“Normal Boys” started out as a short story without a title. I’m a professional writer, not a famous one. On a whim, I wrote the first scene with Greg and Nick. Writing erotic fiction seemed like it would be fun. It is. I was afraid it would be daunting, too. It wasn’t, not really. Over the next six months, “Normal Boys” told its own story. I was as much the reader as I was the writer. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I still miss sitting down with Greg and the gang on my laptop every morning.
This blog is about some stories behind the novel. For example, the first line in the book is something a guy in college really said to me. I was as shocked as Greg was, as exhilarated too.
I spent many of my younger years on The Great Lakes, spent a week on a sleek 26-foot boat, skimmed Lake Superior near where experts think The Edmund Fitzgerald sank.
I gave my heart to beautiful young Ohio men and felt it break more times than I can count. I made friends and lost friends. I came of age and came out. It all seemed so normal. We all seemed so normal. Even the dark shadow of the AIDS pandemic seemed, somehow, normal.
I’ll share some stories here. Writers write. I’m happy to do it.
And yeah, I’m already working on the next novel. It’s not a sequel. But, I hope you’ll give it a shot when it comes out. I’ll definitely keep you posted.
Read on. Love more.
Sex is a craving at the cellular level of our bodies. It’s the wanting that drives us so hard. Sex is a mad rush of neurochemicals. The bigger the dose of desire, the more primal the having becomes. It’s one of the most dynamic human experiences, whether we have it every once in a while or multiple times per day. If you consider it at the biological level, sex is quite basic (think: friction). That’s not how most of us think about it, though. We know, all of us, that sex is transcendent, or at least can be.