Drew Payne

Thanks, my goal in writing this is to try and show Simon developing his own gay-identity, and his friends are an important part of this. Another important part is how he reacts to homophobia. At the beginning of the story he blames himself when he's faced with homophobia, he blamed himself for his father's shitty reaction to his coming out. Now he's beginning to see it as something external, not his fault. When he overhears his mother's crass comment, wishing he was straight, he doesn't blame himself but wonders how she can say that when she's bisexual. He is tying himself up in knots but only because he doesn't know how to talk to her about it. Now this is a spoiler free zone, but I can promise that Simon and Jeff will not end up like the lovers in Brokeback Mountain. I couldn't write an ending so hopeless as that one, and I wrote a story were a man commits suicide at the end of it.

Thanks, your feedback does me so much good. I wanted this chapter to bring the four friends together, and to have Simon really involved with them, not just sitting on the side-lines. I always wanted this chapter to be Simon beginning to explore gay life, starting with a gay film with friends. And of course, Jeff holds Simon's hand to "comfort" him in the dark cinema (Large wink).

The cinema seat wasn’t very comfortable, but Simon found that if he pushed himself right back into it and didn’t slouch down then he was comfortable. He had thought the place being called The Fire Station was just a gimmick, but when the four of them had arrived he saw that it actually was an old fire station. A set of bright red, large double doors dominated the front of the building. They were obviously the doors that were once opened to let the fire engines leave the building. Now they were f

Thank you, that means a lot to me because I am a lot older than the characters here. The characters here are sixteen and seventeen and I wanted to try and capture their uncertainly and inexperience. Freddie is very confident but that is his way of him coping with everything, his parents aren't very supportive of him. Here I wanted to show that he's still only sixteen and his nerves and competitive side coming out (Boys told they have to be the best). We know Simon isn't that confident, but with his crush on Jeff I wanted to show exploring his new emotions and feelings. He's got a crush on another gay man (potentially an available guy) but one who's just a friend and not a boyfriend. This is all very new to him. And add to all that, Jeff is a really nice guy.

Thank you. I was worried there wasn't much "action" in this chapter. What I wanted to do, from the start of this story, was not have Simon hating himself for being gay (I write about that in other stories) but I did want him very aware of how homophobic the world around him is. I also wanted to make him sixteen and starting out on his gay life. He still doesn't know how to manage his emotions, or even how to be gay. He's got a crush on one of his new friends, the tall handsome one, but Jeff is such a "cool guy" that he just can't read him, though Simon isn't that good at reading people yet. This leaves him not knowing what to do next, so he returns to type and does nothing. As for the film. All I can say is I found writing the next chapter a challenge but I also enjoyed what I wanted to explore in it.

Thanks, I am so glad you get what I wanted to write about, it does me so much good. But please, please remember that Simon is only sixteen and very inexperienced. His first boyfriend was more than a little economic with the truth. He also doesn't know how to manage his emotions, as you say his upbringing "taught" him to keep everything to himself. Simon is going through that common experience of having a big crush on his handsome new friend, and where is the advice on managing that? (Is it cruel to say that I am enjoying writing this crush because I get to explore Simon's uncertainty).

Simon bit into his egg mayonnaise sandwich and the next moment was trying to stop the mayonnaise running out of the corner of his mouth. He pushed out his tongue and tried to quickly lick it away. Failing to catch most of it, he dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin. Whilst selecting his lunch with Jeff this sandwich had been the only one to appeal to him. But it was turning out to be very messy to eat. The four of them were sat around one of the canteen’s tables. Freddie and Vee were almo

Of course you can. I have used it more than once in the past. I am rather proud of that reply because I thought it up on the spot, not on the tube train home hours later, and I've remembered it.

At some point I have to had write a positive story. I'm always getting accessed of writing depressing ones, and I'm not that innocent of that. I also wanted to subvert the Coming-Out-To-Family story a bit here. So I made the narrator working class and gave him created-family instead of a nuclear-family, the sister who really cared for him. I am fascinated by the relationships we make over the ones we're born into.

I once said to a colleague, who asked me if I'd found Jesus, "Oh my God, have you lost him again? That's just careless." She didn't laugh but other people did. We have a law here in Britain called The Equality Act, which says you can't deny goods and services to someone on their actual or perceived gender, race, physical ability, religion or sexuality. When it was passed into law, we had a lot of right-wing Christians screaming that it would make them second class citizens, and they were demanding their right to discriminate. The irony was that The Equality Act extended legal protections to LGBT+ people already enjoyed by religious people. I wrote this is response to that. Writing helps me in that way.

I grew up in that environment. I felt like dropping a great weight off my shoulders when I left it.

The inspiration for this story was a newspaper article, I read years ago, about the realities of working in a London Gay Brothel. And the thing that struck me was the boredom of it all. At the time too, there were a lot of gay porn stories about how "exciting" being a prostitute and working in a brothel was. I wanted the write about the reality here, but it isn't the only time I'd written about sex becoming boring. It fascinates me how that can happen.

But some people make the most stupid decisions and think they can get away with them.

