Rattling the (Emotive) Cages

So this one’s a short rant – comparatively speaking.

I’ve become frustrated over whether or not the work is ready. On one hand I feel really good about it all. Now that the cover is sort of put to bed (I’m happy with it), I think I just want to toss it to the wind.

The final cover artwork. Blood included.

But here’s the fly in that ointment – I reached out to a very good editor and had a very nice conversation about what I was doing and where Angels of Mercy was. She read through it (she has some fairly amazing writing and editing cred so, yeah, ears were definitely perked and listening) – well what I had posted to my site anyhow.

Her response sort of shocked me. I mean, I’ve been getting fairly great responses from my betas out there and they’re very much hooked in and invested in my characters. But here was someone from the ‘biz’ who could give me a little 411 on where I really was in the process.

Grammatically, it seemed (unlike the stream of consciousness I babble here about), I was very clean and spot on with what I’d put down. That seemed to impress her that I had that much polish to what I had already. Not that it couldn’t be tweaked and tightened. But she was really liking my boys in Mercy and what they were up to. She got, without my prodding too much, that you were firmly entrenched in Elliot’s head and letting his gayboy self slather all over your eyeballs because he’s just that kind of gayboy. Elliot is all over the place. But he’s cuter than fuck, so yeah, he gets a pass.

A potential Elliot Donahey from my book Angels of Mercy – Volume One: Elliot

She thought she could help me out with the real meat of the story because my prose was so clean. We could actually hone in on the whole arc and look at the bigger picture as well as laser like gaze over the finer details that would just put AoM – Vol 1 on it’s best possible feet – literary speaking.

I know it sort of needs that. Not that I am not happy with all that I’ve done so far.

Then came the price tag (and let me be clear right here, I fully think she’s worth the dough – no gripes there) but it still was a fair chunk of change. So I have to weigh it.

Then I had a thought: (uh-oh, as my family would say) – What if I crowd-funded the editorial costs? Could I get that much traction and attention? It certainly seemed plausible. The work definitely warrants a try. What could it hurt? There are books out there that are giving far less for the money asked for than what I’ve been mulling around in the back of my mind.

Now, I know that my work is NOT standard M/M Romance/Erotica fair. It’s just not that – not really. For one thing, it goes dark. VERY DARK by the end of book 2 and 3. At the end of this book we are only touching upon that darkness that will turn my loving and committed boys lives upside-down. And it couldn’t hurt to put that out there, right? I mean – worst that could happen? No one would spring for it. No worse than where I am now.

And here’s the other rub: while it is about two 18 year old boys who are madly in love with each other, it also pulls absolutely NO punches about their sex lives or their sex drives. My boys love sex. My boys have quite a bit of it in book 1. But the series isn’t just about that. It’s honest about it (after all they are hormonally charged teenaged young men). But the sex is not all it’s about.

The work is meant to be a character study. I rattle Elliot’s internal cage so much that the reader can’t help but walk way from it that they really know this boy and the man he loves.

So now, I am working on what sort of package I’ll be putting together for anyone’s investment in getting it on its feet. I’ve got some pretty amazing things planned up in my noggin’ already. I think it just might work.

And if it doesn’t, I’ll find another way to press on. Marco and Elliot’s story WILL be told. It will be published (even if I have to do it myself – though the editor I spoke to thought it was good enough to not give up on the traditional publishing route). That’s saying something I guess.

The hubby thinks I should work with PFLAG to get the word out about it. After all, my cousin (who has a gay son and struggled with understanding him as he grew up) read the work and found a way to connect with the work that really gave her some insight into her own world. So yeah, the potential is there that I might have a market for the work through people like PFLAG who are both proponents of acceptance for LGBTQI individuals but also wanting to educate themselves a bit about our lives. The adversity we struggle against on a daily basis. While my book is certainly NOT academic, it is deeply rooted in real life experiences. GAY MEN’S experiences. Our voices, our way.

That’s what I am trying to create here. No punches pulled, no apologies, one big hot mess of a life (or lives) that have a story to tell. A way to connect, a way to enlighten, a way to experience something that they might not have picked up any other way.

It’s like Rechy’s work for me as a teen. He breathed life into my burgeoning gayboy existence that was quite literally withering on the vine before it could take hold. Wondering if there was something wrong with me. When his big, gay, gritty as all fuck world, came in like a breath of sex laden air that completely enveloped my 16 year old self and said – “It’s cool, you’re gonna be okay kid. It’s all gonna be okay. It’s a big gay world out there, you just gotta claim your stake in it.”

