The closer I get, the farther away that I am...

I keep adding, removing, and changing the story. I manipulate and tweak, large-scale and small changes. I want so much from this story, perhaps too much. I don't want to be rich, if I did, I'd choose a path other than that of a writer. What I want is to share stories that touch, inspire, and entertain. I want a satisfying career. That's all. Here is another sample of Bayne and John for you. 

“…not perfect.” His words were muffled against my mouth.

“What are you mumbling about?” I pulled back just slightly and tried for a confident smile.

“I’m not perfect, sometimes I need…” Bayne paused, clearly looking for the right words, “I…I just need…”

“I’m so sorry, Bayne.” I sighed and stroked my hand through his multi-hued hair.

He looked younger, sitting there looking up at me, his face somehow innocent and quite lost. I had no idea that I was capable of doing so much damage to someone who was normally so strong, so self-assured.

“I love you, John.” Bayne’s lips trembled slightly.

My first reaction was to pull back, to give him space, but that approach hadn’t worked out so well thus far. Instead I stepped closer to him, stealing away the last fraction of space between us and I pulled him to my body firmly. I held him tightly, as though I could hold him together if I just gripped hard enough. In the end it hadn’t been true, but I held on anyway as he sobbed against me.

It's been awhile...

Yes, I am still working with Bayne & John. I want perfection. I want people to see that love between men is...still love. Perhaps I am asking too much of myself and of the general population, but I demand it just the same.
I feel as though something important is added with each pass. I feel as though the love is stronger with each touch. There is pain, death, and drama in nearly every chapter - but I also demand love and beauty. I want human emotion and artistic prose.
I want a novel.
I hope to be done by May 2012. Beyond that, I am just dragging my feet and experiencing artistic denial. Here is a "snippet" from the book, for your entertainment :)

“Feel guilty?” Bayne murmured against my still closed mouth.

“Yeah…” I sighed, and finally parted my lips to him.

“Don’t, John...” He said, and then sucked my bottom lip sharply between his own lips, and nipping lightly, before having pulled away just enough to speak again. “...do you honestly think that we are the first two men to have ever kissed?”

A story to tell.

What makes for an interesting story? What do you remember long after you close the back cover of a book? Is it the conflict?

Check.

Is it the romance between the characters in the book?

Check.

Is it the conflict, internal or external, within the representation of fictional lives?

Check.

The book that I am working on, Still Love is its working title, has all of these elements. I think that what matters the most to me, in a fictional piece, is that I am able to identify with one or all of the characters in one fashion or another. Still Love is a piece that came to me through the ideals presented in a song and a hefty dose of "what if". I hate "what if" in real life, but I've found that with fiction, "what if" is a hugely important question.

What if he loved, what if he lied, what if he died...

What if it is all love?

2012 will be pivotal. Civil rights is far from a done deal, if you have deluded yourself into believing that race, cultural, and sexuality are all accepted, please don't. When one set of beliefs is attacked for its core basis, bad things happen. Do you think that I am wrong about this? Remember Hitler?

What's in a name?

My family would prefer that my given name and my "pen name" be different. I have a rather "plain" given name, so I guess that I am okay with this request. Does it bother me that I (or at the very least, my views) embarrass them, yeah, maybe a little bit, but what can really be done about family?
I thought that I knew what name I was going to use for my "pen name", but now I cannot commit to one. I was going to use Kaye West - but then I started thinking about Mae West and Kanye West and thought that I should probably choose something else. I probably should have come to this conclusion before I named my blog. If I have to do a "renaming" I guess now is the time as we are rapidly approaching 90K with the book and goddess willing, completion.
So, how about this: those of you who know me, what name suits me? (I know...a man’s name! lol!)

John

John is, in essence, who we all are, he is trying to find his way in this life - and in the process; love will find him. Still Love (working title) is told from John's perspective because the biggest of the changes are happening to him, or at least that is how he sees it. John is in his early twenties and is dating a woman who he doesn't love, because that is what he is supposed to be doing, for status and self-preservation sake. While in New Orleans on a business trip, John meets, and ultimately - falls in love with Bayne - amongst many other things that he had never imagined doing. Aside from being freaked out by having feelings for a man, John will face life head on during the time that we will spend with him. Life has already dealt him some sizable blows, but the ones that he will now be confronted with, will redefine him in every possible way.

Impromptu Blog!

