Adam Phillips

As is so often the case with any kinds of attempt to categorize, a person can always find good reasons to question the accuracy of any proposal to define a category. Your examples are good ones. There's a sense which the character's sexual orientation in such an example is critical to the narrative. But if we're to take examples like that, then do we categorize every narrative by the salient characteristics of its main character? Do we make separate literary categories for each? Are there to be left-handed novels, or ADD novels, or black novels, or sailor novels, or architect novels? I ask because as I thought about it, it didn't seem to me that a story like Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy, which is explicitly about a couple of adolescents coming to grips with their sexuality, had a whole lot in common with a story like the one you propose. Is it correct to lump them both into the category of "gay novels"? Or, more to the point, is anything to be gained, either conceptually or in any other way, by putting them together in the same category of "gay novels"? They're very, very different. It's an interesting set of questions, though, and everybody would probably make the call differently. I think if I were responsible for shelving these things in some imaginary bookstore I'd put the novel about the gay detective in a different place from novels that deal with characters working through their sexuality as the main narrative. I'd probably put them with "crime fiction" or something of the sort. Either that, or I'd put all narrative fiction in a "fiction" section and not make an attempt to categorize. In any case, it does seem easier, somehow, to separate out romance fiction, for example, or "fantasy," as distinct genres, than it does to separate out "gay fiction." Romance can easily be seen as a recognizable "type," because "romance" is not an individual's characteristic and can easily serve as a unifying theme for stories which proceed somewhat similarly, simply because there are things that "romance" embodies that are common to many, if not most, romances in "real life." "Fantasy" is similar in that regard, although there the range seems larger. But "gay" is a personal trait that doesn't say anything inherent about what the story's going to do, and the potential range seems so wide, so undetermined, that one begins to wonder what qualifies a novel as a "gay novel." "Gay coming-out fiction" is more of a recognizable genre, seems to me. Likewise "gay coming-of-age." Those seem easier to peg. What would the necessary baseline ingredients be for something to be called a "gay novel" rather than just considering it a "regular novel" that features a gay character whose gayness may in fact be significant in the story? Thanks for the thought-provoking question.

I think you're wrong--just expressing my opinion--but it's not because you don't read enough. I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of this aspect of "gay fiction." It's just that many published books fall into specific genres; there is such a thing as what you're calling a "regular novel," one that doesn't seem to fall into any given niche, but I'll bet that various kinds of "genre fiction" actually outsell "regular novels." You know what I'm talking about: Romance novels. Mystery stories/whodunits. Westerns. Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery. Horror. Etc. Each of those genres circumscribes, to a greater or lesser extent, the range of plot and theme available to a writer within the genre. Readers of books within those specific genres are interested in having typical themes explored, and the author works within the confines of those interests; it's likely he or she shares the interest or he wouldn't be writing in that genre. Unless he/she's merely making big bucks, which isn't likely. I don't see a thing wrong with that. Just because a novel qualifies as a "genre" novel doesn't mean it's inherently bad. The same thing is true of gay fiction. Just because it explores endless variations on the theme of "coming out," for example, doesn't mean it's bad. And just because it explores endless variations on the theme of "coming out" doesn't mean it has to be boring. I'm not even particularly opposed to gay (or straight) erotica. There's always a place for hi-quality written porn. What becomes boring, in my opinion, is when a person reads in only one genre. Then you'd expect to become bored after a while. And as for the notion that "gay fiction" would be somehow improved if it told stories not centered around the gayness of this character or that...well, then it wouldn't be "gay fiction," would it? It would just be what you're referring to as a "regular novel." For a story to have a gay character doesn't mean it's gay fiction. There are many novels out there that have gay characters but that doesn't make them gay fiction. Just as the presence of romance in a novel doesn't make it a "romance novel." Now if you mean that a novel should have a gay protagonist and tell a story about that person, but not one in which his or her gayness is central to the narrative, I think I'd agree that it would be nice to have more stories like that. Personally, I'd like to see that kind of thing involving a bisexual protagonist, but we won't go there, LOL. Still, I'd have to say that in my opinion that would not be gay fiction. That would just be a "regular novel." None of this has anything to do, I should say, with the quality of gay fiction out there, ebook or otherwise. And I'll agree that, with some significant exceptions, the quality is dreadful. I've enjoyed Steve Kluger's work immensely. I also love J. G Hayes, although he's not everybody's cup of tea. Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys--which, by the way, is available in Kindle format--is some of the finest writing I've seen in any genre, and it's a gay love story. And in my opinion, Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy is a small miracle. But then there are writers out there--too many writers--like Mark Roeder...

