Arts

Rainbow Snippets: Time Machine

Happy Saturday! We’re busy-busy as usual, or at least the kids are, but just fun stuff this time. They’re off in a bit to a birthday party.

Meanwhile, I’ve got some beta reading and some writerly housekeeping to take care of. It’s actually easy and fun, so I’m looking forward to it.

I don’t have any current or upcoming new releases. My next novel is due to the publisher in 6 weeks or so (yikes!), and it won’t be out until September. So instead, I’m taking a trip back in time to introduce various characters from my past novels. By the time the new book is out, I’ll have made the rounds of the series it’s part of.

Today, this is from my first novel, Lower Education. It’s loosely based on the tale of the Pied Piper. Meet Phin Patterson, an educational consultant who skirts the line of dubious ethics. He’s been hired by the State Education Department to stamp a small-town school with a big, red X using any means necessary. Too bad he doesn’t count on some very savvy townsfolk.

Before leaving his room, Phin glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He smoothed his sandy blond hair, which he’d had cut and styled for the occasion, and gave himself a cheeky wink and a smirk. Surely he wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to kiss up to. There was always someone willing to provide dirt on a coworker, even in a school, for the right price. He would also need to find something entertaining to make his stay worthwhile. With any luck, he could have that and a successful trip.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

WIPpet Wednesday: Complications

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! I’ve been able to get some writing done, and Minuet is finally taking off. I’m excited to be working on it now, especially with the deadline coming up.

I’m snipping again from the same chapter I’ve been on for a few weeks, but I’ll probably switch it up soon. I’ve gotten a good chunk done, and I’m now several chapters ahead of this scene.

Amelia and Jomari are still at dinner together. She’s not one to ignore it if there’s a problem, and she can tell there’s more going on than Jomari’s let on.

WIPmath: 3/13/2019 = 3 x 1 x 3 = 9 paragraphs.

Now the big things were out of the way, Jomari picked up his sandwich. Amelia tested her soup, which was cool enough not to burn her mouth. Something still felt off, and she could tell Jomari wasn’t paying much attention to his food. She reached out her free hand and put it on his.

“Tell me for real,” she said. “How are you doing?”

He set his sandwich on the plate and picked at the crust. “I still don’t have a doctor.” He looked up at her. “I’ve been out of my prescription since the end of July.”

Not long, then, but still a problem. Jomari was a casualty of The Lighthouse closing. He’d been going there, and he was supposed to have been referred before aging out of their program—which he’d done over the summer. But The Lighthouse had closed before then, and he’d been one of the few on the waiting list who hadn’t been referred.

“So, no leads on a good primary?”

Jomari withdrew his hand from hers. “No. The problem is, Dr. Joyce knew me. Now not only do I have to find a doctor, but I have to deal with proving again that yes, I really do need to be on T, and yes, I really do need ongoing care specifically fit for me.” He glared at the sandwich instead of meeting Amelia’s gaze.

“I could ask around, if you want,” Amelia offered. “I know a few people who might help out.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.” She chuckled. “I was about to try to explain to you this really complicated friend circle I’ve got going on these days, thanks to Mack, but it could take a while.”

Like what you read? Be sure to check out the other entries and add your own. Just post a bit of your WIP, connect it to the date, and link up with us. Many thanks to Emily Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!

WIPpet Wednesday: Do me a favor?

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! It’s cold and snowy here (still, again…I’m not sure which).

It’s been a rough several days. Our dog has been seriously ill, to the point he’s been hospitalized since Monday night. We found out yesterday it’s Addison’s disease. Basically, his adrenal glands don’t function. He’ll be on meds the rest of his life, but he should make a full recovery and be back to his bouncy self within a few weeks or a month. Apparently, he’s been such a sweetheart for the staff. They all adore him. When we visited yesterday, the tech wrapped him in a blanket and baby-carried him out of the visiting room. He looked back at us like, “Ha, ha. Look how pampered I am.” He’s such a diva, even when sick!