And claim it, I did.

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Book Release | Crowd Funding | Editing | Elliot Donahey | IndieGOGO | Kickstarter | Marco Sforza | novel | Storytelling | writing

Angels Hiding in Darkness…

-OR-

Random thoughts as I write volume 2 of my Angels of Mercy series. Establishing my angelic boys in the world I’ve built for them. Pondering what it means and why these things and man on man sex matter as I continue this journey.

I know my journey is different from other authors. I know that many won’t get what I am on about. But you see, I have this need to write from somewhere deep in my gut – yeah, not so different from any other author, right? So what’s the diff?

Simple: My success at it has very little to do with it’s marketability. If it succeeds on that front, all the better. But it is NEVER going to be a requirement. My stuff may never sell. So not the point for me.

I write because these are stories I want to write. These are stories that matter deeply to me – they are my worlds, they are my characters and they are unapologetically who they are. Again, I get that many authors take this stand.

But my boys are a hot mess – and I have little interest in holding to the m/m romance genre as it stands currently. And they are a product of this internet rife with porn age. They are products of the social media world where a sixteen year old boy can have more followers on Twitter than Justin Bieber (and there is such a boy). Internet celebrity, while I rail against celebrity for celebrities sake, is fascinating to me. Surely they are filling a void that the regular media channels don’t fulfill.

So my boys have to deal with that.

Most of the M/M genre doesn’t play with that. Most of them write using formulas and stoic writing narratives that unless the writing is uber crisp and engaging I just yawn and take a pass. The implied rules are that whatever theme is prevalent in the genre is what everyone is writing about. Shape shifters, vampires, etc. They’re all in the mix because it’s simply not enough to write about young men who are coming out their confusing teen years and find the wherewithal to establish themselves as confident in their sexuality. To embrace it whole heartedly. To even revel in the messiness that boys often get into and not bat an eye whilst doing it.

It comes down to this for me. I want to give back. When I was sixteen I found my way into a Walden’s Bookstore (remember them?). Or sometimes it was a B. Dalton – another one that has long since bit the dust. Anyway, there I was – fully cognizant that I was a gay boy struggling to figure out not only how I was going to work my way into the big gay world I just knew was out there, but I was in desperate need of a primer. I needed a gay daddy figure to show me the ropes.

Head out of the gutter now, we’re not discussing BDSM (though I have no judgments for those that do partake of that scene – even I can see the sexiness in it). No, what I am talking about was some real honest man on man instruction guide on how things were going to go for me. What was out there.

So yeah, there I was at 16 and  knowing what I was but having not a single clue about how to go about it. The upshot? I could drive and I had a part-tine job which meant money in my pocket.

Then something magical and mysterious happened: I found a book.

City of Night by John Rechy.

John Rechy circa the late 1970’s.

This book gave me exactly what a 16 year old (hormonally charged) gay boy wanted. I wanted a primer on what was out there. I mean, I loved my parents and they were great. Never once did I ever feel like my home life was ever in question. I had the unconditional love – that part was secure. Just not a road map of where I could go with the whole thing. Remember, this was way before the internet and online porn sites aplenty that permeate every corner of our media and information laden lives.

But back then – this was all I had. It was gritty, it was dark and deeply hormonal. It spoke about the emotions and urges I was going through that I couldn’t talk to anyone about. I mean, it’s one thing if your a straight boy and wanna talk about boning some chick you think is hot. Imagine having that exact same conversation and your buddy tells you he thinks he could so get into boning Susie Whats-her-name and looks to you and all you have to say is, “Yeah? I’d so rather be popping one up your ass or down your throat, but hey, that’s just me.”

So wouldn’t go over very well, no matter how much hotness cred you were trying to give your best bud that you thought his ass and cock you spotted in gym had your blood boiling.

So yeah, I only had John Rechy in my court. But what an ally. His world was gritty, it was emotively volatile, it was gripping from the very first page. I drank it in like a parched man to a river. Then I found the other two books of his that would also color my young gay life: Numbers and The Sexual Outlaw.

This was at a time when promiscuity wasn’t the most prudent course. HIV and AIDS were just making themselves known – well, I say known but no one really knew what that meant. Without a doubt, those books changed my life. Without a doubt, those books saved my life. That was when I learned unequivocally the power of writing and the written word.

