I am currently working on, and hope to finish in time, a long-form short story for entry in the GA Spring Anthology. It is incredibly difficult and time consuming to winnow the chaff from the best grain of words I lay down on screen. My appreciation for what my partner does as part of his career and to provide for us has grown with leaps and bounds the longer I attempt this amazing thing. He is an art historian and author, co-author, collaborator and contributor of books on art history. I am proud of him. The following is an excerpt from a recent email I sent to him.

My deepest apologies for every time I got upset with you, whether you were aware or not, for spending so much time writing on your computer. I began writing a story after you left. So far I have written 6k+ words of it and spent hours beyond the writing (no small amount) to edit out the nonsensical, the repetitious, unnecessary articles, the redundant descriptions and on and on. Lunch is sometimes late - dinner is sometimes late - I look at the time only to discover it's ten at night and I haven't ate let alone cooked. It is halfway to completion if my ideas hold out and I thought it would be a good point to stop and polish the first portion. I swear to you, if I was to self-edit the whole thing at once, I think my head would explode. The best thing about examining it now is the hope I will leave most of the crap out of the rest of it as I write. You might be surprised to hear my dreams have been invaded by my writing. It's creepy! I have woken in the middle of the night and jotted things down. Ideas for new stories sneak in. Does this bring me closer to becoming a true short-story writer do you think? A novel is unfathomable in my mind, I have no idea how people do it. I hope that it gets easier. I do.

As some are already aware, my first short story - What's Inside, can be found in the 2013 Fall Anthology. It has the honor of also being my first creative writing outside of a poem I wrote to an older lover. He was thirty-six years old to my then twenty-five and more than half a lifetime ago. He said he was never before a recipient of a poem. He said he liked it.

Writing is a surprisingly difficult endeavor for me. I read slowly, every scene alive in my head and my writing has taken the same turn. An emotional scene can become difficult and I will need to walk away, every time I go over it. I keep tissue beside my computer, in case. I get angry when my characters do and sad or happy with them. No doubt this is not unique to me; my sympathy goes out to you. Quality gay fiction is the name of the game though and I will push on with gratitude for my partner's support, for those who are helpful and admiration for my fellow authors.