![[title of show]](http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b285/ShephardSummers/titleofshowsm.jpg)
Monday, March 28, 2011
It Isn't 2005 Anymore
In 2005....
We'd been in CA a year, B had begun to rebuild his career from the ground up after 15 years with the company. We bought a house, had hardly any friends, I started a blog, and I was 50lbs heavier. President Bush started a 2nd term and it felt like a black cloud to me. I was an unpublished author, and Gay people couldn't get married.
In 2011....
We have a new home that suits us much better, B has directed 2 movies (astounding), we have tons of wonderful friends, after losing 50lbs over a year I gained 20lbs back because of a fractured toe that took a year to heal, my blog is 6 years old, and I am now a published author. The USA has it's 1st African American president ridding us of the the black cloud of the Bush administration. B & I were able to get married in a narrow 4 month window of opportunity, still considered legal today. 5 states and D.C. legalized gay marriage, and New Jersey, New Hampshire and Hawaii now allow civil unions. We have major gay characters on Network TV and gay actors playing both gay and straight roles on TV.
My brain still thinks it's 2005.
Back in 2005, after submitting my novel, I was told by several literary agents that no one wanted to read novels with a gay person as the central character. And I gave up. I allowed it to crush my literary creativity. I put my novel aside, already completed and edited by a professional editor, and began to learn how to write short stories (an easier way to get your foot in the door). All the while, starting new novels that I felt were more mainstream, and abandoning each one when I just couldn't muster the interest.
Last year, I got a short story published in a literary anthology that is now a nominated finalist in Foreword Magazine's book of the year awards. In 2011, I see how much the world has changed. I really believe there must be agents and publishers in this climate who realize that gay people read more than bitchy humor, self-help and p*rn. But it has taken me the last year to wrestle whatever psychological block these early experiences reinforced.
I've found a writing buddy. :)
Two weeks ago, she and I began using each other as pseudo-editors and sounding boards on our novels. The perspective is invaluable. I'm shoring up my novel to submit again, now that I have a little bit of a foot in the door. I wish I had the chutzpuh of a 20 year old, enough of that plucky, naive ambition to carry me undaunted through the inevitable rejections til I find the right agent/publisher. But it's more likely going to take sheer determination ...and weathering the rejections and moving forward anyway. It isn't 2005 anymore. There are readers out there waiting for more quality reading material.
Life marches on! We love our house.
We have begun furnishing it with Mid-Century modern findings, and I think we've finally recuperated from all those press junkets. We have time to see theatre again! B got a bonus for his hard work, and we've been finding creative ways to say thank you to the friends who helped us get through the last year. We're having a deck finished, putting in solar heating for the house and the pool (never thought I'd own a pool), and doing reparis on the things that the previous owners neglected. And I have a writing buddy who helps me focus for the future.My conclusion: As usual, I'll get by with a little help from my friends. And I'll remind myself everyday, it's a different world than it was in 2005. A much different world in so many ways.
What's my novel about, you ask? (edit) We find an unexpected and reluctant hero in a florist whose life is interrupted by tragedy, forcing him to embrace a new world where he gets mixed up in the conflicts between 3 races and becomes the key to saving the world... which may lose him the man he loves and any hope of a quiet, normal life. Title: The Boy with Something Extra.
More photo posts coming,
~Shephard
posted by Shephard @ 