It’s been quite a week for “The Forest Dark” — I found out yesterday that the novel is a finalist in the Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards, again in the Gay/Lesbian fiction category.
So now Noah, Eden and Louie (characters from the book) add this recognition to their finalist status over at the Reader Views’ Literary Awards. [Noah would not have a comment. Eden would say “yes, it’s about time.” Louie would smile and nod, “sweet.”]
Check out the list of all the BOTYA finalists here. This is what happens next:
“In the next two months, a panel of more than one hundred librarians and booksellers will determine the winners of these prestigious awards. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m., with awards in over sixty categories, cash prizes for the best in fiction and nonfiction, and widespread recognition.”
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Hey folks, I’m so pleased to report that “The Forest Dark” is a finalist in this year’s Reader Views’ Literary Awards. Gay/Lesbian category.
I guess the honors go out next week (March 17, 2014)! Congratulations and good luck to all the finalists in our Gay/Lesbian genre, as well as all the book categories!
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The latest in my series of publishing biography information for my fictional characters in The Forest Dark. Louis Ronald Reagan von Eiff White was probably the hardest persona for me as the writer to inhabit — a 24 year old, in 2009. He’s a mixed-race, heterosexual man-boy. Harder for me to write than a fifty-something woman (Eden von Eiff, his mother)? I think it was. At times anyway, though not always.
It’s funny, since those of us older than our 20s have lived through all that and much more, we think, “oh sure, I remember what it was like.” But the truth is we really don’t think the way we used to when we were younger, and it’s difficult to conjure up. There are those who seem to have an affinity for certain life periods (thinking of someone like the late filmmaker John Hughes, who had that knack to immediately dredge back high school, to fantastic effect).
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No really what does he look like? Well, I knew he came from a similar situation as this guy:
The Most Powerful Man in the World
But he was much younger and has a certain accoutrement (you’ll have to read the book) – but then I saw this commercial (which I thought was great, btw) and I realized that this is not far from what my intention was with Louie White – though Dante de Blasio is still a teenager:
So what do you need to know about Louis White? Well —
he’s proficient at surfing.
he has a best friend named Zeke
he has a girlfriend, Stephanie, who he met in high school
he has a slight inferiority complex – resulting from the rejection of his mother
he is the best kind of cool because he’s totally unaware of it
he’s actually talented in the same way that his mother is
he tweets, and has quite a following
he writes an award-winning blog at 24
never knew his father, but touts his Cuban heritage anyway
he has a ‘fro (not at all unlike Dante)
I think he’s somewhat passive/aggressive
he’s also charismatic and knows how to work it
he has no good adult role models but craves them; his closest relationship is with a crazy middle-aged white gay man
A pretty interesting and fun character for me to write. Certain folks have said I should base a series of books on him. Not sure about that but it’s intriguing. New review of Forest Dark here.
Back to my novel The Forest Dark, and the bios of main characters.
The story is about the long-term friendship of a gay man with a straight woman – the woman, Eden von Eiff, we talked about here.
The man, fictional Noah Baldock, had several influences. I based him mostly on an idea of a beloved old boyfriend of mine who’s been dead for over 20 years. I posed the question: what would Mr. X be like, if instead of dying in his 30s, he’d survived and grew into middle age?
Same personality I remembered, but older. How age changes people: some traits get worse, some better. Some softer, other emotions more pronounced. So, really, it’s not based on a real person, rather what my imagining someone would be like who’s no longer with us.
I suspect there’s a bit of Noah in me, too, but I do feel I’m not as angry as he is.
Here’s some things you should know about Noah Baldock:
He grew up in Middleton, which is a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin.
He’s a ginger – actually, he’s a redhead, they didn’t call them gingers back then. In the second part of the book, he’s got reddish gray hair.
Noah’s got some serious anger issues.
Also he’s got some honesty issues, can you say “unreliable narrator?”
He thinks of himself as Louie’s father, even though he’s not related.
He’s a crackerjack shot.
He was gay bashed, and that forever changed him.
He likes to go to comedy clubs, loves watching standup, though he may not do it in the pages of the book.
He likes to listen to Frank Sinatra, unusual for someone of his generation.
He loves cats, but won’t admit it.
He’s got a major, Big Secret. Want to find out what that is? You will have to read the book!
More Forest Dark bios to come.
