S.A. Garcia's Mutterings, Whimpers and Rants

S.A. Garcia's Mutterings, Whimpers and Rants. World Domination by 2020. Or 2025. Probably never.

Friday, August 24, 2012

GLBTQ Literature Kidnapped my Childhood!


Eeeps, I feel like I’m back in school, forced to write an essay like “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.” When I hear about theme blog hogs, I am always “sure, I’ll do this!” then wait until the last minute and panic over how not to sound like a moron. Here is my ramble.

First off, I am behind the times. I call GLBTQ LGBT, wow, that looks like a password to me, but I guess the alphabet soup has shifted. I like LGBT since L is first. Hey, this old lesbian can have her preferences, correct? No matter that the initials say, let’s face it, anyone who chooses to write GLBTQ is already settling into, as my one publisher says, a “niche” area. When writers start writing niches inside the niche, like fantasy, or science fiction, the niche becomes narrow and even more selective.

The thing is, I did not choose to write GLBTQ stories. The writing chose me, which is a horrible cliché, but it is true. I started writing gay male romance when I was a teenager. My writing began using dudes from a band I adored back in 1975. Happily the band was a trio, which meant a three way was easy to write. Just add angst and away they went. These stories were penned like a Victorian writer, using initials, not names. “K— yanked on C—’s shaft.” Ouch!

My parents never questioned the endless scribbling in my black composition notebooks. “Oh, she’s writing, how creative.” Better to let my parents think that their weird daughter nurtured an obsessive “dear diary” tendency. At least I had the security of not having younger siblings sneaking around in my room. I left my notebooks on my bedside table in secure confidence.

As you can imagine, the hilarity I hammered out during those formative years is awful. Back then I wrote the male/male equivalent of “bodice rippers.” Endless kidnapping and seductions ruled the pages. Once I moved past the band boys, I started writing stories using all kinds of situations. Sword and sorcery stories, pirates— they tended to do the most kidnapping—, horror, and quite a few contemporaries flowed from my black Flair. I only wrote using the good old felt-tipped Flair. I hated regular ink pens. These stories need to be documented in black! And only in perfect bound, black composition books. Yeah, just call me an anal nutjob, well, in more ways than one.

Oodles of incest, twincest, torture, maiming, revenge, betrayal, sex (hilariously written) and true love haunted those pages. Of course the brooding and betrayed by his lover Prince Sebastian must fall in love with his manly pirate kidnapper. The manly pirate Ramon always cast aside his plans to ransom the fair prince and spirited the more than willing Sebastian away to the cliché island paradise hideaway.

To this day, I still puzzle over what writing those stories meant to me. Above and beyond, they represented dazzling escape from the mundane world. Instead of talking on the phone or watching TV or acting normal, I sat and wrote forbidden adventure, romance, drama and trauma. Damn, I hate to think what would have happened if I had a computer back in the day.

I continued writing my stories during my twenties. In 1988, when my partner and I purchased our first computer to help run our music magazine, I still hid my writing in my notebooks. Even when certain stories migrated to the computer, I kept other ones hidden in the notebooks. The stories I worked on via the computer were more logical, less sensational, more readable. The notebook stories turned even more violent and fantastical. I said this before; when the cliché Monty Python 20 ton weight crashes down on my head, whoever reads those stories will be in for a shock.

As the years passed, my partner kept wondering why I spent so much time writing if I insisted on hiding the words from the world. She meant well, but for me my male/male stories were mine. Back in high school, I had received scholarship offers for English and writing along with scholarships for pursuing my art. I selected art because I wanted to keep my writing for myself. I never wanted anyone else to see my stories, to reject them or to comment on those private words.

Which is why when I discovered fan fic in 2000, I danced in glee. Wait, people out there were writing in the same vein and putting it out there for the world to see? I dove in and splashed around in delight. People seemed to like my ideas.

This lead to me thinking well, could I sell my stories?

