I have never completed a fifty thousand word manuscript before, but I was able to do that this month during November. I actually finished early on November 21 before Thanksgiving began. It felt good to have some raw material to work with. I felt myself often observing my own process, where I tend to go, and what my interests are with my characters and what is happening.
The novel started as an excerpt of what I published earlier. A lot of the themes stayed largely the same. Other things, like the title, changed. This change comes from a short reflection by Leslie and an altercation with her then best friend Abby and a tube of lip gloss:
“She kissed me…on the LIPS…while I was SLEEPING,” she said pointing at her dry unsparkling lips as I threw the tube of lip gloss at her face and started crying. After it hit her bottom lip started to balloon and turn purple. That offense nothing in comparison to the realization by Abby’s mom and all the girls in the group that I was in fact, maybe, quite possibly, a lesbian. One word that I had only ever used in two, “Les Bien” when I spoke of my friends from church as a witnessed to my heathen friends French class, The Good Ones.”
This is a pivotal scene in the novel where Leslie is outed by her best friend in front of all the girls in the church youth group. I like it because even though the consequences are disastrous being sent to Second Death Camp for the summer they are both right in being affronted. So, instead of titling the novel Camp Lake of Fire, it’s now titled for a French phrasing that sounds like Lesbian if mispronounced and translates as “The Good Ones” in English.
I am reticent about writing a lesbian character, but it added some dynamics and areas of interest I thought would be harder to explore as a male character in a Christian tradition that stigmatizes sexuality. In my own background, I was a very conservative Southern Baptist, I now practice my faith as an out gay man in the Episcopal tradition.
The story doesn’t lack important male characters either though. Noah, for example, is explored in a similar fashion as well as the camp director, Jason, who uses his own struggle around sexuality and faith to weaponize his ideology and treat Leslie, Noah, and the other main character, Mary with less respect and dignity than they deserve as human beings and image-bearers of the same God Jason and the children’s parents also profess to follow. Even as they are assailed by militant homophobes, I wanted them to be both, soft and hard, their gender not one thing:
Noah had been peeping through the space between the bathroom stall door. He opened the door and pranced through his assailants like a fearful doe. His energy was not what they wanted from him. He was more feminine, more soft, like gumby or play-doh.
It’s funny because even as I’m posting short excerpts I am editing them. Still, there are pieces of light that I am grateful for. Overall it skews darker than I would like it to, but I do have a better handle on what the story is and could shape it in edits if I chose to. I’m still not sure what I’ll do. I know most writers have a few novels in the drawer that never see the light of day, and I’m totally okay if this is one of those. I learned a few things about my own process:
- Writing doesn’t happen all at once, it happens in stages and spurts and it will come together in interesting ways even when it feels weird and forced.
- Write now, analyze later. Writing as a regular practice builds needed neural pathways, and I can always come back later and edit.
- Caring about a fictional story and characters doesn’t make me selfish, it makes me a more engaged and interested human being in the world.
- Writing fiction is infinitely more accessible than what I do day-to-day, and wow would it be great for it to be my major source of income.
- I feel great having gone through this experience, and I’m excited about my other projects coming through the pipeline
New projects for Interstellar Flight Press similar to these:
I’m very excited to review Ryan La Sala’s YA novel Revelry for Interstellar Flight Press as well as discerning possible new content for Our Bible App:
