Adam Phillips

Right. Steph got it posted while I was at work. I just now posted an announcement.

Chapter 27 has been added. Andy's running, but he's not doing a very good job of escaping what he's running from. And all the frenzied desire to escape himself begins to have moral consequences.

Honestly, it hasn't been my intention to make you wait this long. We're having...technical difficulties. The chapter has been submitted. I'm confident it'll show up soon.

I've sent the chapter in to my tech person. I sent it yesterday. I haven't heard from her. I imagine she'll post it this weekend some time.

I've sent Chapter 27 to my proofreaders. It'll be posted in a few days. This is any ugly chapter. I may have to face some hatred for it. I may make a few e-enemies. I hope most readers will understand the chapter in a larger, more charitable way. But I won't apologize for it. It needs to be here. I wrote it, and I stand by it. If it offends you, and you end up refusing to understand, so be it.

I did get it. Sorry I haven't replied yet. I will.

First of all, in my first post to this thread I said that Crosscurrents has an autobiographical element to it. Many of my longtime readers know the extent to which it has that element, but I don't want to bog down the story by going into all that. I think here at the discussion forums I'd prefer to treat CC as a narrative independent of anything that has happened in my life. I have been known to answer questions of a more personal nature in private email discussions, though.

Chapter 26 of Crosscurrents has been posted! Sorry for the delay. This chapter takes Andy through an eyebrow-raising Christmas break.

Only when I'm breathing. It and stupidity account for why there's gonna be a new addition to our household this month. :wacko: It's a good thing, though. The horniness and the new addition.

I hate typos, grammatical infelicities, syntax blunders, and other such things...in my own work. When I'm reading someone else's work--at least online--I tend to be much more charitable. I never see the point in tearing an author a new one, either in public or private, unless you think that some egregious problem in the writing seriously mars an otherwise fine piece of work (And yeah, I've written such an email to an author. Privately.). Generally speaking, three things strike me about an author's work. 1) The story--if the author has a compelling story to tell and a strong narrative sense, that covers a multitude of sins. I'll hang with an author who's deficient in other ways is he/she can spin a good yarn. 2) The mechanics--a story that's riddled with punctuation mistakes, misspellings, and bad syntax is generally not a story I enjoy reading. Unless the story itself is strong and compelling, bad mechanics will usually cause me not to care much for the work. 3) The style--beyond questions of narrative and mechanics, some authors' use of words, syntax, imagery--and hell, even punctuation, sentence-and-paragraph construction, dialog--take my breath away. I'm not necessarily talking about overblown or excessively florid writing; some of the most powerful stylists cut right to the bone in terms of their verbal efficiency. No, when I'm talking about style in writing, I'm thinking about guys who, beyond telling a story, clearly love the language, who give individual words and phrases thought and care. These are the guys I love to read. These are the guys who leave me wanting more. And more. And more. These are the guys who make me fall in love. With the writing, of course (but feel free to email me privately with additional proposals if you're one of those writers ). Unsurprisingly, writers who excel at #3 generally have 1 and 2 down cold. But not always: You can always have style-without-substance (I think of Edmund White's Nocturnes for the King of Naples) or powerful narrative with prose that leaves a little to be desired and/or needs a heavier proofreading/editorial hand (Two much-beloved Hosted Authors whose stories I love madly come to mind, but I'll pass on calling them out by name...mainly because I don't want to be universally hated here). When authors display mastery in all three areas...well, that's Reader Heaven, in my opinion.

Consider the source. It's always something we can count on from Graeme.

Chapter 25 of Crosscurrents has been posted. In this chapter, Andy continues to get comfortable with his ambiguous sexuality, as he pushes the envelope with teammates and as he tries to make amends for a past that can't really be amended. But that past, as it turns out, isn't quite ready to release him from its grip.

Okay, here's how things stand. I just finished Chapter 25 today. I'm going to read it over now and tweak what I want to tweak, then I'm sending it to my three "proofreaders" <cough,cough> so they can have their collective way with me; and once I've either satisfied their little fetishes or told them here and there why I won't, I'll send it to Steph and she'll post it at GA for me. Thanks for your patience. It won't be long now.

I know. And ordinarily I'd appreciate it. It's just that I'm pissed at myself. I fully intended a seamless weekly delivery of chapters and I'm angry at myself for not being able to get it done. And so when somebody brings up the delay, it's like salt in the wound. I apologize for snapping at some of you who've asked. Anyway, in the absence of being able to deliver weekly chapters now, I promise to keep you all posted on the progress I'm making so that you don't find yourself wondering when the hell the next chapter is coming. I'm making good headway on Chapter 25. I have about one and a half scenes to go to get a reasonable draft down, and then I need to take a second pass over all that. The sex scene (What?? There's sex?????) needs to be rewritten a little, and I always do a little polishing on a second (or third or fourth) pass. I might not finish tonight, but I should be able to finish tomorrow. That translates to a Monday or Tuesday posting. That's the way it looks right now, at any rate. I'll let you know if something changes. In any case, I wanted to let you know I'm not just stalling out on it. There's no writer's block or anything. It's just a matter of having time to do it right.

From my Adamstories Yahoo group: --- In adamstories@yahoogroups.com, "Ross" <wwwoaaah@...> wrote: > > This group has been rather silent for the past 2 weeks. > Where the hell are you Adam?? > -Ross Sitting on my ass and jerking off, obviously. Just to make all of you mad. I have a life. It gets in the way of my writing sometimes. I don't get paid to write Crosscurrents. It doesn't feed my family, get the lawn mowed, spend quality time with my family, or any of the other things that occupy my time and attention offline. I'll do my best to get the rest of Crosscurrents up in a timely manner. But as I said in my forum at Gay Authors, I can't promise a weekly delivery schedule any more for the last 10 chapters. I tried with Chapter 24 and it was so full of errors I cringe every time I look at it. So I'm done with that. You'll get the next chapter when you get it. I hope to have it finished by the end of Saturday, but I'm not making any more promises.

I hate to do this to all of you who've been reading Crosscurrents faithfully--some of you as far back as 2003--but there's just no way I'm going to be able to keep to a weekly posting schedule for the remaining 10 chapters or so. I realized this after I'd posted Chapter 24. I rushed it, and as a result it's full of typos--and one error that's a little more substantive--and I just hate that. I won't do it again. Chapter 25 is well underway. But if I want to do it right, I still need a few days on it. And I want to do it right. As much as you all deserve a regular posting schedule from me, you also deserve my best work on Crosscurrents, and I want to give it my best work. So let's try and think in terms of a 12-day interval between chapters these days. I think that should be sufficient. Also, as I've already said, when the baby's born I'm taking some extended time away from here to be there for my wife and son and the new arrival. I'm really sorry if this pisses any of you off. I hate not being able to keep my word. But I'm continuing to work on the writing and I believe I can keep to a 12-day schedule until the baby comes, and then probably after that once again.

Because I ran behind on Chapter 24, I'm also running behind on Chapter 25. Domino effect, you know. That means that Chapter 25 won't be posted until Saturday, at the earliest. I'm in a really hectic time of year right now. And it doesn't look to get better real soon. My wife is pregnant and she's due in October. This will be our second kid, by the way. Some of you asked. I have a 4-year-old son also. Anyway, when the baby comes I'll take a couple of weeks off from writing to go...well, you know, live my life offline. I hope you'll not hold it against me that with a new baby in the house the schedule of posting might slow a little. In any case, I'll get Chapter 25 to you in the next few days. Sorry for the delay. I'm going to take some time to proofread it more carefully as well, which will add some time to the process. I'm still pissed off about how ragged the copy is in Chapter 24.

First of all, as is often the case with people and sex, Andy's a big tangled-up mess of internal contradictions. On the one hand, given what Andy's said about himself and his sexual habits in the past, the reader should have some reason to suspect that Andy's being just a bit disingenuous with Brad when he says those things in that earlier encounter. Andy's perfectly capable of using people sexually without compunction. We've already seen this. Maybe he thinks that Brad will handle the whole thing better if he plays it a little "sincere." Before Crosscurrents is finished, we're going to see Andy give the lie to those things he said to Brad here. On the other hand, for Andy to let a guy top him sexually is clearly a big deal. He's feeling vulnerable, and being with guys sexually is always throwing him back on that fateful night on the beach at the beginning of his senior year in high school. And of course, that whole thing is not just about the sex. I guess it remains to be seen what sex with guys does to Andy as time goes by.

Thanks for the kind words about CC 24. Even with the typos it's been getting more positive response than some of the other chapters. I never can tell which chapters are going to connect and which aren't.

By the way, I know there are numerous typos. Trust me--nobody hates that more than I do. It's what happens when I rush. And, believe it or not, even though CC 24 was late, it was rushed in that it didn't get a look from my three proofreaders. My apologies. Eventually I'll fix it.

Chapter 24 of Crosscurrents has been posted. This chapter narrates the "return engagement" that Brad had requested with Andy. That night Andy discovers some things about sex--and about Brad--he hadn't expected to.

Back in April when Crosscurrents first began posting at Gay Authors, I told you that there would be a new chapter out every Friday. Then for a while, Steph and I were getting new chapters up Thursday night. You'll notice there's not one up yet. I finished the chapter on Friday night. I need to look it over tonight, then I'll send it to Steph. It shouldn't be too much longer. I'll be back on schedule next week. Thanks for your patience.

I think Andy says it best himself in Chapter 19: After that final desperate grip of Matt's hand, that anguished night lying on his pillow, I told myself that when I got to college, I was going to be who I was without shame; if anyone gave me shit about it, I'd see to it that they'd come to regret it. Invoking that new resolve was the only thing that got me through those final days in my hometown. College would give me an opportunity to make up for my moral failure of the previous year. If it ever came up--and I figured it would--I wouldn't lie about myself. I didn't know if I could explain it to anyone, because it wasn't as neat and clean as it was for guys who are totally gay or totally straight; but I wasn't going to apologize for being who I was. Not to anyone. Especially not to myself. And something else followed from that: I wasn't going to let anybody disparage or shame anybody else like that either. Not in my presence. Not about that. From this point on, I promised myself, I'd stand up against anyone who tried to humiliate a person because of his sexuality. I hadn't seen much homophobia in my world, but I knew it was out there. I knew the jocks from back home, and most of them seemed okay with gay guys, but my new teammates...well, who knew how any of them thought? I wouldn't sit quietly if someone ever started ragging on guys who were attracted to guys; I'd get in the face of anyone who threw down that kind of shit. I owed it to the memory of my friendship with Matt, and to the memory of how I'd destroyed that friendship over just that kind of homophobia. Homophobia I'd directed at myself. It could be said, maybe, that Andy is overcompensating for the disaster with Matt in a big way. But in any case I think he explains himself in the above paragraph. Also, he's bound and determined not to let Shane hurt Kyle. I think that's also a part of what he's up to--trying to get his teammates, in any way they can, to see things differently. One way, he thinks, is by getting them in touch with whatever feelings of ambiguity they themselves may have inside, if they have any such feelings; the other is to try to get them to see that, visually anyway, guys making love to guys is not repulsive. He's trying to replace whatever sleazy images they may have in their heads about gay sex with something that involved great visuals, good-looking guys enjoying each other, and just a little fun and light-heartedness. As for your other stuff about Matt...well, whatever he's doing in relation to Matt, it should be pretty clear that he's not going to be able to get Matt out of his head or heart. He continues to shape who Andy is and what he does.

As you've doubtless seen, I've been posting Crosscurrents here at Gay Authors beginning with the first chapter. And as of this week, you'll be getting all new chapters from now on. There is little difference between the version at Gay Authors and elsewhere, but yes, I have been making small tweaks here and there.

As NaperVic beat me to the punch in announcing, Chapter 23 of Crosscurrents--my first new chapter in over two years!--has been posted. In this chapter you'll see Andy go to quite the crazy extreme in his quest to prove to others (and himself??) that maybe he and his buds aren't so different after all.