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Sleepless Nights and Big Dreams

I’m plagued by sciatica and a broken air conditioner tonight, and instead of sleeping at almost 2:00am, I’m complaining to an empty room about my pain and the heat, and scrolling around on social media.

Among the memes and selfies, I found a post that brought me to tears. A woman in one of my writing groups recently lost her mother, and today she found stories her mom wrote, packed away, along with her never-pursued dreams of being a published author. The daughter is beginning the task of editing and assembling her mother’s stories so she can either shop them to agents and publishers or independently publish them, in her mother’s honor.

The author of the post didn’t specify the reason her mother didn’t attempt to get published, but I think anyone who’s ever wanted to put their writing out there can probably think of a dozen or so reasons she refrained. The prospect of almost certain rejection is reason enough to give most of us at least temporary pause.

After reading and commenting on her post, the notification popped up to let me know I could look at my memories for this day. Those Facebook memories can just as easily dole out a punch to the jugular as they can offer a kiss on the cheek, so I always open them with at least a little caution.

Here is my memory from one year ago today:

One year ago today, I was putting the final editorial touches on the story I was going to shop around to agents and publishers. About four months after that, I got signed with Bold Strokes Books.

A year later, I’ve completed both books I mentioned in that post, and they are in production with my publisher at this very moment, with London Undone coming out in December. I’m currently writing my third book, which I’ll turn in to my editors by the end of this year and will most likely come out sometime in 2020.

It’s the middle of the night, and I can’t stop thinking about that mom who recently died, with her dreams still tucked away in a drawer. It’s beautiful and honorable for her daughter to take on those stories, and I hope she finds healing in her grief as she does so. Maybe that’s the good that will come of it.

I know so many aspiring authors who put their dreams on hold, and I get it. I was one of them for a long time. I definitely understand the importance of taking the time to develop your writing skills, polish your stories, and even thicken your skin for all the criticism you’ll receive as a writer.

But, like any big leap in life, the timing will never be perfect. You’re never going to have the time, you have to make the time. Your story is never going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it’s not finished. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so work on your writing today.

Look at the year I’ve had. All of this happened when I decided to get out of my own way and live the daydream. I know my story is slightly atypical, in that I’m getting signed and published faster than normal in the glacially paced publishing industry. Timelines aside, the overall process is the same for most of us.

We write a lot, we delete a lot, we edit a lot. We get some people to look at our writing. We shop it around. We choose between traditional and independent publishing. There are a hundred little varying details, but that’s the basic format. Broken down like that, it sounds pretty doable, right? It is. Not easy, not quick, but doable.

Where could you be, a year from now, if you spent the next 365 days throwing yourself into what you want for yourself?

Please don’t lock your aspirations away. They are too big and meaningful and glorious to let them die with you.

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Rated Queer

The time had come! I completed my latest manuscript and sent it off, after several weeks of pushing myself to (and sometimes beyond) my limits to get it done. I’d been living on coffee and sleeping very little, and had no time for extracurricular entertainment.

After I finished and caught up on some sleep, I was ready to binge watch a few of my favorite shows. Up first was Will & Grace, and I settled in for the three episodes I’d missed.

I hit play, and a TV-MA warning came up. Confused, I hit the back button, thinking I’d gone into the wrong show, but nope, the W&G logo came up. Hit play again. Halfway through the episode, I realized the reason for the mature audience warning, and I hit pause. This time, it was anger that removed me from the show, rather than puzzlement.

The incredible Samira Wiley had a guest arc on the show as Karen’s love interest, and in this particular episode, they shared a kiss. That’s it. Not a peck, but not a makeout session either. It lasted about two seconds, much shorter than many “straight” kisses on this and other shows that require no warning label.

A TV-MA warning is designated for specific situations involving one or a combination of three things: foul language, graphic violence, and graphic sexual activity.

How many shows come on tv where a man takes a woman in his arms and kisses her passionately? How many sitcoms show CIS-gender, heterosexual couples in bed together, indicating the beginning or ending of some steamy sex? And how often do those episodes get a warning for inappropriate content?

Hint: None of them.

I remember the original Will & Grace days, and all the frenzy about the “first gay kiss,” on a prime time network situation. That episode had the same warning label. I thought it was ridiculous back then, but I never imagined it would still be happening on this iteration of the show, all these years later.

It hit me hard. As a queer person in America, it’s a scary time. The current presidential administration is targeting our community. We are all watching and worrying as the people in power continue to debate whether we are going to have basic human dignities and rights. Hate crimes are on the rise, as bigots are being emboldened by the president. In the scheme of things, a mature audience warning seems like it’s the least of our troubles, but it is, in fact, a symbol of them.

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I’m a lesbian and a mom, and my fiancee co-parents my sons with me. There are parents who think our presence at our sons’ lacrosse games, choir concerts, and bus drop-off is a threat to the sanctity of their “normal” families. We have relatives who don’t want us to hold hands in front of their children.

We are fighting for our rights in a country where many people would rather see us killed than allow us to keep our right to marry. This TV-MA is a way to further silence our voices, representing them as inappropriate for anyone to hear.

We are deemed unsuitable for regular audiences. We are Rated Queer.

That warning label is a symbol that indicates we are still miles and miles from mainstream equality and legitimacy.

This is part of the reason I write queer fiction: we all have something we can do to advocate, normalize, and just plain show up for the LGBTQ community. Some people are politically powerful, or in a position to influence hiring or living situations for people in societal margins. I protest, call and email my political representatives, vote, and tell my humble stories. We can all do something.

I’d love for the generations coming after us to not have to worry about who they love or how they identify regarding gender and sexuality. I want them to be themselves without having to wear the warning label that’s plastered on us today.

Book Baby

Nine months from today, my debut novel, London Undone, will be released. Octavia Reese and I were discussing that fact while recording our Stalled podcast, and we simultaneously shouted, “It’s a book baby!” A long conversation ensued, involving such pregnancy metaphors as “Your baby is now the size of a pea,” and planning a book baby shower.

We aren’t the first authors to draw on the similarities between conceiving a child and conceiving a story. A lot of work, care, planning, pain, and joy go into both situations. At some point you’re going to be so ridiculously happy that it feels like you’re living a dream, and at some point you’re going to be struck with the panic of certainty that you can’t do this.

I’ve lived through both of those emotions, plus approximately 133 other ones. I processed through them all when I had the flash of an idea about London Undone and began to write, and again when I began working on sending her to agents and publishers. Here I am again, at the start of another countdown (cue 80’s Final Countdown montage).

Right now, my baby is the size of my thoughts and ideas, and all the time put into her by the people who have and will help me make her the best she can be. I can’t wait to see how the little nugget grows.