to her.
“I will,” she said.
“Would you like one of the guys to go out with you to the car?”
“I think I can manage,” she said primly.
14) Write about Noah?
T HAT EVENING at dinner I eyed my phone as if my staring would make it ring.
It did not.
Jackson Ledbetter could have his pick of boyfriends in a swampy town like Tupelo. If he could find any. Mississippi gays knew how to blend into the scenery. And although Tupelo has a population of about forty thousand, “the gays” are hard to come by.
Charlie Pride explained on the radio that no one knows what goes on “Behind Closed Doors.” Then the Bellamy Brothers asked the eternal question:“If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?”
Jackson had a beautiful body. Just the thought made me a bit horny and I nursed my cup of coffee as if it were a cold shower. Boy, I could shake that sugar tree.
I glanced at my clunker of a laptop, which was on the counter, closed, as it had been for many days now. My latest novel was about a haunted house.
When I sold Dead Man’s Lake and received a five thousand dollar advance, I had easily imagined myself living the life of the writer, zipping off novels in between visits to museums and book signings and glamorous world travel. It happened right at the time that Noah was born and I found it all too easy to drop out of college so that I could be free to pursue the life of a writer while taking care of him and his many needs.
What a fool I was.
I quickly learned one of the cardinal rules of publishing, which is that you are only as good as your last book. While Dead Man’s Lake sold well, the next two did not, and the last stunk up the room. My most recent royalty report showed just two hundred and twelve copies sold during the previous quarter, and that was for all my books combined. The accompanying royalty check was in the lower triple digits, boy howdy do.
As my agent pointed out, most people have a good novel inside them. But not always two or three. Had I not, she wondered, soured on the horror genre? Should I not consider another genre? What was the story that I really wanted to write, the story I really wanted to tell?
I knew the answer she was fishing for: The story of Noah.
Self-confession is good for the soul, they say. When celebs get their tits out, they get six-figure advances. I might at least work myself up into the five-digit range again, like a real writer.
But I couldn’t write about Noah. I couldn’t use him to help a stalled career. Something in me said no.
My agent, Jean, had been noncommittal on the haunted house idea.
“What’s different about it?” she demanded. “Stephen King did the whole thing to death in Rose Red , and dreadfully, I might add. What could you possibly add?”
“My house is actually a vampire,” I said.
“Weak,” she offered. “Houses can’t be vampires.”
“This one could be,” I said.
“Have you thought about a book about Noah?”
“No.”
“Please think about it, Wiley. You do want to sell books, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to write a book about him.”
“Think about it, Wiley. Gay man. Single dad. Raising a deaf child with birth defects. Your personal story. What happened. In the South, no less. A meth baby, for crying out loud. Christ, it will sell, believe me. Gay is big right now. Everything is gay gay gay. People want to know. More than that, they want to know something real. And you’ve got all those lovely photos of him. He’s a beautiful child, Wiley. Put one of those on the cover and it’s a guaranteed success. People like cute kids. What’s wrong with telling his story?”
How to explain it to her?
Anyway, I had gotten about ten thousand words into my haunted house novel before I’d petered out and lost interest. Fact was, the idea bored me to tears. Vampire house eats unsuspecting family . Oh, who cares? They probably deserved it.
The reviews on Amazon.com for my last novel, December
“I will,” she said.
“Would you like one of the guys to go out with you to the car?”
“I think I can manage,” she said primly.
14) Write about Noah?
T HAT EVENING at dinner I eyed my phone as if my staring would make it ring.
It did not.
Jackson Ledbetter could have his pick of boyfriends in a swampy town like Tupelo. If he could find any. Mississippi gays knew how to blend into the scenery. And although Tupelo has a population of about forty thousand, “the gays” are hard to come by.
Charlie Pride explained on the radio that no one knows what goes on “Behind Closed Doors.” Then the Bellamy Brothers asked the eternal question:“If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?”
Jackson had a beautiful body. Just the thought made me a bit horny and I nursed my cup of coffee as if it were a cold shower. Boy, I could shake that sugar tree.
I glanced at my clunker of a laptop, which was on the counter, closed, as it had been for many days now. My latest novel was about a haunted house.
When I sold Dead Man’s Lake and received a five thousand dollar advance, I had easily imagined myself living the life of the writer, zipping off novels in between visits to museums and book signings and glamorous world travel. It happened right at the time that Noah was born and I found it all too easy to drop out of college so that I could be free to pursue the life of a writer while taking care of him and his many needs.
What a fool I was.
I quickly learned one of the cardinal rules of publishing, which is that you are only as good as your last book. While Dead Man’s Lake sold well, the next two did not, and the last stunk up the room. My most recent royalty report showed just two hundred and twelve copies sold during the previous quarter, and that was for all my books combined. The accompanying royalty check was in the lower triple digits, boy howdy do.
As my agent pointed out, most people have a good novel inside them. But not always two or three. Had I not, she wondered, soured on the horror genre? Should I not consider another genre? What was the story that I really wanted to write, the story I really wanted to tell?
I knew the answer she was fishing for: The story of Noah.
Self-confession is good for the soul, they say. When celebs get their tits out, they get six-figure advances. I might at least work myself up into the five-digit range again, like a real writer.
But I couldn’t write about Noah. I couldn’t use him to help a stalled career. Something in me said no.
My agent, Jean, had been noncommittal on the haunted house idea.
“What’s different about it?” she demanded. “Stephen King did the whole thing to death in Rose Red , and dreadfully, I might add. What could you possibly add?”
“My house is actually a vampire,” I said.
“Weak,” she offered. “Houses can’t be vampires.”
“This one could be,” I said.
“Have you thought about a book about Noah?”
“No.”
“Please think about it, Wiley. You do want to sell books, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to write a book about him.”
“Think about it, Wiley. Gay man. Single dad. Raising a deaf child with birth defects. Your personal story. What happened. In the South, no less. A meth baby, for crying out loud. Christ, it will sell, believe me. Gay is big right now. Everything is gay gay gay. People want to know. More than that, they want to know something real. And you’ve got all those lovely photos of him. He’s a beautiful child, Wiley. Put one of those on the cover and it’s a guaranteed success. People like cute kids. What’s wrong with telling his story?”
How to explain it to her?
Anyway, I had gotten about ten thousand words into my haunted house novel before I’d petered out and lost interest. Fact was, the idea bored me to tears. Vampire house eats unsuspecting family . Oh, who cares? They probably deserved it.
The reviews on Amazon.com for my last novel, December
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