This is just a little info for those of you who are interested in the frustrations and perils of being an author. I can tell you about this now because the story I'm going to reference is winding down.
When I decided to write "The Making of a Gigolo", the story I had in mind had five books. Bobby Dalton was "supposed" to start with Tilly Johnson and work his way up to Felicity Chumley. Then she was going to introduce him to a bunch of her rich friends ... kind of pimp him out, so to speak, as a favor to him and, in her mind, to her friends. He was supposed to knock his sisters up along the way, learning how to please women.
Thus the title.
It was also supposed to be a series that lasted two months, tops. I had a whole bunch of other projects lined up, and a contest to enter and so on and so forth.
Of course, as usual, some of the characters, including Bobby, decided my original idea was a pile of manure. Bobby didn't want to BE a gigolo. Felicity wasn't so hot on being a pimp, or pimpette, or whatever you call someone who was supposed to turn her buddies onto him. Some of you may remember my motto: Casual, meaningless sex is nothing more than complicated masturbation. I suspect that had something to do with the way the characters morphed into who they became.
But you can't change the title of a series five stories into it. And, Bobby kind of liked making it with all these women, and urged me to let him live a little longer. And you folks were having a good time too, and I like it when you have a good time.
So, with the original idea out the window - Bobby became the antithisis of a gigolo. Technically, he was paid for sex a few times, so technically, he was a gigolo, in terms of the dictionary definition. Most of us have certain things in mind when we think "gigolo" or "prostitute". We dehumanize these kinds of people and they become stereotypes.
Stereotypes are rarely of any real use in real relationships. They help us classify people, but that's not always helpful either. So I decided to have some fun making Bobby into anything BUT a gigolo.
Most of the people who read my stuff have a romantic streak in them. I suppose I do too. But there is peril there, when a likeable male character is paired with so many likeable female characters. As the books were added, people started lobbying for Bobby to get married. Of course each woman had her own supporters.
There was some fickleness ... people who wanted him to marry Jill, until Christy came along, and then wanted him to marry her until Renee came along, and so forth.
Now that it's getting to the end, the lobbying is getting a little frantic. People are cheering on their candidate, and are using words like "pleeease" and "I couldn't take it if ..."
Of course the rub is that I knew what would happen to Bobby in the end long, long ago. All the books lead up to the planned ending. The stage has been being set for months. I've dropped little hints all over the place, and some of you picked up on those.
But that means that a bunch of people are going to be disappointed, because the ending they want is not the one I've written.
I'll tell you how agonizing this can be for an author who likes for his readers to end a story with a smile on their faces.
This one guy wrote to me and suggested that the ending should go something like this:
Bobby was tired of being alone. He thought about (names of all the women who might be potential mates) and came to a decision. He would ask her to marry him.
The End
This reader said that if that happened, he would always be able to believe that his candidate (I won't tell you who she was) was the one Bobby ended up with.
How agonizing this is for me, the author, is that I actually considered doing something like that. I even talked it about it with Peaches, my editor.
She said, and I quote: "Are you fucking INSANE?"
She has a tendency to keep me grounded, which is one reason I flirt with her so much.
Anyway, the deal is this. I'm going to go with my muse on this. That's worked for me before and I tend not to question her. She's even better than my editor in keeping me grounded. She was telling my fingers what to type when the ending got written, so I'm not going to question that.
For all you wonderful, romantic, starry-eyed readers who want so and so to end up with Bobby ... well ... it may not happen. I love you all, and I love all the potential mates for Bobby right along with you, but there can only be one ending. I could make it interactive, and write five or six endings, but that would extend this for another two months. I'm exhausted, and Peaches is exhausted.
OK, that may be overstating things a little, but we really do need to move on and do some other things so we don't get burned out.
At the same time I want to thank you all for getting so involved in the series. All of you were right, in the sense that the series could have been ended the way you wanted it to. I could have left it open ended, like that one reader suggested, but I don't think very many of you would have been satisfied with that. And Peaches probably wouldn't have spoken to me for weeks.
So there you go. I'm going to bite the bullet and drive on. If you're miffed when it's over, feel free to tell me about it.
I can live with that.
It's one of the perils of ending a story.
And thanks for reading.
Bob
I've harped several times in this blog about people who send me anonymous feedback. My last rant even gave you some examples of what I receive, and how I might have responded, if I'd had an address to respond to.
