Coming Tomorrow

I'm kind of behind the 8-ball today in my day job and with other stuff too, but I wanted to let you know what's coming up!

Tomorrow I'm starting a month-long series of posts about my fat ass health.  I'm going to reveal just how much my focus on writing over the last two years has affected my weight, and what I'm going to do to fix it.

Friday will be another AWESOME round of the blog chain.  We've added some totally sweet new members so I think the new chain is going to be pretty rad.

Monday, there might be a really spectacular announcement involving a contest, an ARC of Deathday Letter, and kitty puke.

Wednesday I'm planning a post updating my idea for Give This Book to a Boy You Know.

The rest of the week I may be crying into my cornflakes.

So check back tomorrow or the puppy gets it.

DISCLAIMER: No puppies were harmed in the writing of this post.

The Silver Lining

I woke up this morning and it was thundering, raining, and there was a tornado warning in place.  So of course, my mood went to a dark place.  I'm not a morning person, so small things tend to become catastrophic.  A barking dog feels like a jackhammer, a dripping coffee cup is Niagara Falls on my floor.  But despite my morning grumpiness, I always try to hold onto the hope that the rest of the day will be better.

Dystopia's are huge right now.  Everyone wants to see the end of the world.  Publishers are throwing six-figure deals out like the world really is ending and they've got the cash to burn.  I'm not sure why, but people are interested in seeing the end of life as we know it.  But my fear is that without enough hope, people are going to burn out on this fast.

I really enjoyed Susan Beth Pfeffer's LIFE AS WE KNEW IT.  I read the follow up as well.  However a friend of mine refused to read the second because the first was so depressing.  The relentlessness and the desperation got to her and, even after I told her that book three might feature a little romance she'd dig, she wanted nothing to do with the series.  Her loss, I say, but it still illustrates the point.

THE HUNGER GAMES managed to deal with a dystopia and give us hope, but even I was a little worn down by the constant brutality of the world.  But nowhere did this idea crystalize more than while I watched THE ROAD.

Let me first tell you that THE ROAD is a beautiful movie.  Beautiful.  There's something so moving between the father and son.  However, it's a movie without hope.  It shows us a world without plants or animals.  A world where people resort to cannibalism.  Where rape is not only common, but expected.  And as I watched this story unfold--the man and the boy traveled to the coast--I waited for some sign that things might eventually get better.  They never did.  The movie is brutally hopeless.  Despite the boy surviving, we aren't shown a world in which surviving is a good option.  There is no silver lining here.  Everyone in the world that I was shown will eventually starve to death and die.

I hope, as the wave of dystopian novels washes over us, that writers and publishers remember that dark and gritty makes for an intriguing premise, but it's hope that keeps us hanging on.

The Dark Mind of Nicholas Sparks

It's Friday and I haven't posted anything super-fun in a while.  Well I got to thinking, what if Nicholas Sparks didn't write romantic books that ultimately get turned into romantic movies?  What if he were funny or twisted?  Well, here's what I came up with.

Big things brewing for next week, so check back!  Have an awesome weekend.

Blog Chain: I Like the Sound of My Own Voice

Yay for the blog chain. It's another week and another fantastic question :)

This week's question was posed by the chatty Kate:

Do you enjoy writing dialogue? Do you use a lot of dialogue in your writing (for our purposes "a lot" will be defined as more than a smidge and yet not so much that the quotes key on your computer is completely worn out.)? Do you have example(s) of dialogue you especially enjoyed from something you've read? Do you have example(s) of dialogue from your own writing? What about these examples makes them special?

I'm a huge fan of dialog.  I love sitting in strange places (like mall food courts) and listening to people talk to each other.  People reveal so much of themselves through what they say.  And I like to use dialog to reveal a lot about my characters.

So I guess the answer to the question is that, yes, I use tons of dialog in my writing.