As a student nurse, I did a placement on a Care of the Elderly ward, which was basically a dementia ward by any other name. I saw how Alzheimer's affected people so differently, some became real bastards while others slipped away into a gentle confusion. I now work as a District Nurse, providing nursing care in people's homes, and so many of my patients have dementia, and daily I am confronted by how cruel it is. Here I wanted to write about the changes it can cause in a person and how difficult it can be for their relatives.

Thanks for your comment. Over the years I've heard this argument from so many different parents, often ones who are not openly homophobic, that they don't want their child to be gay because they want their child to be happy. The worst time I heard it was actually from a lesbian mother about her own young son (!!). Rosie isn't homophobic, like her husband, but she still does have some of those nice middle-class prejudices and she hasn't coped well with what life has thrown at her. Yes, Simon didn't deserve to overheard this, but who does deserve to overheard things said about them? This is fiction and want to explore different things in it. Hope will Simon react to this? This isn't the open homophobia of his father, this is seeping prejudice of nice people. But as has been said so often, he isn’t alone now.

And don't forget Vee. Parents can say the stupidest of things, especially when they think their children aren't listening. Rosie isn't the most grounded of people, and she doesn't handle negative situations that well. Thanks for comments, its great the interest you take in my story.

Simon lay in his bed and tried to go back to sleep, but found he couldn’t. His bedside clock read eleven-twenty and he’d come to bed just after ten. He’d changed into his usual nightwear, an old t-shirt and boxer shorts, climbed into bed, and was soon asleep. He'd found this happening often lately. With everything going on in his life he was very tired when he went to bed each night. But that night he’d only slept for an hour or so before waking up, about five minutes earlier. All he could t

Thank you. As I've said before, I worry that this story could be soap opera(ish) in tone. I did base Simon on details I'd read about coming out, such as many men only start coming out after their first sexual relationship and that young gay men are trying to find online communities to aid them to come out. I took this as the premise for Simon, his first relationship ends at the beginning of the story and that he tried to find support online, via a dating app (which was stole straight from real life), but it was no substitute for real life friendships because it still left him very alone. But once I started writing these characters, after I'd worked out their backstories, so much more of their characters started coming out to me, like Niki having a horrible father, and I found I needed to add more and more about them, and write more and more. Saying all that, Simon has an embarrassing crush on one of his new friends.

Thank you for your comment. I love getting feedback. Writing does thrive on conflict, even with offstage characters, as Matthew is so often in this story. When I started writing this story, I didn't want to write the cliched coming out story, were the central character comes out and then everything else is fine, and all the homophobia is resolved. Coming out can be the catalyst for so much. With Simon it highlights the problems he has with his parents, and puts under pressure the fucked-up relationship his parents have. His mother hasn't even got a legal separation from her husband, though she left him two years ago. First hand, I have seen the harm such ridge and hard beliefs, such as the father here has, has on people, relationships and families. I've seen judgemental views tear apart relationships and people themselves. I grow-up in an Evangelical Christian environment and I saw how compassion and caring was thrown aside so people could keep to their believes. It still leaves an uncomfortable feeling in me. I have planned out this story, we're on the home stretch now. I don't like neat and tidy endings, just look at my other stories on GA, but I have planned a satisfactory ending - what I hope will be a satisfactory ending.

Thank you. Freddie is such fun to write, he doesn't seem to have a filter and says whatever he wants. This is great for me, as the writer, because he can say whatever is needed for the plot. He's based on someone I knew when I was coming out. He had the great way of summing up a situation with one line, and he was so supportive too. As for having Matthew run over by a bus... Mmmm... Only if Niki is driving it (!!)

Simon slouched back on the sofa reading his Facebook feed on his phone. His mum and Niki were sat on the other sofa, with EastEnders playing on the television. Niki looked tired as she, too, was slouched back on the sofa. His mum was also more slouched down than sitting, though her eyes were fixed intensely on the television. The pair of them had returned home a little after six o’clock with his mum still in a bad mood. Her face seemed to being pulled down by a whole sack full of negative em

Thanks. Niki is such an enjoyable character to write, she is both wise and sensible and she really knows people (You don't always find all three things in one person). She is what Simon needs, especially with his parents. I was a lot older than Simon when I finally met someone as wise as Niki, who helped me to come out (And that was a woman too). Now Niki is wise but Simon's essay is on the modern structure of the NHS, and Niki isn't THAT wise. I've written about the current structure of the NHS and God it's really complicated.

Thank you. Yes, Simon is growing up, he's accepting his gay skin and learning about his gay life... He just hasn't learnt exactly what dating apps are for (!!).

Thanks for your comment and so getting my story. Good things can do pay back good benefits, and the good things in Simon's life are having positive effects on him.

Simon stared at his laptop screen. His essay on the structure of the NHS was still five hundred words over the limit and he didn’t know what to do about it. He’d cut everything he could and still it was over the word limit. He was now hating to have to write this essay. It had been interesting when he started, and he’d enjoying making the points he wanted to, but now he was feeling more and more frustrated because he couldn’t get the essay down to the required word limit. He minimised Word a