeth Taylor gave us a voice, when we had a president who wouldn't publicly acknowledge the disease. Celebrities like Rock Hudson had to die before we knew it could touch anyone.  

In my personal life, AIDS touched me many times.  I helped take care of two close friends who both died.  I sat by their bedside, gave them sponge-baths, read to them when they could no longer see, and held their hands as they struggled to take final breaths.  I even briefly entertained the idea of assisting one as he wanted to commit suicide because the pain was so great. 

The low point was the week I went to three memorial services in a course of four days. Death was all around us and we never got a reprieve.  Eventually all the infected friends were gone, except for a few who are miraculously still healthy today. Life went on and I thought I was done. 

Fast forward to now.  I'm a man in my mid forties and I have a new enemy.  Cancer.  I have lost too many of my friends now over the past few years to cancer.  Same insidiousness as before, just a different colored ribbon to wear on my lapel.  

Yesterday I found out that an acquaintance, a couple of years younger than me, has been diagnosed with cancer now.  This is after the grandparents, the police sergeant, the acting teacher and mentor, the volunteers, the retired stage hand, the friend's mom, and other friends have already gone.  

How many tears do I have left?  How much scar tissue can the heart take? 

When I'm really positive, I can take all this in and learn lessons from it.  We must live each day to it's fullest and we should never let a day go by without telling the ones we love that we love them and that I'm lucky to have known such wonderful people.

On the days where I'm exhausted and can't seem to get out of bed, I pick up my feet, roll out of bed anyway and keep moving.  It's all I can do to fake it.

Maybe today is the day someone learns how to beat cancer's ass!

Lazy Sundays

Frankie's needs are simple.  A spot in the sun for a nap. 

I love Sundays.  I think I always have.  They have a different vibe to them than other days.  Saturdays try, but they're too quick paced for me.  Saturdays require getting the things done you've been waiting for the weekend to do.  Grocery shopping. Laundry. Gardening. The chores.

Sundays are slow, gentle and easy. Aside from the Christian principle of Sunday being a day of rest, it seems like a slower day.  Which is why I have no problem napping a Sunday away. :-)

I wake up on a Sunday to cup of coffee and CBS Sunday Morning.  I never watch CBS in the morning except for Sunday.  I'm usually a Today Show kinda guy.  I have a secret crush on Ann Curry.

The morning is sometimes followed by brunch with friends or just my partner and me going out for something delicious.  Some days like today, I'm still in my pajamas at 4 p.m..  I love that.

Days of rest are needed in this fast paced world we live in.  Sunday is the day we somehow have permission to stop and smell the flowers, or taste the coffeecake.   This is also the kind of day that works for me most when it comes to creativity.  I do my best story plotting when my mind is relaxed and I can consider the possibilities.  It's not the kind of day for me to do line edits.  I'd find myself napping if I attempted that.  Sundays are also my favorite day for taking my camera out into the world and capturing it's beauty.  In a few weeks, when Spring is really here, that's what I'll be doing.  Today I'm writing.

I've begun working on revisions of my first novel and it's nice to know what's "wrong" in my piece.  "Wrong" is too strong of a word.  "What could be improved" is probably better.   It's nice knowing those things, but now comes the fixing it, or making it shine.  The possibilities are endless.  I thought revisions would be tedious and I'd be tired of my novel by now, but instead the opposite is true.  I have a whole new energy about it.  I sit back and realize this really has possibility.

As I consider all my options before moving forward, I'll need to mull them over during a nap.  My character speak to me then.   Really.  It's not just an excuse to nap......  Well, maybe a little.

Happy Sunday.

Bullying: A National Cause

I wrote this as a note on my Facebook page, but wanted to share it here as well.

After several media spotlighted suicides over the past several months, many because those who committed suicide were gay, the White House has announced an Anti-Bullying Conference tomorrow.  Groups such as the Trevor Project, I'm sure have been very instrumental in bringing this to our collective conscious.  I salute them and their work.  Many celebrities have made heart-felt videos telling us that it gets better.  I've even shared my own story with some and can say truly that it does get better, however, it doesn't go away. 

Teenage bullying is only the tip of the iceberg.  Remember that children model the behavior they're taught and bullying is all around us.  Look at any reality show and chances are the game is won by bullying.  Bullying is defined as one person asserting his will aggressively or through intimidation.  This can be done through threats, alliances, and manipulations.  I just described Big Brother, Survivor, The Bachelor, and The Biggest Loser.

