Drew Payne

@chris191070, thanks for your feedback, it means a lot. Don't say "they can only get better", I might see that as challenge Ha! Ha! Just a joke. I wrote the next chapter a month ago. I wanted to write about the wrong and right ways to come out, and so far Simon has mostly made the wrong choices, the wrong first boyfriend, coming out to his father the wrong way, but he is only sixteen and doing this all on his own. The next chapter is a big plot change, even though it might not seem like that.

@Talo Segura thanks for the feedback. It feels as if Britain has gone backwards in the last five years, since that stupid referendum, even our Prime Minister has made homophobic comments in parliament (Calling another man a "big girl's blouse"), but I think that the homophobia was always there, hidden under the surface, and the change in political climate has given it a chance to come back into the open. People still use homophobic slurs to put another people down ("That's so gay!"). I hear young people doing this so often on public transport. I wanted to write about someone trying to come out into the face of this current homophobic climate, how difficult that is. But I wanted a character who doesn't hate himself for being gay, just hated the homophobia all around him.

I am sorry you feel like this but there is a method in my writing. Before starting to write this story, I did a quite a bit of research about coming out in modern day Britain, and I was shocked at what I read. Young people were telling stories of facing the same level of homophobia now as I did when I came out in the early eighties (Homophobic hate crime has doubled in the last five years). This shocked me, but the more I looked into it the more I realised so little had changed. Homophobia is alive, well and very vocal. Therefore, I wanted to reflect this here. I also wanted to write about the highs and lows of coming out, and the wrong decisions that can be made. Simon is sixteen and navigating coming out on his own, he is going to make bad decisions, he hasn't got anyone to talk to about this (Niki maybe very supportive but she is still his step-mother, and as a child he learnt to keep himself-to-himself). His first relationship was shit, Max just used him for sex and didn't offer much else. I have written much more of this story than has been published so far, I know were the plot is going but I don't want to say (This being a spoiler free zone) but I can say there is a big plot change in the next chapter that will take this story in a very different direction, and it was very much my intention to do so. Please keep reading, I promise you will be surprised.

“I know I shouldn’t say it but I wish she would just die,” his mum said, her slice of pizza still half eaten on her plate. “She has been lying in her bed, near comatose now, for nearly seven days. She’s riddled with cancer, she’s in her late sixties and yet she doesn’t die. We go into her every day and change her syringe driver and such. Her family all sit around her bed, they turn her and they give her drinks of water. Everyone is just waiting for her to die and she’s hanging on in there. It’s

Thanks for such great feedback. You get it! Yes, Simon's father is lost, Chapters 4 and 5 explain a lot about how the man got there. But I also feel I need to have another character discuss this with Simon, because he just doesn't have the insight to see it himself, he's only sixteen. His father is a bully and bigot with tunnel-vision, but he is also a damaged man, who is chasing a journey that won't give him any healing or hope. Damaged people can so often pass on their damage. Not the right person to be the father of a lost, gay teenager. Such is life in my fiction.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, Simon's father is very bullying with his pressure for everyone else to believe what he does, yet to him he is only doing the right thing and everyone else is in the wrong by ignoring him. I so remember that attitude, "We value everyone as long as they do what we say." What Simon's father does next is... Spoilers.

Oh, spoilers. Lets just say that this doesn't go away.

Thank you so much. It's so reassuring that I'm on the right track.

I've not seen it but the reviews and synopsis of it I've read didn't paint it in a very positive light. That's what I used here.

Simon was bored and there seemed no way to relieve it. The cinema seat was at least comfortable but he was worried he might fall asleep if he closed his eyes, and that would really piss off his dad. He couldn’t take out his phone and start reading something off it because the light from the screen would shine brightly in the darkened cinema and his dad would see what he was doing. And that would really piss off his dad, too. So he was stuck until this boring film ended and he could escape. Well,

Thanks for the feedback, it does me the power of good. There will certainly be more of Niki to come, I enjoy writing her too much for there not to be, but I can't say anymore otherwise the Spoilers Monster will get me. I can say the chapter is a "fun" ride.

Thanks so much, you so got this chapter. I wanted to write about that frustration of being a gay teenager, being on the verge of adulthood. He's beginning to realise what he wants, love and sex, and yet doesn't have the knowledge or skills to achieve it. He needs a guide, he needs support, and he doesn't know where to find it. When I started to research this story, I thought it was a lot easier for young people to come out now than when I did. I was horrified to find out so little had changed and that fuelled so much of this story.

Thank you so much, I really value feedback like this. Yes, it was an easy coming out but it does help when your mum is in a same-sex relationship and with a woman as intelligent as Niki. Niki had a very good idea that Simon is gay before she asked if he'd had a boyfriend, but she can be bluntly practical. The last person you want sex advise from is your mum's girlfriend. I think Simon has had too much of a secret garden, he's kept too much inside of himself and not really let others into his life. A secret garden can be a fascinating to visit from time to time but we can't live there all the time.