Other than that, it’s same-old, same-old around here. I wrote a review of one of the best books of poetry I’ve ever read. You can check it out here.

And I’ve added a tiny bit to Minuet. I really need to motor on it. I figured out that a huge part of my problem had to do with some feedback that wasn’t really critical of my work but was really more about me than the book itself. I don’t think the person intended harm, but it still hurt.

On to the WIPpet. This follows from last week. They wrap up one discussion and move on to another. Jomari has a favor to ask of Amelia.

WIPmath: 3/6/2019 = 19 = 9 – 1 = 8 paragraphs.

Amelia reached out and put her hand on his. “Mack and I are best friends. Yeah, we have sex sometimes, but that’s the relationship we’ve always had. We’re all adults, and obviously we’re capable of having a grown-up discussion about it. Unless there’s a problem on your end we need to talk about, I’m good.” She was, really, even if she needed a minute to process this. She and Mack had never hooked up with the same person before, that she knew of.

Jomari shook his head. “I’m okay. Just figured it was better to do what you said, have a grown-up discussion.”

“And we did. So, tell me about how your day went?”

“Well…that would be the other reason I asked you here.”

“Oh?”

“You know how I’m in this Irish folk band? Um…see…we lost our flute player, and…” He bit his lip, and Amelia thought it was both adorable and hot. He’d had no hesitation when it came to making her toes curl and her back arch, but he could barely ask her to do him a favor with the band.

“You’d like me to fill in until you find a replacement?”

“Um. Yes?” He turned on a charming grin, and she giggled.

Rainbow Snippets: Book Review – Like Flesh Covers Bone by Jan Steckel

Books, Reviews

Happy Saturday! I’m jumping right to the snippet this week. It’s not my book this time but a fantastic collection of poetry by Jan Steckel, Like Flesh Covers Bone. I had the privilege of interviewing her for the BiCast this week.

I’m snipping from a poem called “Intersection”; my review follows below.

I’m a woman, but there’s a man in me.
He’s a bit of a fop, sort of a pansy.
He might be a fag.

Why shouldn’t everything about me be fluid?
I’m a squishy skin-bag of water and salt,
ocean inside and out.

About the Book

Synopsis: A hundred pages of direct, uncompromising, and lyrical poetry filled with moving moments of intimacy, humor, love & loss.

Genre: Poetry

Date: December 2018

Publisher: Zeitgeist Press

ISBN: 978-1-940572-21-5

Purchase Link

Goodreads

Review

I have been following Jan Steckel on social media for some time, so I was familiar with her poetry before reading Like Flesh Covers Bone. I’ve been delighted by many of her sharp observations of the world, sometimes optimistic and other times cynical. This new collection is one I am sure to read over and over, particularly a few of my favorites.

My top two are the titular poem, “Like Flesh Covers Bone,” and one called “Intersection.” In both cases, it is the way they reach into my soul and my personal experiences. The first knocked me emotionally flat the first time I read it. I gasped for breath, recalling my own first disillusionment as a newly graduated hospital nurse. The second had me nodding along with every line, feeling as though Steckel reached right into my heart and plucked out what was written there.

Every poem hits a high note, which is an accomplishment. Admittedly, I love poetry of all kinds, so I went into it with an already open mind. Even so, it’s rare that I am so drawn into the words that I don’t want to do anything except sit at the poet’s feet and bask in the beautiful lines. I couldn’t put it down.

I had the privilege of speaking with Steckel on the BiCast, a podcast for the bisexual+ community. (Link is below.) I highly recommend listening and absorbing what she has to say about writing, life, and bisexuality. She reads a few of her poems, and it is a treasure to be able to hear them right from her lips.

There’s a little of everything in here: some relatable moments and feelings, political cynicism and activism, history lessons, heart-wrenching memories, and humor. What I always say with poetry is that not every verse is for every person, but in a collection everyone can find something. Reading through is worth it for every aha! moment, every instance of feeling seen and heard and understood.