Chapter 8 of Crosscurrents has been posted. This is something of a transitional chapter; Andy begins to make his way into the opening act of high school, and much to his surprise he finds he's been cast by his peers in a major role, apparently in part because he's had the good fortune (or misfortune, depending on which part of you choose to focus on) to have had a summer romance with an "older woman." The main focus of this chapter, though, is on the quiet but ever-growing friendship between him and Matt.

I'll say it again. You're a punk.

<gulp> I didn't know the practice was frowned upon; I just did it without asking. But obviously I can see why it's not ordinarily allowed. I was working with Sam on It Started With Brian while he was alive. He'd told me that he needed to discontinue the writing so as to manage his time wisely. I knew how much he'd wanted to finish it, so I offered to help him do so. He gratefully consented. That was some time before he died, and the prognosis was uncertain. I was writing the chapters from his notes, beginning with Chapter 12, I think. I'd write a chapter then send it to him for feedback and reaction. I'd rework whatever he felt was necessary, send it back to him, then he'd post it. At a certain point he gave me his logon and password information for eFiction, saying, "If something should happen..." When he died, there was no question but that I'd continue from his account. It just seemed natural, and fitting. I appreciated--and appreciate--the Gay Authors Administration's understanding. It was a privilege to know Sam and a labor of love to finish the story for him. He wanted so much to have the story finished, and I was honored and humbled for him to allow me to finish it in his behalf.

Steph is the lady responsible for designing the look of my Gay Authors pages...don't you think she did a great job? I gave her all kinds of picky-but-way-too-general thoughts during the design process, and she turned it into this place. I think it's awesome. I love the look. It's exactly the kind of look I was hoping for, right down to the banner on the Authors page. There's something else though: I can't stand to see typos on a page. And invariably it seems as though, in this new version of Crosscurrents, every chapter I've sent in has some, and every week I've had to contact her and say, "Uhh...Steph...Uhh, I have a typo in the chapter at..." Then I do the cyber-equivalent of hanging my head and shuffling my feet and saying, "Uhh...when you have time, could you fix it?" And she's always on it right away, and doesn't even slap my hand! She's even caught some on her own and made the corrections herself. I'm going to try to show my gratitude by re-assembling my Crosscurrents proofreading team that I had when I first wrote (it's the small changes I'm making that are introducing the typos) so that she doesn't have to do this any more. But in the meantime I just had to say "out loud" here how much I appreciate her work on my pages and her patience with my clumsy keyboard-fingers.

Chapter 7 has just been posted. In this chapter Andy experiences another first in life--two of them, actually...and as is becoming the case so often, these experiences are contextualized by his friendship with Matt.

I've found the Myers-Briggs somewhat useful in understanding myself. But I do worry that its inherently reductionistic nature distorts more than it clarifies. And beyond that, people seem to use it like they use horoscopes. You know, "I'm a Libra; therefore..." We love to categorize and pigeonhole. It's understandable; the world out there is chaotic and if we can get for ourselves a simple handle on things, an assist in understanding easily, we grab onto it. And that's well and good, up to a point; categorizing is a valuable tool in helping us understand. The problem is that life and people aren't simple. Even trying to generalize about the array of characteristics supposedly assessed by the Myers-Briggs can cause you to become more zealous for the label than the realities it seeks to illuminate, and that in turn can cause a person to overlook realities in his/her own character that don't conform to the template. This is especially problematic because the Myers-Briggs commentaries often spend a good deal of time saying things like "ENFJs are characterized by...". I have a concern that once an inventory tells a person what he/she is, that person will then decide he/she is just the way the commentaries describe. That's troublesome to me.

I've taken it before. ENTP. Big names from that tribe: Michaelangelo Richard Feynman Thomas Edison Hypatia of Alexandria

I think you're right. I can trace lines from my present back to my past, but there's no reason the line from the past had to go where it did. Just trying to create a little literary distance between author and protagonist.

I don't know from raves. I was a Texas-suburban kid. We did field parties instead. I can't speak to raves. Never experienced such a thing. So obviously, Jeremy, I can't speak to what was happening with that scene when I was in college. I ran with two crowds in college, and some members of them, oddly enough, tended by my upperclassman years to intermix at the focal point of my apartment. That would be the jocks and the brainers. The jocks liked alcohol, weed, sex, and sex, and the occasional athletic romp. The brainers liked weed, getting stoned and talking philosophy, sex, occasional forays into vegetarianism, getting stoned and playing chess, sex, sex, listening to classical music and John Coltrane and Miles Davis, fungi (the revelatory kind), sex, the outdoors, talking about epistemology, romping with funny kittens, and sex. Occasionally a guy had a dual membership like me, and occasionally a member of one group came to appreciate the way the other group partied. There wasn't enmity between the two groups. They got along fine. They just didn't always "get" each other fully. But the vibe between them was pleasant.