I'm not near my books right now so I'll point to Joss Whedon as my dialog hero.  Yes, yes, I know that he writes TV and movies, but his dialog is some of the freshest, and most revealing out there.  In his recent show, Dollhouse, Topher was one of my favorite characters.  He managed to be both creepy and genius and childlike.  The following is an exchange between himself and the doctor.  The concept is that the "dolls" in their blank state have no desires, emotions, anything of their own.  Only Topher has just witnessed one of the dolls having quite a reaction.

Claire: Topher?

Topher: Hello.

Claire: Hello.

Topher: So listen. Here’s the thing. I was looking, glancing… I noticed… Victor.

[He holds his arms and hands out in a hopefully indicative manner]

Claire: You noticed Victor.

[Claire puts the book back on the shelf]

Topher: Mm-hmm. In the shower, and he’s… naked.

Claire: Victor’s naked in the shower.

Topher: Right. Anyway, he seemed to be having a kind of… man reaction.

Claire: A what?

Topher: A, you know, reaction that a man person might have in the… you know, the… naked part. Shower. Victor.

Claire: Victor had an erection?

[He takes in a quick, sharp breath, making a pointing motion in her direction]

Topher: I prefer man reaction.

Claire: Why?

[He shrugs]

Topher: This is a problem. This can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen.

[Claire goes to a shelf full of large files]

Topher: When they’re in their Doll state, there’s a limp… ness.

[She grabs a file off of it]

Claire: Well, I warned about something like this.

Without knowing anything about either character you can already tell that Claire is a no-nonsense type of woman while Topher can't even say the word "erection."  He can, however, make third-grade jokes about it.  But beyond that, there's a uniqueness to each person.  Even without the actors to speak the words, I could read a script with the names blotted out and know which lines belonged to whom.  Great dialog is something that reveals a character and is something only that character could say.

I recently finished a story for which dialog was key.  The main narrator spoke little about himself and narrated sparely (for me anyway).  Most everything learned about him and the people around him was learned through dialog.  Here's an example of that:

"She's gone."

            "You were kind of mean to her," I say. 

            "You don't know what they do to me."

            "I'm sure they're doing what's best."

            "Can you drop it?"  His voice has the hard edge of finality. 

            "Sure.  What do you want to talk about then?"

            "I don't know." 

            "So are you from around here?"

            "That's all you got?" asks Rusty.  "You're a terrible date."

            "This is a date?"

            "No, I'm not like that.  I'm not one of those kind."  Rusty's voice shakes.

            "The kind of people who date?"

            "A fag.  I'm not a fag."

            "Oh," I say.  "Yeah, me neither."

            "Anyway.  I go to Neptune Prep.  What school do you go to?"

            "I got my GED."

            "No you didn't."  Rusty says it with absolute certainty. 

            "No.  I guess I didn't."  I shift my position on the floor from my left butt cheek to my right.  "I moved here not long ago.  I'm enrolled in Neptune Prep for my junior year."

            "Maybe we'll be in the same homeroom."  Rusty sounds happy for the first time tonight.  Hopeful.  "Where'd you live before this?"
            "Rhode Island.  Providence."

            "You grow up there? You don't sound like it.  I got an uncle who moved to Boston and he says all New Englanders sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown."

            "That's just where I lived before here.  I didn't grow up there.  I grew up here.  We moved when I was eight.  Now we're back."

            "Oh. Cool."

            "Yeah."

            The conversation dies again and I don't know where to pick it up.  Part of me wants to break Rusty in two and the other part wants to cuddle.

            "So how come you're always here?"

            "My grandmother's here," I say.  "She's down on the third floor in a coma."

            "Yeah, but visiting hours are over.  They've been over for a long time.  But you're still here."

            I shrug even though he can't see it.  "You asked me for a book."

            "What about the night before?"

            "I wanted to see if the music helped?"

            "And the night before that?"

            "You ask a lot of damn questions for someone who hates answering them."  I look up and Rusty's leaning over as far as he can to look back at me. 

            "I don't really hate fags, you know."

            "Why should I care?"

            "Just thought you should know."

            "And now I do."

            Every time I feel like I'm beginning to make a connection with Rusty, it dies, like the ember of a fire.  I fan it, blow on it, cup it with my hand, but I can't make it catch. 