So, that's reality television, we say.  It's entertainment.  It's also teaching our kids that bullying works.  If it didn't there wouldn't be a problem.

We are bullied all the time. We're bullied by the guy in the giant SUV who speeds up behind you on the highway and stays on your tail until you succumb to his will and change lanes or speed up.  The workplace is full of bullies.  Bosses who get away with outrageous and inappropriate behavior because everyone is afraid to report them.  Besides, aren't we just lucky to have a job?  Don't want to rock that boat.  

At our churches, we're bullied into giving a percentage of our income, or we face eternal damnation, while the Reverand is adding a wing to his home, or building a giant Jesus statue.   Politians bully us all the time.  They scare and manipulate us into electing them and then they bully us into giving up our civil liberties.  

So, you see, bullies are everywhere.  Does it get better, or do we learn to eat so much shit in our lifetimes that we accept it as the norm?  We tell ourselves that we're powerless.

Maybe the real answer lies in each of us.  Bullying doesn't go away, but we grow stronger and learn that we can stop giving the bullies the power over us.  

Here's what I want to say to anyone who feels bullied.  "It does get better, because you get better.  You learn what you are willing to accept and what you're not.  A bully doesn't win if you just say NO."

Passing the Manuscript

Okay, at long last, I'm handing over my manuscript to my first readers, Wendy and Erin.  After that, I have another tier of readers who have also honored me with the offer to read my work.  I say that they are honoring me because they are committing to reading a 384 page manuscript and they have no idea if it's any good.  They honor me by taking a chance on me.  It's extremely humbling.

So, let me tell you about Wendy and Erin.  Wendy and I worked together at a call center and she became my friend in one of the darkest periods of my life.  We began working at the call center on the same day and we connected immediately.  When we were assigned to the floor, we had cubicles right next to each other.  Wendy was the main reason the job was bearable.  God knows we both needed something to make it bearable.  Between calls we'd talk about life and writing.  I had begun my novel, but only barely.  I had the concept and two of the main characters in mind, but there was still so much ahead of me.  I think I had about seventy five pages written, most of which has since been re-worked. While I pondered my novel's story points and characters, Wendy wrote her novel.  Long hand, between phone calls.  I was amazed and a bit envious.  I remember one particular slow day that I had an idea for a character.  I turned to her and said, "Hey, what about a blind artist?  Think that will work?"  She smiled and nodded while she finished her phone call.

Having the novel to work on and Wendy to bounce ideas off of kept me sane for that year.  If I had nothing to look forward to, I'm afraid I would have sank into a hopelessness I would never have returned from.  I can honestly say that writing this novel has kept me alive and given me hope when I could find no other.

My second "first reader" is Erin.  I fell in love with Erin the moment I met her.  It was in a writer's workshop.  Her enthusiasm was contagious and her quirky sense of humor had me hooked.  When we shared our first pieces, I was blown away the section of her memoir that she shared.  I was taken by her brutal honesty and knew she was someone I wanted to read my stuff.

The truth is that I would be honored by any of the six people in that room to read my work.  They were all so instrumental to me finishing.  Their feedback was incredible and made me want to make my writing better.  I hope that I have done that.

I hold my glass up to my friends, Jim, Dodie, Katrina, Jessica, Erin and Wendy.   Thank you.

Bad Writer

I can't believe it's been ten days since I posted a new entry. Bad writer!  The truth is that I've had a lot going on internally and any post might have seemed a bit too negative.  I definitely didn't want that.  I'm trying to clear out the negatives from life and be a more positive person. Inherently I tend to be positive, but I'm also human and sometimes I have difficulty letting the negatives go.  I suppose if I were perfect I wouldn't have that problem.

Okay, aside from all of that, I continue revising and editing my novel.  I found a couple of chapters that I really did not like.  I knew when I was writing them that I would be coming back to fix them, so that I did.  I got back into the character's heads (or they got into mine) and put out some really good stuff, if I say so myself.  I'm about sixty pages from finishing the first edits.  I'll make those changes and then get this puppy into my very patient first readers' hands.

I'm still pinching myself. I wrote a freakin novel.