It's an impromptu blog! Are you excited? I am!!
First things first, if you follow me on twitter and/or facebook - you will see that I posted about Adam Lambert having won the 2011 "Equality Idol Award" for his commitment to LGBT youths. This is positively amazing to me, kudos to Adam! One of my biggest hopes is that my writing will eventually serve as more than just a means for me to love what I do and to do what I love. I see these causes and have no idea of how to become involved. The community college that I attend has a Gay/Straight Alliance, this fall I intend upon becoming involve. A small effort, but still hugely important – I hope. If it doesn't make you angry that people are being persecuted for their sexual preferences, well, shame on you. How long before we turn a blind eye then to other persecutions as many have in the past.
Soapbox aside - I reached 80K+ words with Bayne and John tonight. It is a small achievement, yes, but still important to me. Again, the book has a working title of "Still Love" it is a story of love and loss in relation to a gay couple. Why is the working title so significant to me? Because, it is still love - no matter who the players are, people! - Oops...there goes the soapbox again... While we're on the aforementioned soapbox, I wanted to share something with you all that now has a greater meaning to me. I read something once where one author had made a post, and not a flattering one, about another author who had said something (this is not a direct quote) along the lines of: "Q: How do you write? A: You sit down at the keyboard and bleed." I have to say, being in round two of edits and just having reached my preliminary goal of 80K valuable words, I agree. I have become so close to my characters that they are, in a way, an extension of me. When they hurt, I hurt; when they love, I love; and when they are abused, I bleed.
I hope that someday, you will all get to read my book, because I am vain. I also hope that someday my book will be as important to someone else as it is to me - not because of the sex scenes and the fact that they are "hot" sex scenes, but because of the love.
Goodnight, all.
=

Airian

Airian Davis was an afterthought, but he has taken my story to previously unimaginable heights.

Airian is young, extremely young, and a former lover of Bayne’s. Airian falls into the plot – changing it and enriching it in ways that I could have never imagined. Never before have I allowed a fictional character so much freedom to do as he pleases in one of my stories. I misheard “Aaron” one day as “Airian” and then this richly flamboyant character stole the story! He possessed John and Bayne in ways that I had no concept of and took the story in a most unexpected direction! Airian is the heart of everything. He is broken, beaten and abused, yet he maintains vulnerability and an innocence that should be completely unattainable in a character with a past like his. Airian is a thing of beauty. He is twenty years old, almost six-feet tall, and has long blond hair. Airian is the man that you want to huddle into your embrace and protect with your dying breath. He is of the image of the gods and damned all at once.

*I had the great fortune of finding a physical representation of Airian. I like having a physical picture of my characters beyond the one that exists in my mind, but to date – Airian is the only one who has one. I won’t embarrass the real man by naming him – ever – but my astonishment remains that there is someone out there who is as beautiful as the Airian that I had imagined.

Bayne

As promised - here is the first of three character introductions. This is Bayne - Samuel Bayne. He's not our main character, but my "trusted-reader" has informed me that he is quite "love" worthy!

Samuel Bayne is 35 when we meet him. In the first half of the story we find out that he is very much a gay-Richard-Gere from Pretty Woman. He is smooth, suave, and sexy as hell. He is gay and very comfortable with that fact. He has many regrets in his life, but his sexuality is not one of those. He finds himself quite taken by one of the junior-architects, John, of the team that is working on his latest mega-property. While his name is Samuel, he prefers just Bayne, as he should - it's a bit of a paradox, just like the man himself. He turns 36 shortly into the story, but for reasons that you will learn later - we miss this. Bayne, while trying to help John come to terms in his life, will face a number of personal demons that he'd tamped down early on in his life. Bayne will find himself, for the first time since having left California, in a position of vulnerability. The epitome of control, Bayne will win you from the moment that he steps into the spotlight.

Critical Mass

I wrote this on facebook in the middle of a "John-esque" fit. I thought that I would repost it here because I would be lying to myself if I said that it had nothing to do with the book.

Critical mass…nuclear meltdown…emotional turmoil, call it what you will. Sometimes it happens. You go and go and go and then you hit a wall. It could be financial, it could be emotional, or it could be an internalization of it all. It happens.
Sometimes you know why, and sometimes it doesn't matter if you know why or not. It still blindsides you and fucks you up.
Sometimes you cause it to happen to yourself; sometimes it is inflicted on you by someone else, or some circumstance. Sometimes it is all of these reasons.
Happiness is a state of mind. Trust, respect, and integrity have to come from within. Sometimes, it is too dark within to locate any of this.
In the end you go on and you are okay, because the other available options are so horrific that nothing good can come from them.
Press on, my friends, as will I.

It's not derailment...it's the next step.

Or at least that is what I am telling myself. I don't know where these thoughts come from, the thoughts for stories and characters - all of that stuff, but I am glad for them. It is like writing one story has opened the flood gate and I have all of these characters popping in and out of my head wanting 'their turn' - it reminds me of that scene in Ghost where Whoopi Goldberg has this line of ghosts waiting to talk to their loved ones through her, except my people aren't dead, they are imaginary. Don't tell the authorities...I'd probably get locked up in a padded cell.
Anyway, I got this idea for a story last night and I wrote out the first couple hundred words of a scene, today I wrote a three page outline, and just in the last two hours - I've written the first thousand or so words so that my two main characters have solid "working voices" so that I have a "jumping off" point when it is time. 
Still Love is not done and I've not stopped working on it. It currently stands at 68,118 words. My goal is 80,000. I think that is an absolutely obtainable goal. If there is more to the story, that's even better!
My biggest fear about writing isn't that no one will like what I write - I tend to not really be terribly concerned about what others think of me. It gives me a headache. My biggest concern was that I would write a story and then I would be completely out of ideas. Ha! Presently, I appear to have between five and seven potential books to go with, four of which have out lines and three of the four belong to a trilogy/series!
I know I promised to introduce the characters from Still Love -  I am still working on that without giving away the good stuff! It's harder to do than I had originally thought, but not impossible!