But, in the interests of transparency (which, by the way, I'm not required to do) and balance, I have to share another anonymous email I got. I wish I could respond to this one too.
This man refers to "William" and "Bobby Dalton", who are characters in the series I've been posting called "The Making of a Gigolo". For those of you who read my blog, but haven't read this series, William is a disabled Vietnam vet, and Bobby is sort of the hero, kind of, in a way, of the series. Bobby, when he met William, didn't try to ignore the disability, or pretend that everything was going to be fine.
And now, the email:
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At this time when many service men are returning
from Iraq all shot to hell, and with
psychological and emotional injuries, and Viet
Nam vets are still suffering neglect, it is
touching to see William included in this latest
story.
In my heart I wish there was a Bobby Dalton for
every wounded man and woman. He will not cover
over their pain and pretend it away; he will help
them draw forth the best that is in them and
others to begin the healing process.
I was walking my dog recently and met another
former Marine walking his dog. He'd seen the
sticker on the back window of my truck and asked
if I'd been in the Marine Corps. Right there on
the spot the pain and anguish of his experiences
in Viet Nam started pouring out. All these years
of living a relatively normal life and his
emotional wounds were still raw. He was not a
weak man. He was not looking for sympathy or a
hand out. He had just met another dog lover and
sensed someone who was willing to listen and not
judge. The dogs got along great, too.
Thanks for the story.
Dick
------------------------------------------------
You see, regardless of your politics, or how you feel about the Iraq war, or how much you want to affect the decisions our leadership, present and future, concerning that war, there is something you can do right now, today or tomorrow, that can have a lasting positive impact.
It doesn't take money. It doesn't require you to write your congressman. There are no signs or placards to carry. All it takes is some of your time, and a willingness to relate as a human being to another human being who is hurting.
A lot of my readers are vets. I don't know why that is, but it seems to be that way. Of course they know other vets, and have an intimate understanding of what injured ... and even "uninjured" vets ... have gone through, or are going through.
But a lot of you probably don't know a single soldier, sailor, airman or Marine. You can change that. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have gone where they were told to go, and done the best they could at what they were tasked with. They could all use a friend from the civilian ranks, who can talk to them as just one guy or gal to another.
It doesn't matter that you don't understand what they've gone through. You certainly don't have to talk to them about that. Leave that to the pros. But you CAN talk about baseball, or food, or hobbies, or cars, or music, or movies you like, or even how much you miss white out, because it smelled so good.
Offer friendship to someone who needs a friend. If it's a vet, that's great, but the same could be said for a homeless person, or someone who can't find a job, or who has gone through a messy divorce or any number of other debilitating situations.
Sure, you may get a real earful of shit in the process, but you can make a hell of a difference just by sacrificing your ear for an hour or two, every once in a while.
We're all in this together folks. We're all brothers and sisters, or at least cousins if you go back far enough in time. Some of us are doing better than others. That doesn't mean we should ignore the rest.
I salute Dick for stopping to listen to a hurting brother. I wish I could have told him how proud I am of him.
You can be a "Bobby Dalton", just like Dick was. It's easy. Just offer the hand of friendship, and be willing to listen.
Bob
A funny thing happened. Or a sad one, depending on how you look at it. I got the following email, paraphrased for you in this blog entry:
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Hi Bob.
I lost your email address. Would you please respond to this message so I can get it again? I want to put you on my jokes list.
George (not his real name)
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Now that's funny, on the face of it. I mean how do you send somebody an email if you don't have their address?
But the funniest part was that the sender's email address was: Anonymous
You see, SOL allows you to send anonymous email. Some authors don't accept anonymous email. I don't like it myself, but only because I can't reply to it. I've always believed that if somebody took the time to say something to me, it's only polite to say something back.
You can't do that if they write to you anonymously, however.
And why would somebody choose to write anonymously, and then put their name at the end? Of course there are lots of Georges (not his real name) in the world, so that's fairly anonymous too.
I suppose if you had a name like Condolezza, or Nit, or something completely goofy, like Lubrican, you might be worried that that author might actually be able to find you, but if you actually want them to write back... well, using the anonymous feature isn't really the way to go.
Besides, it makes me look stupid sometimes. I have a penchant for hitting "reply" pretty automatically, and then writing and hitting "send" pretty automatically too. When I do that in response to an anonymous email, I get this cute little automated response from SOL that says - and I'm paraphrasing again here -
"You're a fucking idiot! Anonymous means anonymous! You have wasted perfectly good bandwidth by sending a message that didn't go anywhere."