In the course of writing this blog entry my mother called to give me an update about the state of my brother’s current drama. I’ve blogged about it before so I won’t go into the details at this juncture again. What I will say is that, and you’d have to know my mother and me, we ramble quite a bit over the course of our conversations. We’ve always been this way. Somehow, in the middle of hearing about my brother’s woes, we ambled over to when it was like for me growing up and figuring things out in my life. Trying to sort out why I write the things I write.

Why M/M erotica? Well, in reality, I don’t really look at it from that standpoint. Sex and men are hard to separate. We think about it constantly. It’s just built into us. To varying degrees I’ll grant you – as it is with all facets of life. But the urge is still the same. Men feel the need, the burning need to do what we’re built to do. It’s why porn has the industry it does. I am sure some women enjoy it but they are far outweighed by their male counterparts – I don’t believe anyone would seriously challenge me on that.

We have porn because of that sexual drive that ekes into every corner of who we are as men. I see it every day. The furtive glances from the guys I work with when one of the cuter girls happen by. Married or not, their eyes rove. I know my sex – and sex is what’s going on in those looks.

I have a buddy who is happily married to a man he loves whole heartedly. They love each other, they complete each other. It’s a very beautiful thing. They also have an open sexual relationship and actually find joy in sharing other men in their lives. They are honest and open about it and work at it as adults should who are confident enough in who they are to know that they will be there for each other no matter what. They’ve been together for ten years now and they act around each other as if they had just started dating.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch the two of them. Embracing each other and yet knowing that the way to do that – and to remain true to how they are that they were open enough to clear the air about how their lives were going to be with regards to love and sex. I admire them. I am sure it’s not always easy.  But the love they have for one another is palpable.

They’re two rough and tumble boys that have matured into sexy as hell men. And they embrace who they are.

So anyway, back to my writing. It was important for me to write from that perspective. I want to write books I wanted desperately to read when I was young.

It isn’t enough that it’s just about the romantic feelings. As a young man (teenager) sex was important to me even though I hadn’t had any at that point. To deny young gay boys the gratification that what goes where and why, and to let them know that those ‘nasty thoughts’ (which by the way are NOT nasty at all… they’re human, folks… I am so over the fucking moon pissed off about how we infantilize young men). I am not postalizing pedophilia in any way – let’s be clear about that. But if a boy (say around the age I was) wanted to become sexually active and the opportunity presented itself with another boy at the same school? Well, personally, if everyone involved was safe and sane about it, no coercion involved, then I’d be down for it. Boys feel those urges when puberty hits. While I understand they may not have the emotional maturity to handle it, sometimes, especially with regards to young gay boys, experimentation is probably the only recourse for them if it presented itself.

It’s why I grouse when YA novels never seem to cover this subject adequately. These boys are having sex – if the internet is to be believed, some of them are having enormous amounts of sex and what’s more they are posting it online. To think that we can’t put down what really goes down in a teen sexual situation is just plain ludicrous. The shit is going to happen if it’s going to happen and writing about it or reading about it will not promote it.

A potential for how i describe Elliot Donahey in my book Angels of Mercy

What it will do, in my opinion, is tell these boys who don’t have the means that they are not alone, that there is someone out there who feels just like they do. Someone out there may find Elliot Donahey (my protagonist in Angels of Mercy Volume 1) and how he processes having not only a boyfriend for the first time in his life, but the jock stud that every girl is after might give them hope that their dreams of an Ever After Happily is in the cards for them.

Rechy’s work allowed me to vicariously live through those tumultuous times of the 80’s and 90’s when HIV was nothing short of a death sentence. Sure I experimented myself. My first boyfriend and I evolved to having an open-ish relationship. In the end it wasn’t even a consideration of why we parted company – that was something else altogether. The openness in the sex wasn’t an issue at all. So I get my buddy and his hubby. I really do. I fully support them and how they’ve defined it for themselves.

Those are the stories I want to write.

Those are the characters and the sexual scenarios I want to put out there because they are born of experiences either I went through or friends of mine did.

Those are the books that have to be out there somehow. Because those were the books I would’ve wanted to read. Stories that are emotively and sexually charged – pulling no punches in either department. The emotive moments were equally important, but the words that had the power to stimulate my erotic mind and allowed me to vicariously live through the sensations that the character goes through when he’s fucking or being fucked. The draw they have to cum (and I deliberately use that spelling because for me it is inherently crass and male (not that all males are crass – but we have it within ourselves to be so)). The desire they have to seed and for it to be a big hot mess. Cum play is just one element I explore with these boys. Again, this was drawn from personal history and my own explorations.