            "I guess I should go," I say.

            "I wish you wouldn't."

            "I'll be in a lot of trouble if I get caught."

            "I don't want you to go."

            The fingers of his burned left hand touch the side of my head.  I look up and see him looking down again.  Pain wrinkles his brow and lips and his cool eyes are awash in nausea.  This small movement is agony for him.

            "A few minutes longer," I say

            "Thanks."

This is part of one scene.  My MC Drew snuck up to the room of a young man who was burned.  It's the middle of the night and they're trying to get to know each other, but it's not going well.  For me, I really loved the back and forth nature.  It's like ping-pong.  Except it keeps hitting this dead end and forcing them to start all over again.  I tried to make sure all the character development was in their words.

Sometimes when I'm really having a difficult time with a scene, I'll just write dialog.  Then later go back and fill in the details.  The things people do can definitely tells us a lot about them, but I think it's the things that say that really give them away.

So, awesome topic Kate!  Go ahead and check out the loquacious Michelle who answered before me and the highly verbose Cole who will answer it tomorrow! 

A Little Tenner Promotion

Happy Monday all!  Woke up this morning to an inch of water in the bottom of my Jeep (window down + rain = whoops!)

Anyway, I wanted to share with you all the awesome Tenner Trailer that was done for us by friend of Tenner Laura Manivong, Tye Murphy.  Check out some of the awesome books coming out in April/May/June.



Also, I'm extending the bookmark mini-contest indefinitely! If you want one, just email shaun@shaundavidhutchinson.com.

I Hear Voices

Without hesitation, I'm going to say that voice is the most important thing you can have as a writer.  Surely someone out there will disagree, and I welcome that point of view, but my opinion is that without a unique voice, your book is doomed.

Okay, doom is maybe a little melodramatic, and who am I to give advice anyway?  I've got one book and it's not even out yet.  But, and I hate admitting this, I suck at plotting.  It's the thing I do worst.  Maps, I don't need no stinking maps.  But I'm pretty decent at voice.  In fact, I think that my voice was what helped me land my agent and my deal. 

Here's the secret about voice: you have one.  It's unique and it's yours.  You are the only person who can rock it. 

I very distinctly remember when I realized my writing voice was crap.  I'd finished a terrible YA book about Norse gods and stuff, and I was contemplating writing a follow-up book.  But it was boring.  The plot was involved.  It had giant wolves and witches and gods and knights and pasty ogres.  But it was so tedious to read.  That's because the voice sucked hard. 

Then I read Stephen King's ON WRITING.  And one piece of advice really sunk in:  Be honest. 

Let me say it again:  Be honest. 

That really resonated with me.  The next voice that popped into my head was Ollie's voice.  He was a sex-obsessed teen with one day to live.  He thought about God and death and breasts.  To him, it was all games, girls, and food.  When I sat down to write him, I promised myself I'd be totally honest.  I'd be true to Ollie's character.

And it worked.  Ollie was funny.  Hilarious, I hope.  Sure, I cringed when my mom read it, knowing she'd be reading about the secret world of a teenage boy's innermost thoughts, but I'd made a promise to be honest, and I was.  Even about THAT.

I'm reading two books right now that suffer from a lack of voice.  Both have fantastic plots and interesting, layered characters, but the voices in both are tedious, and that's made reading them tedious. 

I think, if you want to write a good book, then you have to be honest.  If your character is a sex, food, and gaming obsessed teen boy, don't try to fill his mouth with SAT words (unless, of course, he's studying for the SAT's).  Don't be afraid to speak plainly and about things that might be embarrassing. 

Yeah, okay, I really thought I had more to say about this, but the truth of the matter is that the best thing you can do is forget all the rules and say what you have to say as honestly and simply as you can.  You have a voice.  Don't be afraid to use it.

Mini-Contest!

Happy Tuesday!  Thank you to everyone for reading last week's posts.  I wish I'd written them sooner :)

Later on this week, I'm going to do a post on character voice and why it's so important.  But today I'm having a contest!  More like a mini-contest.  Okay, so it's less of a contest and more of a giveaway with a hitch.

