Last year, I went to the
Gay Rom Lit conference in Atlanta. I wasn't there as an author, because I didn't register in time. But I had an airplane ticket I had to use, and one of
my publishers, MLR Press, needed some help with a big event they were
sponsoring.
So I flew up to Atlanta
for a couple of days. I hung out with fans and talked about books, I went to
the parties at night and had fun, and I wrote.
The first night, I was
standing in the buffet line behind this great-looking older guy who just oozed
sexuality. I was stunned into near-silence, which is pretty unusual for me, and
we talked for just a moment or two about the crowd.
Later I realized that he
was an actual porn star who was there to promote a line of books he was
editing. I admit, I got a little obsessed with him, and he started my
imagination going.
There was a Starbucks
about a ten-minute walk from the hotel, and the next morning I trekked over
there with my trusty netbook. I opened a new document and started to write.
Usually the most I can get
out of a writing session is about two hours, before my inspiration starts to
flag and I begin to remember all the things I have to accomplish that day. But
that morning in Atlanta, I had to reason to hurry back to the hotel, and I kept
writing and writing.
I felt almost like Jack
Kerouac with his endless roll of paper, typing away at On the Road. That’s what obsession feels like, when the words just
pour out through your fingertips, with no idea where the story is going. It was
a very different experience for me; while I often start hearing a character’s
voice in my head, I also begin with an idea of what kind of book I’m writing,
and where it’s going.
Will it be a romance? A
mystery? A piece of erotica, or a non-fiction article?
With Freddie Venus and
Newt Camilleri, I was just eavesdropping on their situation. But once they got
together I had no idea what they were going to do or what kind of story they
were in.
Between that day and the
next, I ended up with about fifty pages. I had no idea where it was going, but
it started with a retired porn star living in isolation in southern France, and
the overweight, middle-aged fan-boy/writer who gets obsessed with him.
When I got home, I had to
go back to manuscripts that had deadlines attached to them, and besides, I had
no idea what to do with Freddie and Newt. It was only over the next few months
that I realized I’d set these guys up in the territory where my bodyguard
heroes, Aidan and Liam, live. So their story, which begins as a romance, was
going to have to turn into a case for the Have Body, Will Guard team.