These are the stories I would want to read. They are honest in scope and in expression of thought. Elliot is all over the map – thoughts and emotions roil around like a tumultuous ocean. He wavers, he is adamant, he hides and he comes out swinging. Gay boys have to. We bob and weave our entire lives. We live in a world, that while it grows with increasing acceptance and tolerance, where we are constantly reminded that we are not the same. We are not in a relationship that can honestly and without fanfare be expressed in the course of a TV show or movie that still  doesn’t cause a stir.

Every time I see two straights going at it in a series or TV I am so over it. And before any detractors flip lid over that position, think about it for a moment – It literally soaks every form of media around us.

Swimming upstream, remember?

Yeah, well, this pink gayboy salmon is gonna start taking nips out of those that swim downstream. I don’t have to buy into that hetero-normative play in life. It’s secure enough in the human condition that it doesn’t require my support or proliferation.

My worlds will be gay oriented because that is my real existence. Straight people will cross into those worlds because that is how the world works. I get that. I would be ape-shit cray-cray not to include it. But it will sooooo not be the focus of my work. There are more than enough on the printed/digital page to read about that.

A potential young man that resembles how I describe the quarterback Marco Sforza in Angels of Mercy.

That’s probably why my gay boy hero in the story comes from the Jock quarter. I wanted a story for one goddamn time to be that the jock is rock solid in who he wants and won’t take no for an answer. Marco Sforza is dead set on Elliot as the only one for him. Their world would seem letter perfect. The first book begins to bear that out.

But as with all drama, these boys don’t have an easy path to their Ever After Happily. Forces conspire to separate them. The boys have their allies. There is definitely a Team Sforza-Donahey. They aren’t alone, even if at times they feel like they are. But that’s how heady love is. That’s how it goes sometimes. While you may know deep down inside that you’ve found your one and only, others in your world may not be so comfortable with that.

My villain is also über sexy in that straight hetero-normative way. He’s a womanizer, he tosses the girls he bangs like used Kleenex to the ground. I think the phrase I use is: “Still smelling from the last pussy he banged.” Yeah, that’s Beau Hopkins. Tall, dark, handsome as all fuck but with a heart as black as pitch that pumps the sludge of tar. And he absolutely hates faggoty boys like my Elliot. He is the quintessential preacher’s son.

I ended volume one on a helluva cliff hanger. My beta-readers were all up in arms about that. They wanted to know WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. So I guess I got something here. We’ll see.

As for me, if I like it, if I feel proud of the effort and am not embarrassed by it at all, then I am good with it. It’s a success on that all by itself.

My Angels may be in the dark, hidden, remote for beta-readers eyes now. But not for long. Book one is in the can – still polishing it here and there. But I am also sourcing my ISBN’s and galley art with a cover artist. Then I’ll explore the marketing facet and promotions venues. I’ve even sorted that it will also be offered on my website directly. I am willing to invest in my own work enough to do the whole she-bang. I am down with it all.

It may come to nothing, but if my readers thus far are spot on with their assessments and their desire to know what happens next, then maybe, just maybe I’ll get it there.

Maybe my boys will be heard – they will walk out from the darkness.

It might be a nice thing after all, if my Angels got to see the light…

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Backstory | Beau Hopkins | Characters Voices | Coming Out | Elliot Donahey | Gay Characters | gay porn | Gay Sex | Genre Woes | Internet Porn | Man Love | Marco Sforza | Novel Writing | Social Media | Storytelling | Womanizers | writing

So I know it’s been a while.

Life inserted itself fully. There was work to be done. There was more writing and editing. Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing most of the time. I know what I like and I write to that. It’s a contemplative and fairly lonely existence. It is not something I talk freely about. Not that I am ashamed of what I do. I’m not. Let’s be clear about that.

I think that I needed some distance from my last long winded entry. Turning 50 was much bigger than I wanted it to be. Not in the celebrations or in the thick of the moment – they were all well and good. They are what made me what I am today – a collection of experiences and moments that have molded (for better or worse) into the man I am today.

There’s the hubby, our girls, the two cats – all the hallmarks of domesticity. Yet I burn with other thoughts and ideas. I have men coming up to me (in my mind – head out of the gutter now) who have their stories to tell. They burn with it too. I try to put passion into what I do. Tweaking it here, imbuing it there.