Here it is:  I have bookmarks.  And I know you want one.  I know you're sitting at your computer practically salivating at the idea of getting one of my super fantastic bookmarks....or not.  Maybe you're only salivating because you just woke up.  Oh wait, that's me.

Now, all you have to do is leave me a comment telling me one thing you'd do if you only had one day to live.  Then email shaun@shaundavidhutchinson.com with the subject: GIMME MY BOOKMARK, and the address to which you'd like it sent.  *****EDITED TO ADD***** Please keep it mostly clean :)

Simple, right?  Then get to it!

And don't mind if the envelopes are a little moist, I'm letting my dog lick them.

YA & Sexuality - Part III: Do Something

Once again, I want to thank everyone who's reading these posts and everyone who's commented and linked and tweeted.  When I decided to do these posts I knew I was going to have to be as open as possible and, for an introvert like me, that's a scary prospect.  But you all have been fantastic.  So, thank you.

In parts one and two I spent some time talking about my personal journey and how having good LGBT literature could have really helped me come to a better understanding of what being gay meant.  How it might have helped me stay sane and not feel lonely. 

In this last part I want to talk about some authors I admire, how they're including LGBT characters into their work, how I plan to contribute, and what you might be able to do.

As you've now guessed, having LGBT characters in books is über important.  Kids and teens who are questioning their sexuality should be able to see themselves and their questions reflected in the characters they're bonding with through the pages of the books they love.  It's just like how different races, and geeks, and jocks, and every type of person under the sky should be represented.  The problem I have with a lot of LGBT literature of old is that it focuses on the pain.  I know that it's useful and important to show that pain and show that there's an other side to that pain, but the following authors are some who have moved beyond that portrayal onto something new. 

David Levithan -  The author of Boy Meets Boy and co-author of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Levithan blew me away with his unabashed optimism.  I was first introduced to his work through N&N.  I was shocked to see this straight boy playing in a queer band.  I remember thinking that it was going to be way over the top and full of cheese.  But instead, he took all these characters--gay and straight and everything in between--and he put them in a blender and mixed them up until they were indistinguishable from one another.  Boy Meets Boy was even better.  Levithan's enthusiasm and optimism are downright inspiring. 

Malinda Lo - Through The Tenners, I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Lo prior to the publication of ASH.  Not only is she kind, but she's got a genuine talent for writing YA that I think LGBT teens are going to latch onto.  What I like about ASH is that it's NOT a lesbian retelling of a fairy tale.  I've read books like that and they always feel forced.  Lo's characters and their motivations are so natural, that I BELIEVE it when Ash falls in love with Kaisa. ASH isn't a book about being gay, and it's not a gay book, it's a beautiful fantasy that happens to have gay characters.

Emily Horner - A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend is a book you haven't read yet, but you're going to want to.  Seriously.  Horner weaves LGBT characters throughout her book so seamlessly.  There's no drama.  They're just there.  And they're awesome.  I wish I could talk more about it, but I don't want to spoil anything. 

More and more, authors are including LGBT characters in their books...and despite the popularity of the hilarious YouTube videos, they're not always playing the Sassy Gay Friend.  Just as in life, LGBT teens are football players and cheerleaders and drama geeks and debate geeks and that quiet kid who rarely speaks and that one kid in the back who never shuts up. 

When I started trying to write seriously at the end of high school and in college, I spent a lot of time writing coming out stories with tragic endings.  Then I moved onto triumphant love stories where being gay was the central theme.  When I returned to writing and tried to do it seriously, I made the conscious decision not to write any "gay" stories.  Like I've said, there still exists a need for stories about being gay, but I decided that I wanted to present worlds where LGBT characters just exist.  Sure, sometimes they come out, but it's no big deal.  There are gay characters and lesbian characters and straight characters and heteroflexible characters.  The theme is that their sexuality is not the central issue.