Playlist

The inspiration for John and Bayne's story initially came about from listing to I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic at the Disco!, as you may remember from my previous blogging. I am always in search of new songs for the writing play list! Creativity spawns creativity and every life has a sound track. Remember the first time that you heard your favorite song? Where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with? I do. Music has a way of connecting everything together. The first time that I heard I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic at the Disco!, I was in my 2003 Silver Kia Optima (it's since been traded in) and driving to my boyfriends house. The song ended and I found my self thinking "what if..." and the thoughts have been churning ever since, Bayne and John became too real to contain in my mind and they had to have their own world. They let me create it, nice of them, don't you think? Anyway - here is my current play list, I am looking for similar music and if you have any ideas - let me know!

I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic at the Disco!
Whataya Want from Me - Adam Lambert (if he's not the cutest damn thing, I don't know what is...)
Shattered (Turn the Car Around) - O.A.R
Sing - My Chemical Romance
All the Right Moves - OneRepublic
Apologize - OneRepublic
Wasting My Time - Default
Silver and Cold - AFI
Stop and Stare - OneRepublic
Falls on Me - Fuel
Hemorrhage (In My Hands) - Fuel
Send the Pain Below - Chevelle
Thnks Fr Th Mmrs - Fall Out Boy
The Kill - 30 Seconds to Mars (gorgeous eyes, that one has!)
You Don't Own Me - The Blow Monkeys (yeah - this is the version from Dirty dancing, and my favorite version)
How to Save a Life - The Fray (This is so John...lol!)

Progress...or so I've been told.

The farther I get in my story - the more layers of complications and drama that I find, or rather, I get sucked into unknowingly!
I've been told that I do not blog enough, so I thought that I would make a quick update. Occasionally, I make updates via Twitter - if I knew how to direct you to that, I would. I will pester Patrick about it later...he is my web-guru!
Today brought a huge and unexpected change in events for my characters, but if there is one thing that I've learned from this process, it is that you do not argue with your characters. It's their story and they know what happens. I only know where it starts and where it ends - it is up to my characters to tell me how we are going to get there. 
I wrote a fairly decent 20 pages or so today - judging from one of the blogs that I follow that is written by an author who knows what she is doing - that number isn't too shabby.
The other thing that I've learned, thus far, is that it is a good thing to have people who know that you are writing and at least one or two trusted readers. I value this. It keeps me going when I feel like pulling the plug on the whole thing and it also reassures me that even though this is a rough first draft of what is quickly approaching novel length - I have something that people might be interested in reading.
In a side note - Go New York! I am super excited about their decision towards same-sex marriages!
Hang in there with me; soon, I will be introducing everyone to my characters in this blog.

What it is

The whole reason for this blog is the book that I am attempting to write. It is a gay romance novel and its inspiration came from the song I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! At the Disco. Now, the tale has evolved some since its inception, but I think that when (if *crosses fingers*) you read it and listen to the song...well - you'll see the connection! 
The first eleven chapters have been reviewed by a trusted reader who I would say that the m/m or gay romance genre is not her normal dish, but she has an open mind and enjoys a good story. That's what matters. In her high praise I quote: "...depending on the cover art, this is a book I would purchase in the store."
Folks, it doesn't get much better than that for an aspiring writer.
To Bayne! (*raises glass in a toast*)

Greetings, and all that jazz...

This is the first of (hopefully) many blogs on many different aspects of my life, primarily, my adventures in writing. Why should you care? You shouldn't, and that's fine, but in the event that you find yourself stopping by anyway - thanks for hanging out with me!
My goals for this blog are simple. I need a place to talk about the book that I am attempting to write. What are my qualifications to write? I have none, really, other than my desire to do so. Reading and writing have been a part of my life for longer than I can remember. My mother led a creative writing group throughout most of my childhood years and sometimes she and the other members of the group let me participate even though my stories had to be simply dreadful, this all happened probably around age nine or ten for me.
This year I went back to school. I am taking classes at Lake Michigan College to earn my associates in English and considering transferring to Purdue North Central when it is time to begin working on a bachelor's degree.
I have a son who is very tolerant of his flighty/creative minded mother--so long as he has a wide array of snacks and opportunity to chitchat – so it works well. He probably wishes, however, that I would stop handing him books to read. He hasn’t shown much interest in reading yet, but he’s still young – there is plenty of time!
In the midst of all of this and working a full time job - I've lain the foundation for what could very well be my first novel, I’m excited about it, anyway! Its working title is Still Love and it deals with a topic near and dear to me, love. Furthermore, it is about same sex relations, which is another topic that I feel very strongly about. I loathe the fact that our state and national governments feel qualified to tell people who they can and cannot love, based upon what exactly, is what I would like to know. Love is love, or it should be.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope that we will all learn something from my adventure!