*sigh*

So I heard back from a publisher yesterday (one that I had to ping several times to get ANYTHING from them – something the hubby kept asking “Do you really want to work with a group of people that you constantly have to chase down?”) The hubby has a point. I write fiction that is predominantly gay in nature – it’s what I know. It’s what I am passionate about because in a sea of how we are not like everyone else out there (the heterosexual norm) I think our voices are important enough that I can’t help but write from that perspective.

Anyway, the publisher didn’t get what I was doing. They took a pass on the material. They didn’t get that it was more of a character study than a standard cookie cutter narrative. They’re obviously looking only at the profile margin. I am not there. I never want it to be about the money. The comments back weren’t even that helpful. They were conflicted (rushed and fantastical vs. prose that broke momentum – I mean, what the fuck do you do with absurd commentary like that?). It was very evident that they didn’t even really read the material or try to understand what I was doing. It is not your standard cookie cutter formulaic m/m romantic fair. It was never intended to be that. I know it’s different – THAT’S WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO! Jesus, it was evident to me that publishers don’t have a fucking clue what the market will bear.

I have given the book to people I’ve just met – who don’t know me well enough to know what I am fully about or about what voice I am trying to put out there. In each and every case thus far I have heard how they have emotively connected with my protagonist. How his inner monologue was what pulled them in. They got it. THAT’S the audience I am after. Not some housewife who wants to be swept cursorily away on some cookie cutter adventure for a few hours on some vapid inane storyline that will be instantly forgotten the moment the last page is flipped.

I have two beta readers who have read it and both are not avid readers. Both have said that my characters stayed with them. They loved that they knew so much about them that they wrote back and said that they felt real to them. They both said that this was the first book they’ve gotten through that they actually read like a fiend to finish it. One of which hasn’t read a book in 20 years. But he read through mine like a bullet train with no signs of stopping – almost in one sitting. So there is something there. I can feel it.

Another one is a young man in Britain who I met through a LGBT support site. He’s smart, bright and funny. He’s also hard on himself. My heart goes out to him in so many ways. He embodies my main character (Elliot) in so many ways. He told me that he identified with him and that the voice is very much where his head is at and it rang true for him. He’s in his early twenties (just beyond where my main character is).  But the publisher doesn’t consider the market really. They look at statistics, they look at data. And I get it that its supposed to be the business of selling. I get that it’s supposed to be about the bottom line.

My work is epically long for the standard M/M fair. I know it’s not an easy work to market. For god sake you’re inside my main characters head listening to how he processes all of the information that keeps coming his way. And he has issues – it’s what drives the drama forward. But they didn’t get that. I know they didn’t. They just aren’t seeing the work for what it is.

“And it’s only one opinion.”  They said. Yeah, it is – and it’s fairly clear that they aren’t invested in finding new talent as they profess to be. They just are struggling to survive selling the same cookie cutter formula (sorry guys/gals I have bought close to 700 books from the genre – as research on what types of stories are out there) and 98.9% of it is pure schlock. It’s absolute rubbish. But they sell what sold yesterday because it’s just GOTTA sell today too. Well, guess what, eventually they will get tired of the same bland Cheerios that you’ve been spoon feeding them. And no, changing the protag from your last best seller from a fireman to a police man doesn’t count as being creative. It’s the same formula. Shake it the FUCK up, will ya? Or the genre will tank.

In short it was a waste of a very long period of time that they could’ve just piped up and owned their fuckedupness in not managing their time well (at one point they actually used deadlines looming as a reason for the delay). They are a small publishing house. If they can’t manage the deadlines they have now and I got added to the mix… see where I am going with that?

So I realized that I’ll either have to keep looking or self-pub it myself. I have author friends who self-pub. It’s not an easy path because the type of stuff I write (while it is deeply rooted in a M/M (sometimes more) relationship slant and thus carries a bit of erotic undercurrent as all relationships do) isn’t mainstream. It isn’t what I think will sell millions and millions of copies.

But is that the type of success I am looking for? I don’t know. I think I’d much rather be successful at putting out something I think is of quality but may fall by and large completely unnoticed by the masses.

I was contemplating all of this when I came upon this little posting on HuffPo Gay Voices on gay men reading 50 Shades of Grey and commenting on it. Gay boys reviewing straight porn/erotica. I thought it was something that would get me to smile a bit. Gay boys have such an aversion to anything lady part wise… so I certainly expected some giggles over that. I got it.