That's what I want to contribute because that's what I needed to see when I was a teen.  I needed to see LGBT characters for whom their LGBT status wasn't a big deal and wasn't the focus.  Sure, there are times when being gay will be important to the story, but most of the time, it won't.  I want to present stories where readers can look at any character and think:  he could be gay.

My favorite example of this is Dumbledore.  I know that a lot of people were up in arms about it, but I thought it was brilliant.  There were clues but it never came up because it wasn't important.  Rowling gave us all a gay hero of epic proportions and we didn't even know it!

I think there will be a time when this won't be an issue.  I wish I could say it would happen in my lifetime, but when I look at how whitewashed books still are, I know that including LGBT characters in books is going to be important for a long time. 

And we all have a part to play.  Readers can demand more books with LGBT characters.  Writers can include them in their books.  And it doesn't have to be some huge declarative thing.  But that wouldn't be so bad either.  I'd also like to see more books with LGBT protagonists where the story is about anything other than them being gay.  Would Harry Potter have been any less awesome if Harry had hooked up with one of Ron's brothers instead of Ron's sister?  Just like with color and race, the more representative characters are of the types of people that there are in the real world, the better they're going to be. 

The most important thing we can all do is be supportive.  If you know LGBT teens who are struggling, direct them to great books and other resources.  If you're a writer, write more diverse books.    If you're an editor or an agent, don't shy away from books with LGBT characters.  Buy them and promote the heck out of them.  There's a market for them.

I know that there are social issues and that there's a whole political war being waged over LGBT rights.  And I support the fighters.  But what I care about is that gay teens are still four times more likely to attempt suicide than normal teens.  FOUR!  They're still facing discrimination at school (a town recently cancelled a senior prom because two girls wanted to attend together), discrimination at home, discrimination in their churches.  Being a gay teen is better than it used to be but it's still hard.  We can't go door to door rescuing every LGBT teen in a bad situation but we can provide them with an escape.  We can show them that their situation isn't typical.  That their worst fears about being gay aren't true.  We can give them hope and a reason to live. 

Does that sound cheesy and melodramatic?  Probably.  But twelve years ago to this day I tried to kill myself, and one good, honest book could have made all the difference.  And one book could probably make the difference to loads of other teens too.  We just need to get them out there.

One last thing:  I'd love to start compiling a list of LGBT books for teens (and MG if there are any).  So please, in the comments, leave me a list of some of your favorites.  They can be any genre, new, old, whatever.  And if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them in the comments.  Thanks, y'all!

YA & Sexuality - Part II: Why This Matters

First off, I want to thank everyone for the kind comments.  I'm not huge on getting into my personal life on this blog, but I think that in order to make my point, I have to be totally upfront.  So I appreciate how awesome you all are.

Now, on to why conversation about YA and Sexuality matters to me.

Like I mentioned in Part I, I finally realized I was gay--attracted to men--but there's a huge difference between being gay and BEING gay.

I didn't have a problem with the sexuality part of it.  I accepted pretty quickly that I was attracted to my own gender.  The part that was confusing and difficult for me to handle was what being gay actually meant.  My role models were few.  Because of a lack of LGBT representations in books/movies/television, I began to believe that in order for me to be gay, I had to become a stereotype.

Back then I believed that gay men were flamboyant (Nathan Lane in the Birdcage), obsessed with sex, addicted to drugs, only listened to bad dance remixes of worse pop songs, and shallow.  My step-father worked as a police officer and the only gays he saw were the ones he was arresting outside of park toilets.  I thought that you were either out, loud, and proud, or a doomed closet case.  I didn't want to be either.  I felt like an outsider.  And that was tough, because I'd always felt like I was on the outside.  When I came out, I assumed that I'd get my toaster and be welcomed into the gay community, a place where rainbows hung in the air 24-7.  But instead I was an outsider to outsiders.

It was a really lonely place.

I did my best to fit in.  I began making bad choices, compromising my moral code, and wearing a lot of stretchy shirts.  I traded my indie music cred for Jessica Simpson remixes.  I smoked and drank and experimented with drugs.  I managed to have some fun and meet a few genuinely great people, but at the end of the day, when I was home and didn't have anyone to impress, I knew I wasn't being me.