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The initial inspiration for the character Eden von Eiff from The Forest Dark:
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Amy Carter
Patti Davis
Chelsea Clinton
Eleanor Mondale
Political daughters who got famous when they were young, around college age, then their bright stars faded — usually because their parents did not win whatever election it was they got famous for in the first place — think Eleanor Mondale, perhaps, or even Maria Shriver (though she’s not the best example since she has always been in the public eye).
Better examples may be Nixon’s daughters Tricia and Julie, or Susan Ford, or Amy Carter. So you get the idea. I was kind of fascinated to think about what life was like beyond that one shining moment or moments.
Eden has tried to make some hay from her brief brush with fame in the media world, and she’s ended up as kind of a mediocre magazine writer. It helps that she has a famous name, and has an ever-decreasing monthly stipend left over from her mother’s family with some murky connection to the Dodges of Detroit auto fame. But it’s not much. In fact, the truth is, she is just as much a member of the 99% as you or me.
Some things about Eden von Eiff, from the lengthy bio I wrote for her (I do this with all main, and some secondary characters for my novels or scripts):
she’s blond, but as she gets older, the bottle gets lighter and more frequent
she claims she doesn’t like attention, but that’s a lie. She craves it and has a massive insecurity complex.
when she appears strong, she’s mostly acting “as if.”
she has a love/hate relationship with her father, and as much as she’d like to dismiss the relationship she has with her mother, it’s impossible to get away from it.
She’s an atheist, but would never admit it, telling people she’s Catholic.
She’s the same age as Madonna, and also from the Detroit area. Quite a coincidence, though they never knew each other.
von Eiff – German name, someone I went to grade school had it. Seemed to ring for her.
She wants money, likes money, but has no clue how to hold onto any once she does get it.
She’s desperate for love in her life, and wants to right things with her friends in California.
She lies a lot, though would deny it, which in itself is a . . . lie.
She hates the song “Rhapsody in Blue” because that was playing when Louie was conceived.
She thinks she may have a problem with gambling. It’s mostly the horses and the track, though casinos are also like catnip.
She likes comedy. Her favorite comedian is Denis Leary. In fact, she may have a secret thing for Denis.
To relieve some of the stress in her life, she attempted kayaking, but hated it, and almost drowned once. She keeps this to herself.
She has a cat, named Florence, who is staying with a neighbor in New York while she’s in Los Angeles in Part 2 of the book.
When she was a little girl, she dreamed of being . . . the governor of Michigan.
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Hmmmmm. Having something to say, first of all? Of course, that’s the most important thing. And for me at least, not really a problem. I have lots of things to say, with my current fiction project, it’s all mapped out, pretty much know where that story’s going.
But I do find writing difficult, or the actual process of writing. You know, that sitting down part.
Most of the time, anyway. Not always–there are days I come to it with joy.
Other days I come to it with fear.
And many other days I come to it not at all! And I’d like to avoid/end those.
I’ve written before about procrastination. That’s not where I find myself today; it’s more the idea of fitting writing back into a schedule that didn’t include work hours for so long — now that they’re back, I must rearrange writing times and most importantly, stick to them — if anything is going to be created. I’ve done it before, I’ll certainly do it again — and I, like most people, work best when there is a little bit (but not a lot) of time pressure. A little bit of the old stress.
Here are some tips on being prolific.
Stumped? Nothing coming out? There’s a lot of forms of fiction out there – not only novels, but screenplays and teleplays, short stories, graphic novels or comic books, serials. Try writing your idea in another form for a day.
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Keeping it fresh, keeping it truthful – it’s always a search for what’s true, lying would be so boring. I always ask myself, what is the truth? And I try to write that down. It helps.
Test and stretch limits, all the time, look for the next rung. For me, I try and think up the most outrageous thing I can think of, and write that. You know, that thing that cannot be expressed, for whatever reason. Kill the censor.
Use the tools of our crazy tech digital world to assist you. Meaning, you can write anywhere now (I guess you always could, with pen and notebook, but it’s so much more fun with an app). I suppose this would make “it” happen more — I can’t tell you the number of times I got a passing nugget of something in my head that left just as quickly. But now I’m connected 24/7 to a smartphone. I can capture the nuggets.
Being efficient helps, having a big plan helps, even if it’s something as simple as “I’ll write one blog post a week so I’ll have 50 for 2014, and I’ll write a page a day for a year so in one year I’ll have 365 pages of something.”