Now here’s the deal – what I didn’t expect was the actual lines from this world-wide bestseller to actually be as badly written as they were. It seemed very amateurish or slightly – awkward when it came to the sex that was portrayed in the book. I am sure that the context helps but the actual inner monologue that they were reading was like some fourteen year old girl was trying to describe a sexual situation.

I was stunned…

See for yourself –

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I like Neil McNeil’s stuff on YouTube. He’s clever and he’s certainly crafty in telling his amusing slices of life (from a gay man’s perspective) and it’s light, it’s funny but there’s also a thread of really bright and innovative moments where he’s pulling back the curtain on how gay men survive in this hetero-normative world we’re immersed in. I think he’s pretty fucking brilliant and I love that he’s unabashedly gay in a big way. I admire his courage and his fortitude to get his stuff out there. He believes in what he does, he’s passionate about it, he doesn’t accept that someone else may not – or rather, he is unfazed by it all.

Then I think about my musical muse for Angels of Mercy (Jay Brannan) and how he doesn’t have a big record company backing him up. He doesn’t have a marketing department or a promotional touring company to do all of his stuff. It’s just him cranking out what he does because he’s passionate about it. And his passion is infectious. It permeates wherever he is.

I need to take a page out these men’s book. They strive forward. They press when the world presses back. So I will continue to develop Angels because I believe in what I am doing. I believe in the nature of the work. I take heart that the people who have read it want to read more (it ends on a cliff hanger – which by the way I was told by a publisher that series of that nature are not really what’s selling). Yeah, that’s why sequels in film and serialized television doesn’t work. That’s why the Potter series languished in obscurity.

Elliot and Marco will see the light. Even if I have to figure it all out on my own. I may not command a huge audience from it all, but in the end they will be unabashedly mine. They will be my boys/men – telling their own stories. Why? Because they come to me in dreams – both waking and in sleep. They have things to say. They have surprises even for me.

The hubby commented that Thomas Wolfe (who wrote the hubby’s favorite book – Look Homeward Angel amongst other things) that he had to shop his masterpiece around and really didn’t understand what he wrote in its entirety until he sat down with the editor who he would continue to work with during his writing career and they discovered the absolute breadth of what he’d assembled. Even he didn’t know what was in there. He just struck a creative vein and went with it.

That’s what Elliot and Marco are to me. Life’s blood in writing. They feed me in ways I had never imagined. I have to finish their tale; I have no choice.

Will it ultimately find an audience (of any kind)? I don’t know. I may never know (hell, I’m 50 – it could take several years or decades before it finds people who get me and what I am on about). I may get recognized long after I’ve expired from this world. I may never see the success. Or it could languish for all time. But ultimately, does it matter?

I need to tell their story no matter what. That’s what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.

Elliot is a sea of conflicting emotions. He’s an out gay kid who is shy and sticks to the shadows to survive the hell that is high school. It isn’t until the brightest light from that hellish world sees him and says – you’re mine – that he has to deal what a life in the light means. It isn’t easy for him – for them both.

But then again, isn’t the work we have to strive for it worth it? Doesn’t it make the attaining and the having all the more sweeter because of it?

So I’ll press on – navigating waters I am not sure I know how to do. But I’ll press forward and figure it out. I have a brain, I have friends and family for support. What more do I need to make a go of it?

Not a damned thing…

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Drive | Elliot Donahey | Jay Brannan | Marco Sforza | Motivation | Neil McNeil | Novel Writing | Positive Thinking | Publishing | Self-Publishing | Storytelling | Success By What Means | Traditional Publishing

31 Days of Brannan – Day 29

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Today’s Playlist – The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ll come clean  –  I am a HUGE Jay fan. Epic Japanese fan girl type of fan (not like I’ve hidden it at all – I mean, really.

31 days of talking about the same damned guy? I mean, even this hubby of mine has got to be a bit suspicious with me rambling on and on about some musician that lives on the other side of the country. But he’s (the hubby, that is) my number one – so no worries there.)

So yeah, Jay fan. BIG TIME. So you’d think that would be the confession, right? Not something terribly surprising given the month-long blogfest on him. But no, that’s not the admission. It’s not. In fact, given all of that – of all that I’ve written, collected, blogged about, you’d THINK that I’d be so Jay’d out that I’d know his shit fairly well. That I’d have his YouTube channel memorized so I could pick out my favorite video of the day and click on it blindfolded, right? Yeah, you’d think… only, well, I haven’t and, uh, I couldn’t.  I know, I know. Japanese fan girls would be kicking my ass for letting down the corp or the group or the cult of fan girls everywhere, huh?