Thanks for your feedback, it really helps me and keeps me going. In Niki I wanted to write someone with heart and brains, she knows what to and how to do it. She works as a social worker and certainly knows how to manage people, even those she loves. Dialogue is something I really love writing and I love the challenge of telling a story and developing characters through it. Many, many, many years ago I wanted to be a playwright but that is such a hard and demoralising path. I found a much more ready market in prose. As for what will happen to Simon... "Spoilers Sweetie, Spoilers!" And I always promise a spoiler-free zone with my comments. I want to write about coming out and the important factors in doing so, but I don't want to write a How-To manual, I want to write a story of the highs and lows of it. But I can say, the next chapter I wrote surprisingly quickly, it just followed out of me.

Thank you. I am so surprised and happy at how much people like Niki. She is a character that I'm having so much fun and pleasure writing, I can put into her mouth so many of my own views. She is a social worker and someone who has learned from her job and her experiences, she can have an almost blunt practicality to her. If Simon had come out to her before he'd joined that dating app, he wouldn't have made some of his bad choices, but I have had a very different story, and not the story I wanted to write about. There is much more to come from Niki in this story, even if she's a bit of a scene stealer.

Thank you, I'm so glad you spotted this. Her behaviour crept up on me but the more I wrote her the more it made sense to me. Rosie, Simon's mum, is so down-playing her husband's actions to try and make her life easy. She reasons that if she doesn't aggravate or challenge him then his actions won't escalate. This woman is a nurse and yet when it comes to her own husband (She's still married to him because he won't give her a divorce, which is another form emotional abuse) she is in so much denial. Fortunately, Rosie is with a woman who does not tolerate or accept denial, Niki. I do like complicate family dynamics, they are fascinating to write.

As the Great River Song said, "Spoilers Sweety, Spoilers." But Simon does have the habit of doing the wrong thing as well as the right thing. 😎

Thank you, that means a lot to me. I always worry that people won't like what I write or not relate to my characters. It's wonderful to hear that you are enjoying it.

Thank you. Isn't Niki great. I really enjoy writing her. Every so often I hit on characters that are a real joy to write, and Niki is one of them (I've managed to find two characters like that in this story). Rosie, Simon's mum, could have so over-rected here without Niki's brake being applied to her. That has been what I wanted to show here, that Niki is holding back Rosie, and trying to soften her rough edges. Niki has her work cut out though, managing Simon's mum, wait until later chapters.

Simon pushed the last of the sausage casserole into his mouth. It had been full of rich flavours: tomatoes and herbs, and the smoky taste of paprika. It wasn’t just that Niki was a good cook, she was an imaginative one. She would take a basic or familiar recipe and enhance it with some twist or change; the use of herbs or spices, or the addition of a rogue ingredient, something different or unexpected. With tonight’s sausage casserole it had been the addition of herbs, and the paprika, which had

Wow, thanks for this feedback, it means a lot to me. This is all fiction. I am certainly not Simon, but what you say really encourages me. I'd done a lot of research on this story and I've worked a lot creating these characters, they are people I find interesting. I am so glad you feel for Simon, I am really hoping people will follow Simon's emotional journey here.

Thanks for this feedback. I wanted to write about how difficult it is still to come out, even with all our equality advances. I was shocked, when researching this story, at all the problems teenagers still face when coming out. I wanted to write about the homophobia that still infects our society. Having Simon being raised by two women added another layer of homophobia, the fear people will find out about his home life as well as his sexuality. But what I didn't want Simon to be self-hating because he's gay. He's very aware of the homophobia he faces, but not always the bad decisions it makes him make, but I didn't want him internalising that homophobia and hating himself, that is a completely different story, I wanted him reacting him to that homophobia. "Two steps forward and one back" really does sum up Simon's situation, but things do change.

He is only sixteen and has never been the most sociable of children. He only had two friends at school, they weren't the greatest of friends, and he’s found how much he just doesn’t fit in at his college. Plus, only until recently, his home life has been cold and rule filled. He can't get over being gay because he's only just starting to explore being gay, and so far he's made a real mess of it. At sixteen, being gay can seem so huge, the same way many other things can seem huge. The world around is still not welcoming to him, even though we've made leaps and bounds in equality in the last 20 years. But most of all, give him time. He's only finding his feet with being a gay man, he will make some good decisions, and he'll made some monumentally bad ones.

Thank you. That means a lot to me.

Simon sat slumped back on the sofa with his laptop balanced on his thighs. Tonight he had the house to himself. His mum and Niki had gone out on one of their Wednesday night date-nights. They had gone to Niki’s friends, Iain and Will’s home, for dinner. So many of Niki’s friends seemed to be gay men. Having the house to himself for the evening Simon had intended to slouch on the sofa and watch television. For once he was on top of his assignments from college and didn’t have to spend half th