Which leads me to where I am now, published but writing outside of the norm.

Do I write GLBTQ stories because it is trendy? Hell no, namely because I don’t write classic GLBTQ stories. At this stage in my writing, my characters never gaze at their “straight” friends and wonder about spooning them. Surprise, I have already explored those options in my notebooks. Stories about married men “finding” themselves and realizing that they need to be set free to love another man rub along side the “straight” secret agent who falls in love with a call boy tale or the rough “straight” guitarist who falls for a drug-addicted Duke (ahh, I do like that story). Over the years, I have explored many classic gay male romance genres. As of now revisiting them does not work for me. Instead my characters embrace a strong sense of self in order to endure the other torments I plan to dump on them.

What can I say, I write my gay male romances because it’s a part of me. I have been writing these stories for over thirty-five years. That is scary. I can’t stop writing these tales of love, lust and longing. Writing them is ingrained in me. I am hotwired to write GLBTQ literature.

It’s in my blood. Why? Who knows? Why do people like to race cars or rock climb or run marathons? For the pleasure, for the love of the challenge? Yes.

Even in those malicious notebooks stories, after the kidnapping, the trauma and the drama, above all love rules the day. All right, there is one gory horror tale where possession and an ancient spirit haunting an old English manor leads to strangulation and suicide, but what the hell, they die screaming, “I love you,” as the cursed manor burns to the ground.

Hmm, I’m tempted to clean up that nasty puppy and float it out there.

xoxo

Leave a comment with an email and one lucky person in the US, Canada or Mexico will receive a signed copy of Temptation of the Incubus. Outside of the cheap mailing area, I'll supply an ebook. Or who knows, I might just go hogwild and send the book anywhere.

You know we authors are capricious, unpredictable and goofy. Or maybe that's just me!


 







36 comments:

  1. Please put my name into the hat. I really enjoy your books, they are different and very entertaining.

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  2. Thanks for being part of the blog hop. I’m finding a lot of new-to-me authors and it’s interesting reading what their writing and characters mean to them.

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    1. All I know is my writing is essential to me. Thanks for dropping by!

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  3. Please me for the giveaway! thanks for joining the blog hop! IT's been an interesting journey reading all authors about writting LGBT fiction...

    jessica_klang(at)hotmail(dot)com

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    1. I wish someone had a rough count of how many LGBT authors are out here. We need a union! Thanks!

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  4. I always love these blogs hops, getting to know new-to-me authors and a deeper understanding of my favorites :)

    kimberlyFDR@yahoo.com


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    1. Hopefully I might slide into the favorite category. Yeah, I am a marketing mercenary.

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  5. Just found you through this hop and I'm adding your books to my "to-read" list right now! They sound great!

    stashlab at gmail dot com

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    1. When you want to read them, start with the first, "Canes and Scales."

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  6. I really enjoyed your post. Thanks for sharing. I haven't had the pleasure of reading one of your novels yet, but they sound very imaginative. Your book covers are gorgeous!!!
    madisonparklove@gmail.com

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    1. Thanks for reading! I feel I have been very lucky in my covers. Silver and Dreamspinner really care about the cover art.

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  7. thank u for joining the blop hop and please count me in for the draw!

    lohahmooi(@)hotmail(.)com

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  8. I'm a new LGBTQ author participating in the hop. Just wanted to stop by. Notice I put the L first too. I didn't even know it changed. HA! Good post!

    Stacey aka Coffey Brown

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    1. Thanks! I welcome you to the world of promotion, promotion, promotion and more promotion.

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  9. I love your post! I must admit, I'm kind of curious about your notebook stories now. I really wanna read about Prince Sebastian and Ramon. Anyways, thanks for participating and for writing!

    tiger-chick-1(at)hotmail(dot)com

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    1. You and me both! After flipping through the notebooks (75 of them since the late 1970's), I want to revisit a few stories. This lazy author left Sebastian and Ramon on their island paradise and never quite concluded their tale. Hmmm... *winks*

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    2. Please write it! I can't wait to see what you come up with next! :) you're one of my fave unpredictable authors. Love your books!