And that, for me, is the heart of this book. As a writer, what I strive for is to create something that tells others, “You are not alone.” This is what Steckel has accomplished here, a work which reminds us that someone out there gets us, that what we feel is not wrong. These pages are like seeking a comforting hand in the dark and, once found, holding on for dear life. I challenge everyone reading to find themselves in at least one of the poems and meditate on the words.

Like Flesh Covers Bone is a book for any of the following people to enjoy: lovers of poetry; bisexual people; genderqueer and gender non-conforming people; readers who enjoy swearing in their poetry; anyone who would like to understand queerness better; humans.

For relatable moments, flashes of keen insight, and poetry at its finest, this gets 10/10 fountain pens.

About the Author

Jan Steckel was a Harvard- and Yale-trained pediatrician who took care of Spanish-speaking children until chronic pain persuaded her to change professions to writer, poet and medical editor. She is an activist for bisexual and disability rights who lives in Oakland, California.

Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative writing has appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her work won the Goodreads Newsletter Poetry Contest, a Zeiser Grant for Women Artists, the Jewel by the Bay Poetry Competition, Triplopia’s Best of the Best competition, and three Pushcart nominations.

Social Media

WIPpet Wednesday: Cafe confessions

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! I’m trying to get back to doing these. My doctor and I are still working on figuring out my health issues. I’m following up with the rheumatologist in about a month, and then with my doctor after that. He has a long-term plan for getting me a proper diagnosis. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to finally have someone who is listening and problem-solving rather than slapping me with a diagnosis before digging deeper.

I’m still (very slowly) working on Minuet. I did manage to write a short story for Valentine’s Day, which you can read here.

Today’s snippet follows from last time, a little farther on in Amelia and Jomari’s date. He speaks first here, and he’s about to tell her something.

WIPmath: 2/27/2019 = 27 = 2 + 7 = 9 paragraphs.

“So…I’m thinking you want to know why I asked you to meet up.”

Amelia had been, but she played it cool. “We haven’t had a lot of time to talk since summer.”

He chuckled and leaned in to whisper, “You mean since we spent the night screwing like bunnies?”

“That too.”

“You should know that I, uh, went home with Mack the other night. Your friend.”

“I know who Mack is!” Amelia laughed, covering—she hoped—her surprise. Though now she thought about it, was it really so shocking? The guys had gone out to see Cian at the bar. Jomari was Cian’s fiddler and his friend. Jamie was away, and Mack had been lonely. She couldn’t be sure whose idea it was, but it did make some sense they’d try to set Mack up. Of course, they probably didn’t know it wouldn’t go anywhere but the bedroom.

“It’s not weird for you?” Jomari still hadn’t touched his sandwich, and now he fidgeted with his cup.

“Not really. I don’t think our one night together gives me some kind of claim on you, does it?”

“Well, no, I guess not.” Was that disappointment in his voice?

A random unpopular opinion about fictional characters

Writing

Humor me, I’m sick. I saw my doctor yesterday, and I do indeed have the flu. Bummer. I’m on strict bed rest, and I’m incredibly bored because I’m on the mend (it’s been most of a week already) and the cough meds my doctor prescribed are basically magical. Since I’m tired of Netflix and browsing social media, it’s Unpopular Opinion time.

Okay, this one probably isn’t all that controversial, but here goes: I don’t view my fictional creations (characters, setting) as fully formed beings who talk to me and have free will of their own. I mean, they came from my head. I don’t buy into the culture of “I just write what they tell me to.”

I know some of that isn’t really serious, and I take a lot of it as joking. But honestly, it’s sometimes draining when the conversation implies that these are living, breathing people. I think that’s partly because I’m a bit more concrete and a bit more literal. It isn’t that I don’t understand it; it’s more that’s not really how my mind works.

But here’s why it’s really important to me to recognize and understand my writing as an extension of my own brain: This is how I process trauma and other things that I cannot put into words in everyday conversation. Writing is a therapeutic process, and I need it fully grounded in my own reality in order to use it as a tool for healing.