I mean, Japanese fan girls are notorious for being the epitome of fans. They are some serious ball-busting hard core fandom. Cause when those girls gush about something there is nothing on the planet that can stop that vag-laden bullet train from splashing their love goo all over the object of their desire.

Okay, so maybe I am not a fan girl. For one I’m not a girl. So yeah, I lose on that score already. Though I suppose being gay might get me an honorable mention, no?  Perhaps not.

So the whole reason why I am rambling on about this like I am was that about a week or so ago (in my infancy of writing about all things Jay related) I included a clip of Jay doing one of his ‘story’ songs. In it I compared his work to other such classic ‘story’ songs of pop music’s past. One of them was Vicki Lawrence’s The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (she was the first to score with this song, Jay – not country goddess protector of Nashville – Reba). So you’d think back then I woulda played this little ditty as a comparative. Yeah, that’d be the obvious choice. Only I hadn’t ever clicked this particular video on his channel yet. I know, I know – what kind of rabid fan can you be if you’ll watch his 6+ minute video of him at a supposed haunted church and yet not even listen to the video I’ve included here.

So you can imagine my embarrassment when I did click it tonight and found the title: Jayba McEntire tests out a new digital camera by sangin’ ’bout murder.

I saw that and thought: oh no, it can’t be…  But you see, I knew it was. Country singers have been covering that song since it hit the pop charts back in ’73. So if Reba was the version that Jay was riffing off of, and it was a song about murder – well, there could only be one real possibility.

[Cue: Face-Palm moment]

So yeah, not so good with the whole I am a fan girl (or honorable mention) sort of fan when it comes to Jay. It’s embarrassing. Sorta negates my whole 31 Days of Brannan uber-fest that I’ve had going on here, right? I can be such the fucktard when I’m not looking out for myself – sorta like now.

Oooops. Sorry bout that.

So anyway, sang your lil’ ol’ heart out Jayba! And give ’em what fer…

(BTW, from a musical standpoint, very interesting chord choices for the chorus – don’t know if that was Reba’s rendition of it that he was doing or something he came up with himself. Not quite what I’ve ever heard whenever someone else sang the song.)  – Just sayin’…

ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT TIL SAN FRANCISCO! I can’t fucking wait!

N-Joy! – Or should I say – N-Jay! (Okay, that sounded better in my head when I first thought of it.)

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

Tags: Artist as Muse | Brannan as Bard | cover songs | Jay Brannan | Storytelling

31 Days of Brannan –  Day 22

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Today’s Entry (not playlist) – postcard for my friend sasha from the golden gate bridge

So for today’s entry I wanted something different. We’re just a little over a week away from Jay’s concert in San Francisco. I wanted something personal from him. It’s not meant for us. It’s a love letter to a lost friend. But I get it. Living here you always have that feeling of how much loss there is in this beloved city of mine. San Francisco is an amazing place to live. It’s also a difficult place to live in. It straddles the line between euphoric and complete indifference – between decadence and oblivion.

She’s been called the Paris of the Pacific. I’ve never really thought of her as having a french appeal. She always felt distinctly English to me. Perhaps it’s the cold that whips through the city – reminding me of London in winter. Although you can get that blast of bone chilling cold – you can’t help but feel the indifference. But then, on a fog laden night, the way the city looks – haunting, as if all points in time collide into one moment. It’s truly magical. It’s those moments that I live for in this place I call home.

So back to Jay. To say his work carries a degree of genius is probably one of the greatest understatements I can ever put to digital paper. But that genius, that savoir-fare in his prose, the brilliance of his ability to connect to the root of our collective experiences and give the horrors, the loneliness, the despair but most of all the small seed of hope, it has to spring from somewhere.

I have always appreciated Jay’s brutal honesty. I aspire to that level of honesty – if only with myself. I am not there yet. But I keep trying. Jay’s music reminds me of where I am with myself.

It’s also why my first novel is deeply rooted and inspired by him. My boys go through some major pain. It was important for me to get the ‘will they get together’ question out of the way from the very first chapter. Putting your love interests together has always been the end goal of any tale. It’s the usual formula. Especially with the M/M romance genre. But my story was taking a different tract. My boys are together from the very first chapter – but that is where their adventure begins. Coming together is the least of their concerns. With what they go through in the telling of their tale, staying together is the hard part for them. Not because they aren’t devoted to each other. They are. Completely. Utterly. Profoundly.