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  10. Hahaha....nice story, SA. Should have just put them all for the next story ^_* Those pirates must be something during your teenage years!

    Anyway, count me out coz I have your ebook.

    Thank you for being part of the Hop!

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  11. I love your work - thank you for writing what I love to read!!

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  12. I kept those notebooks too, full of horrible self-insert Mary Sue fanfic and (at one point) a running serial about a group of Nancy Drew-like girls who solved mysteries out of a riding stable. *facepalm*

    I put aside those stories when I entered college, thinking it was time to put aside my childish ways. When I discovered fanfic online, it was like waking from a coma--I dove in, as you said, feet first and never looked back. I could no more stop writing now than I could refrain from breathing.

    Lovely, insightful post--thank you for sharing!
    akasarahmadison at gmail dot com

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  13. *laughing* Amazing blog on the topic. I'm so glad I got to read it. Thank you for participating and sharing with us. I am happily entering the drawing.

    kelly.wyre at gmail dot com

    Cheers!

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  14. I enjoyed the post; it was a great read.

    Thanks,
    Tracey D
    booklover0226 at gmail dot com

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  15. Hi, S.A. I'm already onto you... I have you friended on Facebook, so I'm glad to see you in the hop.
    I'd love a chance to win your book, because it's a safe bet I'll like it.

    Sue
    corieltauviqueen at yahoo.co.uk

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  16. When I was fifteen, I showed my mother a story I was writing. In all my innocent naivety, it never occurred to me that I was writing m/m romance. After all, there was no sex. No kissing. No hand holding. Just two guys, a prince and a spy, going off together to have adventures. My mother read the story, handed it back to me with a very odd look and told me I had some pretty decent writing skills. It never got mentioned again. I look back on that story now (in fact, I'm pretty sure I even still have it) and just shake my head at what she, apparently, found so obvious: her daughter had gone off the rails somewhere and no one had ever noticed. Something you said in your post struck me, and reminded me of this event: you mentioned not talking on the phone or going to the movies, or any other such 'normal' teenage things. Sounds like me! lol! Too busy reading and writing to be bothered.

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  17. "my characters never gaze at their “straight” friends and wonder about spooning them"

    Lovely! You're a lifelong scribbler like me. Among other things, it's cathartic. Great post.

    Ryal
    ryalwoods@gmail.com

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  18. Great post. Its good to know that I'm not the only one who wrote "bodice rippers" as a teen. lol
    kaylyndavis1986@yahoo.com

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  19. Wonderful post and thanks for sharing.
    Yvette
    yratpatrol@aol.com

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  20. YES! No, really thank you for saying that. I totally get that. I started out writing a romance and discovered that my hero was waaaaaay too interested in the heroine's brother then in her and thus my writing M/M was born. Some times it just happens. lol

    moriamccain at gmail dot com

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  21. I enjoyed reading why you write GLBTQ.

    Please count me in for the Contest

    ShirleyAnn@speakman40.freeserve.co.uk

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  22. I loved your post! I have several notebooks of my own, I'm glad you decided to share your writing!

    Lilly
    Lillywriting@gmail.com

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  23. Your post has me chuckling, thanks for joining and for sharing your stories with us!
    seritzko AT verizon DOT net

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  24. Very nice post.

    bn100candg(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  25. You don't *actually* have to enter me to win, I've already read Temptation (although it was *just* the ebook, not a snazzy signed copy)... but I figured I'd better "hop" around the hop and say howdy to a few folks, lest people think I'm anti social or something ;-) Say hello to Amando for me!

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  26. I'm enjoying all the different answers everyone is giving to the same question. Thanks for participating :)

    penumbrareads(at)gmail(dot)com

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