My sense of self was in the toilet.  I was cutting myself frequently and engaging in risky behavior (like wearing shiny shirts in public).  Years later my best friend wrote me a letter about how I was during that time.  She said that in me she'd found her outcast soulmate but that I'd become someone else.  Someone "cool" who smoked and went to clubs and had boyfriends.  I look back on that time and, while I may have looked cool on the outside, I was miserable and I hated my life.

The dichotomy between who I was and who I was trying to be was tearing me to shreds.  A couple of months before my twentieth birthday, I reached a breaking point.  I reasoned that if I couldn't stand being who I'd become, and I couldn't be accepted for the geek I knew I was, that I shouldn't be at all.

I took an entire bottle of Tylenol and called it a night.

Fifteen hours later I called 911 and was rushed to the hospital.  My parents were prepared for the worst.  The doctors were convinced I was going to need a new liver.  I'd waited far too long for the one Tylenol counteragent to be effective.  I don't know if it was hope of hopelessness, but they gave me the mucomyst anyway.

Any which way you slice it, I should have died.  But I didn't.  It was a tough week in ICU but slowly my liver enzymes returned to something approaching normal.  If I remember correctly, normal liver enzyme counts should be from like 5-50.  When I entered the ER, mine were in the thousands.  I'm not a believer in the scary Bible God who smites people and kills babies, but I can't deny that some miracle occurred.  And I'm thankful it did.

After I left the hospital, I voluntarily checked myself into a mental facility where I spent another week.  I'll be honest, I'd decided in the ICU that I didn't want to die, but I was far from cured.  I told those doctors in the mental facility what they wanted to hear.  It took me a few more years to learn that being gay didn't mean changing who I was.  I did stop the cutting and I never attempted suicide again, but my journey to understanding was years long.

These days I'm back to wearing t-shirts and jeans, being unfashionable, and listening to music I like.  I learned that sexuality is just a part of me, and not even a very important one.  It's a facet.  A blip.  When I die, my headstone isn't going to read:  Here rests Shaun, he was gay.  At least I hope that's not what it says.  I'm so much more than gay.  I'm a writer, a geek, a pet owner, a friend, a computer nerd, a decent skier, a terrible guitar player, an even worse painter, a fair singer, a son...

But I didn't know that then because I was never reflected in the literature I read.  LGBT youth were almost never represented in the literature I was reading, and when they were it was all doom and gloom.  I'm not pointing my accusing finger at books and blaming my suicide attempt on the lack of positive representations of LGBT, but I also am.

If writers like David Levithan had been writing when I was in high school, I might have been able to see that my limited view of sexuality was wrong.  I might have been able to see that being gay isn't a techno prison sentence.  Gay people DO listen to techno, but they also listen to country and rap and indie and classic rock.  Lesbians and gays and bisexuals and transgendered kids and straight kids--they're artists and football players and debaters and writers and Neil Patrick Harris.  Sexuality isn't a box, it's a key.

So being gay isn't a big deal.  I learned that.  But talking about it is.  Talking about sexuality in YA novels DOES matter.  Because maybe if I'd seen someone who looked like me, someone I could have related to in a book, I wouldn't have felt so damned alone.

We can't change the past but we can change the future.  We can keep the next kid--all the next kids--from feeling alone.

Come back on Friday for Part III where I'll talk about how other writers are tackling this issue, how I tackle it in my own work, and how you can help too.

************SPECIAL NOTE****************

Suicide sucks.  It's just not the answer.  If you or anyone you know is feeling suicidal, please talk to someone.  A friend, a parent, a priest, a teacher.  There are so many resources.  Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or check out the Suicide Help Line website

YA & Sexuality - Part I: Full Disclosure

So I decided that I wanted to do a post about sexuality in YA.  It seems to me that it's something people don't talk about often enough (though there are some really great resources out there and loads of people doing great work).  And when they do, it's usually an either/or conversation (either there should be gay books or there should not). 

