Weekly Writing and Reading Update

[die_traumerei]

I just got distracted staring at my cat’s furry tummy for like forty-five solid seconds, so I think today will be a Good Day.

Writing:

Of Angels and Knights: I didn’t add terribly much to this, but got another chapter up. I want to edit and post a chapter today, and really turn my attention back to writing it, as I’ll have then basically caught up to myself.

Yet Needed Most, I Bring: This one really grabbed me this week! I am having so much fun! There is character growth, wtf! (Okay, it like 80% is Bucky getting a medical kink too, but still.) I have a chapter all edited and ready to go up later today.

(I’m working in the office all week and I can guarantee I am not going to want to get on a computer when I come home after being in a very small room with too many other people, all of whom are having conversations with each other.)

 

Reading:

I sped through Young Man from the Provinces last weekend. It’s a memoir from a golden boyman who was the toast of Gay New York pre-Stonewall; I’d last read it about fifteen years ago, but thought of it often and finally picked up a copy again. It’s pretty fascinating, and...very unusual, compared to the other gay history stuff I encounter. Alan Helms lived a glittering life, and doesn’t once mention the Mattachine Society or other homophile organizations; it’s kind of interested how much he is 100% ready to just slip into a different world, and has no real hope (interest?) in integrating it with mainstream society.

He’s pretty fucking miserable throughout most of the memoir, which can get grinding at times. And it does remind me that a fuckton of older gay literature is, like, required to be about completely miserable people. (To his immense credit, he is not miserable because he’s gay, but because he came from an abusive family and is not really able to get himself out of an unhealthy situation.) But he doesn’t get bitter, and the end of the book is sweet and peaceful. He’s still alive, and I hope he’s doing well.

It’s a glittery, gorgeous read, and oh my god the name-dropping. He’s shameless, and I love him for it. Then again, when you have an affair with Anthony Perkins, you are allowed, nay encouraged to drop those names. It was a miserable time for him but, I think, also breathless and amazing and wonderful too.