Book Seven
It had been my experience, back when I wrote my (unpublished) autobiography in the 80's, that people, real people, did not like to be written about. My mom was upset that I had revealed information about the family that she didn't want others to see in print. My new gay friends in Denver were upset that I had used their real names. I found that my own experience was not unique. The writer and humorist James Thurber years earlier had been chided by friends and family when he wrote THE YEARS WITH ROSS, a biography about his odd boss at THE NEW YORKER, and THE THURBER ALBUM, a book about the quirky members of his family. It can be very frustrating and discouraging, to say the least.
Taken further, what might happen if an author (myself) were to encounter his own fictional characters, especially if those characters had super human abilities? More importantly, what if, when he encounters them, he learns that they are real and they learn that he has written all about their intimate lives in great detail?
One critic of the novel was perplexed because he felt that I came across to him as a nice guy in real life, and that, certainly, my characters were upstanding individuals and nice folks all around in the previous volumes. All of that is quite true (or at least I'd like to think so). However, in this particular novel, neither I nor my characters was as pleasant toward one another as he thought they ought to be. But if you find that your secret identities are now fully revealed in writing, blowing your cover, and that the one who wrote about you in such detail is intending to write as many novels as he can, and that he has thought of you only to be fictional characters from his own imagination, no one involved would likely be as pleasant toward one another at that stage. And, if the author finds that his characters are real and are not at all happy about what he has written about them, he might react defensively and become upset, as well. Even nice folks can become edgy and unpleasant when faced with something quite unique and overtly personal. Everyone involved could certainly get off on the wrong foot toward one another, especially when all of them are faced with significant perils very quickly after meeting.
On a separate level, in a situation such as mine, when I intended to write a (successful, I'd hoped) six-volume series, one that has just then been extended by at least one more volume, and even more volumes perhaps, what is a writer to do? Armistead Maupin himself found his greatest success after he wrote the fifth volume in his TALES OF THE CITY series, SIGNIFICANT OTHERS. While I had continued with about the same level of sales after the initial dropoff between volumes one and two, might a seventh volume in my series do the same trick for me and bring success? (Or was it like a losing streak in Vegas where you keep throwing the dice or pulling the handle, only to lose more money and be just as far as you ever were from winning?)
Furthermore, I had always hoped to make a financial success of the series and be able to retire, perhaps teach part time in the evenings as I had done when I was living and working full time in Colorado Springs, and no longer have to work full time at all (or win the lottery--either way). At this stage in my life, I had been driving back and forth to work at IBM for a decade, the best part of the 90's--and I was now over 50. Previously, I had not made the series a success, I had not won the lottery, nor was I any closer to finding a permanent boyfriend. My job was now more routine than new and exciting. More importantly, since none of those significant goals had been achieved, I was beginning to doubt that I would ever rectify what had happened to me at the Academy nearly two decades earlier, enough to say that this entirely new direction my life had since taken after my ouster from the Air Force was worth what I had suffered years before. With so many conflicting emotions and feelings tugging at my psyche, one can see that this author, in particular, had no idea who, or what, was in control of his life and destiny. WHO HAS DOMINION? indeed. (It reminded me of a cartoon I had read years before, about a Russian writer who, at great personal peril, had smuggled his manuscript out of the country to the West during the Soviet era. His assistant has come to him to say, "Your book has been rejected by every Western publisher." What the heck was the purpose of all of that earlier suffering and this new direction anyway?)
I commissioned the front cover painting from an artist friend, Jeff Stawicki. It was Anita's difficult task to fit it into the front cover box because it was a bit too large. For those who are wondering about the cover color, fuchsia, I have a convenient explanation: Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Gay Pride Flag in 1978, originally utilized eight stripes, which included fuchsia (pink) and tourquoise, colors that were later discarded for different reasons. When I learned of this, I knew I could add a fuchsia book and (perhaps) a tourquoise book to the series at some point and still remain faithful to my original intent of representing the several stripes of the flag. (OK, there are now 10 volumes, I know. I will get to that in a later post.)
One final aspect of the novel: I thought that loyal readers who had lasted this long with the series--and I have no idea how many or how few that may be--might enjoy some additional background information about me. That's why the wall between author and reader was broken through in this novel in several places, especially in the beginning chapters. Again, it might be another of my failed experiments such as using present tense and not going for all out horror in volume two. As always, the reader will have to be the judge.
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