But I think the conversation about sexuality in books is bigger than that.  It's about inclusivity.  It's about creating literature that is representative of everyone  It's not just gay vs. straight or whether transgender or sexually ambiguous teen characters have a place in literature.  It's not even just about boys vs. girls and the stereotypes that surround the genders.  It's about that one kid thumbing through the YA books at a library in a small town, looking for some small ray of hope.  Looking for characters in a book that he or she can relate to and not feel so damn alone. 

The more I thought about this post, the more I realized that it was going to be long.  So I'm going to break it up into three pieces.

Part 1:  Full Disclosure.

Part 2:  Why This Matters.

Part 3:  What I'm Doing About it and What You Can Do.

Here goes:

The first time I thought I might be gay was when I stole a Playgirl from my job at Waldenbooks.  I was sixteen and only a little confused.  Stealing the mag was cake.  They kept them back behind the bank of registers.  After a long day of trying to sell people those useless membership cards, I took my time closing my register.  While the others were shelving books (a task I came to hate), I slipped the magazine under my shirt.  I remember sweating through the rest of my shift and being so happy when I got to my car and could take it out.  As a side note, I got fired for that incident.  Some loss prevention guy came in because someone (not me) had stolen an expensive Dungeon and Dragons book.  Five minutes under that dude's knowing gaze and I spilled my guilt-ridden guts on the floor at his feet. 

The confusing part was that while I did enjoy the...articles...in the Playgirl, I also enjoyed making out with my girlfriend.  Hormones are a funny thing.  I think that's what makes it so tough for teen guys.  I mean, if I'm being honest, at sixteen I could have been turned on by a brick wall.  I didn't spend too much time thinking about it. 

For almost the rest of my high school career, I continued dating girls in public, and dating my magazine in private.  And it wasn't even a strange dichotomy to me.  I actually liked the girls I dated.  I didn't talk to other guys about it, but I figured it was just something all guys did.  This was before the Internet was the wonderland of exploration it is now.  Back then, there was AOL and bulletin boards--neither were places a confused 16 should be trolling for existential truths.  But by the end of my senior year, I began to realize that I was different.  My older brother had already come out to the family.  He and I weren't particularly close growing up, so I wasn't able to talk to him.  What ended up happening was that my parents went out of town.  I spent the entire time watching bad movies and writing a play.  It was a terrible, terrible play, but one of the characters had to admit to his friends that he was gay.  When I finished the play, I was emotionally wrecked, but I realized that the character I'd written was me. The play was dramatic and angsty.  I practically drowned every word in melancholy. 

My actual coming out process was much less dramatic.  Slowly, I came out to friends.  I was one of the lucky ones.  Nothing bad happened.  My best friend had known for years, and my telling her only brought us closer together.  Other kids found out and none of them cared.  I was still the same kid I'd always been.  Some were shocked, some were not.  I only lost one friend in the whole deal and I honestly believe it had more to do with a natural growing apart than any real animosity.

It was about 9 more months before I told my parents.  I'm the sort of person who likes to figure things out, and I didn't want to tell my parents until I was 110% certain.  See, being gay was still an abstract idea to me.  I'd never dated a guy, never made out with one.  So, until I did, I knew I couldn't be completely certain.

When I did tell my parents, my mom cried because she really wanted grandkids, but she got over it quickly.  She had gay friends growing up and gay friends as an adult.  Now both of her sons were gay.  She dealt. 

Now that I knew, and knew for certain, I was faced with the daunting prospect of being gay.  What did that mean?  Up to that point I was a shy, bookish young man who excelled at slacking, debate, English, defying authority, and not doing drugs.  I didn't fit into the stereotype of what I believed a gay man was.  I was just me.  I wasn't fashionable, wasn't cool, read fantasy novels and philosophy, and listened to PJ Harvey and 10,000 Maniacs. 

Coming out was the easy part.  Figuring out what being gay meant was not. 

Check back on Wednesday for Part II.  I'll talk about why it's important to discuss sexuality in YA and how it could have saved me a week in a mental hospital.  

Say It Ain't So, Joe!

