Virgin No More

Last night I read at Kieran’s Irish Pub, here in Minneapolis for the Raking Through Books Happy Hour Book Club. It’s co-sponsored by The Loft and Secrets of the City and I can’t be more pleased with how it all went.

My friends and plenty of strangers showed up. The reps from The Loft and Secrets were amazing. I also managed to read a lot and answer questions without too much awkwardness (by no means polished, but I’m getting the hang of this thing).

Mother Glory now has a life of her own and even if I wanted to stop what is about to transpire there’s just no going back for either of us.

Research vs. Writing

I’m probably not the first writer distracted from the job at hand by all the research materials. In our info age, it’s just so easy to start Googling and forget the objective. On the one hand, all this fascinating material is close by, on the other, well, there it is.

Here’s just a sampling of my current reading list:
Our Inner Ape
The Social Outcast: Ostracism, Social Exclusion, Rejection, & Bullying
The Art of Subtext
www.dumpbachmann.com
The Idiot’s Guide: Running a Bed & Breakfast
Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth

Because I ‘think’ I know how this plot is going to tie up, It’s easy to get distracted. The actual typing becomes tedious. It’s not like earlier works where the excitement was in just ‘making sh!t up’ (Enter Oblivion) or twisting memories (Mother Glory). And while I’ve known many writers who take years to come around to their focus, my latest novel is just too topical to sit on. So I really don’t have time to get all epic. But my brain seems to require a magic window of time to process all these themes at once.

Sure doesn’t help that my kids’ birthdays were today, my dogs will not stop barking and I’m trying to finish a client Web site and train for a bike race.

Yeah, I’ve definitely laid some traps for myself.

Is religion a choice?

Yesterday my 4-year-old daughter asked me who made the dinosaurs? And when I tried to simplify the concept of evolution, I was interrupted by my son with the question of who made the earth. Fortunately I have a rudimentary understanding of the solar system, galaxies, the universe.

But this only brings us to how the big bang occurred. And they want a “who” attached to it. In the end, I had to tell them that there are some things we just don’t know. But that we are searching for answers and there are certain professions that allow us to ask those questions. And that we’re always learning.

I’m sure this goes on in every family. But this inquiry was from children who have yet to be introduced to any sort of religion. So it’s not like they already thought they knew the answer. Or did they? At the very least, it proved to me that we long for a creator from a very early age. We are hard-wired for it. But why? I’m certainly not ready to introduce them to Nietzsche!

When they are ready, I do want to introduce them to all the possibilities. And I want them to find their own way. Still, I can already see that what I want matters very little.

A Never Ending Supply of Tension for GLBT Fiction

Just when you think there’s nothing left to write about because the world is filled with peace and love, someone in a place of power calls for a “Great Awakening” from the gay agenda.

Whenever I read a queer novel and some ogre preacher or socially conservative politician is spouting off, I always think it comes off histrionic and gay serving. I just can’t believe people still think that way.

I stand corrected.

Paglia hearts Freud

Camille Paglia is up to her old tricks again, p!ssing off liberals and handing conservatives more talking points. She’s a little past-it when it comes to pop-culture but her writing is always entertaining, if maddening. Unlike many feminists, I consider her some sort of crazy genius. She always makes me question the liberal dogma I so easily depend on and wakes up the conservative ghosts of my past. I think that’s why she’s considered so dangerous. But ‘Doubt’ belongs on the far left as well.

Filled with a good deal of B.S. and a few gems, check out her recent rantings at Salon.

Her magnum opus: Sexual Personae has informed much of my writing.