My favorite: Write Every Day. Even if you can only fit in an hour or even 30 minutes. Your story remains fresh and your subconscious continues to work on it while you sleep — but if you go for days without writing it, you have to backtrack. At least that’s my experience.
Rewriting and not leaving the work too soon. This is so important. Things really do need to be put into drawers for a week or a month, taken out again and reworked. I’ve often been too antsy to do this, but the work suffers, it really does.
Lastly, everybody thinks they can write, because most people nowadays have to do some writing, even if it’s only a tweet here or there or a Facebook update. Don’t be fooled. Real writing is not easy — if it was, we’d all be Stephen King (or INSERT YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR HERE), right?
Sometimes you just can’t include everything in the final, finished book. So it is with this passage — which goes into more detail about Ronnie and Noah, a relationship that still haunts me from “The Forest Dark.” There is nothing like love and lust in your 20s. This does diminish as one ages, unfortunately. But you can resurrect it in your imagination, and in your writing.
From “The Forest Dark” (left unpublished as part of the final draft of the book):
Ronnie Perkins was only the third man Noah Baldock had ever had sex with, but the two of them together tried to make up for any lack in this department. Ronnie was, in many ways, the surprise answer to all the hopes Noah had through those years when he mostly lied to himself that he was straight, and that all would be well once the right woman came along for him to love.
He was pretty sure no one saw them trade blowjobs that afternoon, out of sight but just yards away from one of Silver Lake’s major streets. When they were finished, Noah, now buzzed, grabbed Ronnie’s hand – calloused and warm, tough from his weights – for the few steps back down the alley toward the RTD stop. A little Latin girl in a frilly, bright pink skirt skipped by unexpectedly and he disengaged, the years of denial a much more powerful driver than his new-found lust.
“Turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese I really think so,” Noah sang quietly, but Ronnie had already nodded off against his shoulder on the short, hot bus ride to the apartment. Later, there was enough in a Tequila bottle for almost two full shots apiece, considerably more sex and an alarm clock that rang way too soon for a Monday morning, rousing them both out of a dead sleep.
* * *
After a shared bowl of Wheaties, half an orange and black coffee, Noah walked Ronnie down to the express bus stop, which would take him the ten or so miles to the beach. He worked at Equipment out on Channel Road, a store that sold T-shirts, suntan oil, umbrellas and snacks. As fun as the job was hanging out at the ocean with all the cute guys and other people on vacation, Ronnie’s position didn’t pay enough for him to have wheels. He spent an enormous amount of time on the RTD.
###
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Wish I had a beauty like this again. Photo copyright shordzi (Flickr)
I’m not sure if it’s lack of motivation, just not knowing where the story goes, or some other malaise – but I’ve been suffering under it lately. As I was lying awake in my bed early this morning fretting, I remembered a tip from my excellent writing teacher Claire Carmichael.
It was on the order of how to “get from here to there” – when in actuality, you DO know where the THERE is, and you might know what comes before the “here,” but you’re not grounded in what’s happening right now and have basically zero idea of how to get to THERE.
Claire envisioned this process as beads in a necklace, some of which you probably do know. Say, for instance, you’re writing a subplot about a character with cancer, and this character ultimately survives. You know that much. You don’t want to reveal that outcome to the reader as that would negate any suspense about that part of the story. But there are things you do know, or can guess, that would be part of this.
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There’s going to be a diagnosis, there will be decisions to be made and treatments to be dealt with. For a good story, things should get worse before they ultimately get better. Perhaps there’s a family meltdown over this. Perhaps there’s a bankruptcy. Perhaps there’s a wrenching, startling and totally unexpected scene about the consequences of chemotherapy. Perhaps there’s a visit by a ghost, a deity, or a demon! Perhaps there’s an incompetent medical character who tells the patient, erroneously of course, that the situation is hopeless, and all is lost.
Get the picture? Then these known stops on the way to THERE become the colored beads in our necklace, and we just need to fill in the empty spots with the lesser gems. We can write our way to THERE, as if we were fingering beads on the necklace and stopping to touch the larger ones we knew were coming.
I like to think of this as stopping for a bit of gas on the way stations along the highway on a road trip, the ones you already have circled on the map. This often helps me — hope you find it useful too!
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Thanks again to Rick and all the good people at QTrading Company, who support gay writers in a big way. Love being part of that event and look forward to future years!
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Sometimes you just can’t include everything in the final, finished book. So it is with this passage — which goes into more detail about Ronnie and Noah, a relationship that still haunts me from 
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