My title has nothing to do with the post.  Welcome to another blog chain!  This fantastic chain was brought to you by Eric who asked:

Do you create characters who are larger-than-life or are your characters more like the average Joe?

First off, I love this topic, so great job, Eric!  I'm firmly on the side of the average Joe's.  I know there are a lot of great characters who are larger than life:  Batman, Ironman, etc.  But I think the truly great characters are those who we can relate to.  I think that's especially true in YA.  If we can't see ourselves in our heroes, then it's difficult to relate to them.  And that's what I like to do.

But books would be boring if they were all about normal people doing normal things.  I, for one, would never want to read a book about my own life.  What a yawner that would be.  So I like to take unusual situations and drop unlikely people into them.  Force a geek to save the world, a solid D student to disarm a bomb, an unpopular overweight kid to get the girl, a socially awkward kid to go on a crazy road trip.  Do those things and you'll begin to see that even the most average of average people is amazing.    When readers see that, then they'll see the same things about themselves.

Everyone is a hero to someone else.  Sure, we need larger-than-life heroes because it gives us something to aspire to, but we also need to see the hero within ourselves.

Check out the wonderful Michelle's blog for the previous post, and then tomorrow check out the fabulous Cole for her take.

Shoutouts and Housekeeping

I'm so happy that it's Thursday.  I don't know where this week went.  Jeez!

I just wanted to take a quick moment and thank everyone who reads my little blog.  The next few months are going to be huge and I'm really lucky to have such great people around me.  I'm really terrible at keeping up with the comments down here, but I do read them and try to get them when I can.

Future posts.  Ideas?  I'll have more on my plans for getting books for boys more exposure.  I'm planning some posts on race and sexuality in YA.  Also more on the line between realism and gratuitousness.  Down the line I'll also be having some author interviews and agent interviews.  If there's anything you all really want to see, I'll give it a go :)

I finalized the design for deathdayletter.com  I'm going to be working on the content over the next few weeks, but the design is good to go.

I also wanted to add a shout-out to a great blog by a rad author/mom/superhero:  Margie Gelbwasser.  Margie's blog hasn't been around long, but she's already managed to score some fantastic interviews and has really outstanding content.  Her book INCONVENIENT comes out this year from Flux.  Drop on by and show her some love.

For that matter, you should also check out my agency mates Cole and Shannon.  Cole is absolutely hilarious and Shannon writes some of the best, most informative blog posts out there. Both rock.

Cool.  I think that's it.  I'll be back to some regularly scheduled posting on Monday.  Have an awesome weekend!

Some Monday Tenners

This week I had the pleasure of reading two spectacular Tenner books.  I know you may think I'm biased and I guess I am, but I'm also extraordinarily impressed with the Tenner books I've read so far.

This time around I read MISTWOOD and A LOVE STORY: STARRING MY DEAD BEST FRIEND.

MISTWOOD by Leah Cypess was another one of those books I'd likely not have chosen to read on my own.  Having said that twice now, I realize that I'm going to have to overcome my own biases and read more books I wouldn't normally read because I think I'm missing out.  MISTWOOD was beautiful and haunting and reminded me a lot of the fantasy novels of Raymond E. Feist that I read as a boy.  You can check out the plot here, but the short of it is that Isabel is a shape shifter who must navigate court politics to protect her liege.  Start this one when you have enough time to finish it otherwise you'll miss out on a night of sleep.  Seriously.  Leah's writing style is so fantastic that this book is like a black hole that sucks you in and refuses to let go.

A LOVE STORY: STARRING MY DEAD BEST FRIEND by Emily Horner had the kind of characters that I wanted to jump through the page and hang out with.  They reminded me a lot of my own friends from my own drama days in HS.  It's two stories in one:  The story of Cass trying to get over the death of her best friend, and the story of Julia's friends trying to pull together and put on the musical that Julia penned before her death.  It was funny and awkward and perfect.  Emily's writing style is easy and heartbreaking.  Oh, and if Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad is ever made into a real musical, I'm totally in.  Seriously, Emily.  Call me.  I can sing.  And I don't mind fake blood.