Doesn't particularly surprise me. I've seen how this feature gets used here. I have no beef with the Powers That Be and their decision to enable this feature; but let's be honest: It's a cowardly, yet seductively easy, way to take a swipe at someone without having to suffer any consequences, since you can hide under your little rock, safe and anonymous, instead of standing behind your neg with your name and identity. I think it's a terrible feature that serves to bring out the worst in us, and I've decided that the only time I'm going to use it is to give someone a positive, or to neutralize someone else's cowardly negative. And when I have a beef with someone's post, I'll say so and put my name to it. That's what grownups with a shred of integrity do.

I have a novel idea. What if he were his own distinctive person, and not a guy who's "like" anybody else?

Can I vote for JP and Stefan? I'm pretty much done with them. ;-)

Well, no. That was "Adam was pissed off by the story and hadn't bothered to re-read, but only rememberered how callously JP had killed before, and then remembered him saying, after the fact of Jeff's death, that he wasn't even all that sad. Whereupon Adam began to hate JP and in his ADD-addled brain disremembered that JP had sent Sam there to kill him." A re-reading of the story...and a polite "quit being a moron" from...uhh, well, I think it was you ...set me right on that one.

Senior year in high school I and the rest of the soccer team got their left nipples pierced. Don't ask why the left. We just decided to be uniform. That year I also got my tongue pierced. Neither of those places are pierced any more. I'm old and no fun anymore. However, the little tattoo above and to the left of my left pec--also from that year--has remained. Wow. Oh, how the years go by, as Vanessa Williams used to sing. Or Amy Grant, depending on your preferences.

I'd go with your 11:09 pm gut response of last night. Tiger's post gave me yet another opportunity to harass Mark about 1968, and I thought this one was kind of fun. But, you know, that's the kind of crap people do all the time when they read, without the author having to do anything at all. They just add additional details to that world inside their head, details that the author isn't even aware of. After all, once it leaves his word processor and makes its way into our heads, it's not really his world anymore, right? He only has control over what he writes. What he intends is a red herring, and "what he means" is dang slippery. Especially in fiction. You know the whole debate on "authorial intent" from them literary circles. All that being said, I'm just trying to make him miserable. It appears as though a couple of people are working on this project from a couple of different angles. It's what happens when you try to change your writing from "realistic" to "fantasy" within the same series. I mean, c'mon. A straight figure-skater? That was bound to have repercussions. If readers wanted to read some Mercedes Lackey they wouldn't have started on the Cramptonworld series. Damn, I'm having fun.

Jingoism made mawkish. Ugh. Just ugh.

I'm turning out fiction right now. I'll likely have a short story available by summer called Remix. And in it, a miracle really does happen. Or, as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

You people keep talking about miracles. We know you don't believe in resurrections, Mark. We're not talking about miracles. We have rationally-plausible explanations. And we know shit like that happens because we saw it back when we watched Days of Our Lives or whatever. So, no miracles. We just know what really happened behind those grisly scenes you narrated and intend-to-narrate. All those things you conveniently forgot to mention. (Okay, I'll quit now.) But I really think that JJ... :devil: (actually, I don't give a shit)

Or a conspiracy theorist either. You gotta watch out for those initial impressions. Hang around a person long enough and they're bound to revise.

Just goes to show you that he's pulled one over on you too.

"Miracle"? Nah. No such thing was necessary. Not even close. You have clearly never watched soaps. Suicides can be faked, you know, and the letter he left behind was all a part of the ruse. Only Tonto knew. And she was keeping the secret because she wanted Jeff to get a new start on that tropical island with her son and his man. And "remains"? Remains, schmemains. He wasn't dead, he was just faking it. Did anybody accompany the medical examiner? He was the father of one of Jeff's closest friends in high school. That father-son duo transported the "body." And yeah, those were his dental impressions and fingerprints. He just wasn't dead. Doesn't take no "God," and, to be true to the author's own sentiments, I don't believe there is a God in Cramptonworld. I'm just relieved to know he's still alive and enjoying the tropical life. I feel bad that the rest of the family had to be tricked. Although, really, it kind of serves JP right for not being more relieved than sad that he was dead.