It only takes getting five or six of those before you start feeling your age which, in my case, is over "occasional forgetfulness" and under "drooling dementia".
Ok, a couple of dozen, but that's not important. Only Lazeez, the SOL Supreme Commander, knows about them anyway.
So, for all you folks who write to me anonymously, don't be really surprised when I don't respond. Just know that I read your mail, am happy to get it (usually) and would have said "Thanks" in a reply if I had that option.
Thanks for reading.
And thanks for writing, even if it's anonyously.
Bob
I find myself in a bit of a weird and sticky situation here.
If you don't know what the Golden Clitoride awards are, this won't make much sense. If that's the case, you might want to check out Lazeez's blog entry on that and get educated. What follows is for the rest of you.
Back in 2005, I got a Golden Clitoride award for Best New Author. I got some others for other things too, so I know what it feels like to be honored in that way.
Yesterday, though, I got an email from an author who had written a story I liked, and to whom I had written telling him that. His email reminded me that I'd liked his story, and asked me to nominate it for a specific Golden Clitoride category.
It was a form letter, and it was obvious he sent it to other readers too.
Now my first thoughts were not complimentary. I thought about high school, and the elections for class president scenario. I didn't like politics then, and I'm no fan of it now.
At the same time, I remember what it was like to be recognized and awarded for my efforts.
My own personal opinion about this kind of thing is that if you're good enough, and people like what you've done enough, then maybe some of them will nominate one of your stories for something. And if they don't ... well, they liked somebody else's stuff better.
I can live with that.
At the same time, I remember what it felt like to get an award.
You see the problem?
I'm not going to ask you to nominate me for anything. It may look like I'm doing that in an underhanded way by writing this blog entry ... but I'm not. Really.
What AM asking you to do is think back on the stories you've read ... by whoever ... and think about the best stuff you saw. It's not even fair for me to say that if a story made you laugh, or cry, or chase your significant other around the kitchen table, you should nominate that story for an award. I specialize in stories that are designed to make you laugh, or cry or chase your significant other here or there, while making lewd suggestions.
But so do others. And others also specialize in things I don't. The reason I wrote to that author about his story was becasue it was good, and I liked it. I couldn't write the kind of story he wrote, but I liked his story.
So think about the stories you've read and nominate some authors. In fact, nominate different authors for the same award, if you can. I don't care about the competition part of it. But stories that get nominated sometimes get more readers, and that's good for everybody, whether they win or not.
I will tell you that the way the Clits work is that initial nominations for stories are like votes. The more often a story gets nominated, the more likely it will be that that story ends up on the ballot, when it comes out. So when you go look at the nominations (and you should do that, because you'll find out about some very good stories you might not have read) don't think that just because a story has already been nominated that there's nothing for you to do.
Recognize the authors that turn you on. If it's not me, that's fine. I understand I don't appeal to everybody. But SOMEBODY trips your trigger, hopefully, and that's who you should support and honor.
I'll also remind you that there are rules, and you need to be aware of those. For stories to be elligible they have to have been written and finished in 2007, for all intents and purposes. A whole bunch of you nice people have complimented me on the "Making of a Gigolo" series, for instance, but it isn't elligible for anything because it spanned both 2007 and 2008. So read the rules and make your vote count for something.
And so, in conclusion, I'm not asking you to vote for me for class president. In fact, I don't even think we need a class president. Go vote for a good author instead. That kind of encouragement might get you more good stuff to read.
If I don't answer your email for the next week or so, it's only because I have no power. The ice storm zapped me. I'm doing this blog entry at work, but the boss frowns on that. I don't know if I'll be able to post the next story in the current series on time or not.
Meanwhile, I'm stoking up the wood stove, eating MREs, and thinking up new stories.
Incidentally, this gives me time to think about what our ancestors went through routinely, before electricity was common. Bedtime at dark, which can mean six or seven o'clock. Reading by candle light, or lantern light, in my case. Food storage is definitely interesting. With the wood stove I have heat and the capability to cook, at least anything that will cook in a pot at low heat. The dogs get a lot more attention. If the kids were still around there would be a lot of story telling going on. Boredome is the enemy.
We have a lot to be thankful for, folks. Our lives are incredibly easy by comparrison to those who gave us life, down through the years.
Bob