Here’s a good example. When I wrote Passing on Faith, I was in a horrible place, emotionally and spiritually. I’d only just finally come out as bisexual a few months before I began writing it. We were also less than a year from leaving what was, for me, a highly traumatic church experience (combined with on and off religious-based shaming and trauma for nearly 25 years). I had a lot of rage and grief to manage, and I gave it all to my fictional hero to bear because I couldn’t put voice to that pain any other way.

In the same novel, I also created a tender, loving foil of sorts for my hero. He represented the love and grace I needed. Combined, the two of them allowed me to find a space between, somewhere I could process the tension between hurt and healing. I put my fractured self back together by creating a personified romantic relationship between my trauma and my faith.

Later, I more overtly processed the grief of death. But in Keeping the Faith, I chose to allow my main character to work through his sadness in the same way I’d previously worked through my trauma—in the writing of a complex story. I used similar symbolism in Walking by Faith with a main character who uses religious vows to represent inner turmoil.

In a more concrete vein, I chose to make a character genderqueer not because he “revealed” anything to me but because I had only recently revealed to myself that my own gender existed outside the binaries. It is exceptionally important to me to be clear on this point because these things come from my way of trying to understand and/or cope with my world.

I think it can be valuable to distance ourselves a bit from our own emotions by claiming it’s what our characters insisted on. Sometimes we need that because things are too deep to admit even to ourselves. Also, we may not be ready to reveal to the world all our inner workings. When I wrote Cat as genderqueer, I wasn’t fully out yet. It was easier at the time to say it was “what Cat wanted” rather than saying, “Hey, I discovered new things about my gender” that would necessitate explaining it.

But I am now at a stage of life when I would rather be honest that this comes from inside my head. I fully actualized that when I wrote Year of the Guilty Soul. Toni, the main character, is very nearly literally me. I gave her life experiences that I didn’t have, and I changed some details of real-life situations both to protect people and to make a more compelling fiction. But she is me and I am her in a lot of ways.

The other problem I have with speaking in terms of what my characters “made” me do is that it is a place of privilege. We need to own it when we write characters different from ourselves if we are in the privileged position and they are not (i.e., white folks writing people of color, non-queer folks writing queer people, queer people writing about those of a more marginalized stripe, etc.). I have to be very clear that I on purpose strive for diversity not because of some social obligation but because it reflects the world I live in. Saying my characters caused me to write a thing can easily become a way to absolve myself of missteps in writing outside my experience.

I can’t tell others what to do, but I would urge others to use caution as well in this area. While I feel there are times when it’s okay for an author to hide behind a character (as I did when coming out), I also think it depends very much on the situation. I realize most people don’t mean it seriously, but the discourse often leaves me feeling really uncomfortable, especially as it surrounds marginalized identities. I want to be able to talk about how my queerness has shaped my life and my writing, and this is made exponentially more difficult when non-queer people (or when cis people or non-bi people or able-bodied people or gentiles) insist that their characters “talked to them” and told them they share my identity(-ies) but not their creators’. More often than not, it leaves me with the sense that the writer wants brownie points for diversity or being open-minded, and they won’t like what I have to say about my real-life experiences. It’s not a position I enjoy being in, and I will not put someone else in that place.

At this point, I won’t be describing my writing as driven by viewing my characters as active, living humans. I’m not going to affix blame on my characters for a story taking a new direction. No one “revealed” themselves to me. Either I learned something about myself that a character is reflecting, or I developed an idea, or I decided to create a character with certain life experiences. I may still joke about bossy characters, but I won’t ever discuss it as though I’m being serious. And I will never, ever discuss it in terms of a character “telling me” they have an identity that I don’t personally share.

I have a lot of thinking to do about my current work-in-progress. I believe one of the reasons I’ve been so stuck on it is that I’m afraid of what feelings it may dredge up. So it’s time to let myself have those feelings, in the same way I’ve done with every other book in this series (and, if I’m honest, my writing overall).

Rainbow Snippets: Time Machine

WIPpet Wednesday: Complications

WIPpet Wednesday: Do me a favor?