Filling the well and hot man-on-man action

[bodlon]

So this was definitely not the weekend I’d planned. One empty house and three days with lots on my plate should have been obscenely productive in the finished writing column. I should have an essay and five or six flash pieces finished. I could even be plotting out something I want to write in February.

What really happened is that I spent three days thinking about things, making notes, and filling the well.

This happens once or twice a month. When I’m working at full capacity, I write for 20+ hours a week, netting somewhere in the neighborhood of 500-1500 useable words a day. There’s no denying that it’s work, and that it takes a lot out of me. I dip, and I dip, and I dip until I scrape the bottom of things (or fall over, whichever comes first). And so I end up taking time to think and plot more than put fingers to keys because I’m trying to build ideas. Ideas generate the energy and the words that fuel those 20+ hour weeks.

So this weekend I watched disc one of TransGeneration, started knitting a glove, started thinking about the novel and a story I want to write in February, made some notes, repackaged a LONG overdue item for somebody, read article upon article on the Internet, read part of Jitterbug Perfume, scribbled some more, and played more World of Warcraft than I’m entirely comfortable with admitting.

One thing that’s been weighing on my mind is the current sort of furious discussion going on in some quarters I inhabit about straight women co-opting gay fiction, and whether that’s actually the case, and who should be allowed to write what, and so on.

In short, my feelings are thus: anyone should be allowed to write what one is moved to write, but when stepping into new territory one should write carefully and with respect, as if as a guest in another’s house. Things which are not yours do not become yours just because you love them, but the muse can make expatriates of us in strange and terrible ways.

As a friend so wisely pointed out, queer fiction will always be something of a numbers game. Our stories have to be interesting to straight people in order to get a toe-hold in mainstream culture. It gives me pause, though, when men writing m/m romance are less visible and well-marketed than women writing m/m romance, or when some elements in the debate begin to claim that m/m fiction was a women’s genre all along.

In particular, it troubles me that m/m romance is mainstream when women write it, but niche when men do. That direct experience should be something valued, something sought out and discussed in the daylight instead of being relegated to a dusty shelf because men desiring men makes the mainstream uncomfortable except when women are fantasizing about it.

Because — and I say this with respect because I know there are wonderful instances of writers of all genders and orientations hitting the nail on the head beautifully — not every story about men (or women) getting it on with one another is queer literature. Women writing man-on-man in the mainstream is culturally significant, but an author who pens the stuff isn’t automatically an LGBTQ activist, or necessarily doing us all a favor.

And as I write that, I write it with some discomfort because as a transman, my voice doesn’t fit neatly into the discussion. My stake in all of this is different. M/M fiction, queer stories of self-discovery and coming out, and stories about gay men in general are so much closer to being my experience, but I’m leery of commandeering the All Gay Men Together banner because that’s not quite my experience, even if I typically prefer men. Authentic as my masculinity is, I grew up differently, and my coming-out and life so far is distinct from what a queer cisman might experience. To lay claim would do all sides a disservice.

And it’s this line of thinking that’s had me thinking about the novel, and also about Dead Souls, which in spite of being about a love triangle among three men, is really a story about being in the wrong body. That’s definitely something I’d like to write about at length, though tonight is definitely not the night for that.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com