But will it be enough? That is where the drama is rooted.

Jay poses the question in Rob Me Blind (which is about a boy who wants the boy of his dreams but ultimately doesn’t think his love is worth offering to the man he is attracted to) – in the song he even says that he expects when compared to anyone else he thinks the man of his dreams would chose another.

So I come back to Jay’s entry today that I am highlighting. It is the last few moments – the pain that is so evident in his eyes. Experiences that are solely his own – though they may be shared with his missing friend Sasha and through YouTube with all of us, but that pain is his. So here is my takeaway: Thank you Sasha. Jay says that you were instrumental in saving him from what appears to be a very dark place in his past. So, from all of us, thank you. We never met. We never had the pleasure, I am sure, to experience your light in this world. But through Jay’s heartfelt postcard to you, I can’t help but feel my own sense of gratitude for your existence – however brief and pained though it may have been. I am only too sorry we couldn’t all be there for you. Or like Jay, that we couldn’t say thank you for helping him when he needed it.

We don’t know the depth of what Jay was feeling – he only hints at it – but I do know he’s also commented about anxiety attacks he suffers from time to time. I’ve seen the tweets. It’s clear he feels things deeply. Painfully so  – which he layers in his compositions. Writing is cathartic – whether it is in standard prose or via a musical composition. It’s the same thing. It allows a release of emotions you carry with you. For me it’s the voices of the boys that inhabit my world. They are born of my own experiences, of my hopes and fears.

There’s a lot of me in them. As I am sure there is a lot of Jay’s experiences in what he gifts us with in each of his creations/compositions. But even with all of that, this creative outlet, the pain is still there.

Is it enough? You hope that it is. You hope that there are others in your life that will be there for you when you need it most. Sasha was there for Jay. And in a very pivotal way, was there for all of us. Can you imagine all of these treasures that Jay has penned that would have never been if he wallowed in his dark place? As the artist in me, I shutter to think about that.

So, though we’ve never met, though I’ve never had the pleasure, thank you Sasha. For helping my favorite artist take another step when he possibly didn’t think he could.

So I too will add my thanks to Jay’s. Though I can’t claim any personal knowledge of what transpired, believe me it is no less heartfelt in that whatever gesture of support you made in his past. You helped him not feel like ‘such a freak’ when he needed to hear it most.

So thank you, in as heartfelt a way a stranger can express and mean it.

And just so you know… no matter what it is Jay, you’re not a freak cause I got news for you – we all are. I’ve been around the block in so many ways (had a very colorful life to draw upon) and I know from freaks. And we all are freaks. Anyone tells you they aren’t – yeah, well, that’s a BIG ol’ sign that they’re MORE of a freak than you’ll ever be.

Hell, normalcy – whatever the fuck that is – is freakish in its own right. The human condition is a collection of freakish moments that we all try to make sense of, try to bring order to the chaos. When it works for us, that’s great. We’re happy. When it doesn’t – some form of damage ensues and we try to cope. Some do better than others. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not worth the love and admiration of others. I don’t claim to know what you’re all about. We only have your postings on YouTube, your website and thankfully, your music. But what I have witnessed, what I have heard, what I’ve been grateful for seeing, is that you are a very complex and deeply feeling man. A creative and emotive individual. Worthy of every thing people say about you (even if all we really know is your public persona).

So thank you for hanging in there. For working through things with your music. It’s clear that your voice is needed in this world or your voice wouldn’t have carried as far as it has. And aside from all of that, I wouldn’t have my boys if it weren’t for you. My craft is blossoming because of Rob Me Blind. The album that meant so much to you when you released it – inspired me and my own journey. That was an unintended gift from you, I know that. I am not delusional enough to think that it was anything but fortuitous that I discovered you back in 2008. I know that. And I am grateful for that discovery of mine.

One that without Sasha I might not have ever had. I wouldn’t have had my boys. My wonderfully sexually emotive and deeply flawed boys of Mercy. My Angels of Mercy. And I just can’t imagine my world without them. The little world of Mercy, California that I invented – that only exists in my head and on the pages of my forthcoming series.

So thank you Sasha – you’ve touched lives you never knew were out there. But I am indebted to you just the same.

The Always, Then & Now Tour…

Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.

Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com

Tags: Angels of Mercy | Brannan as Bard | Catharsis in Art | Jay Brannan | Postcard from the Soul | Storytelling | writing